Lieutenant-Colonel Derek Lang
5th Battalion, Queen’s Own Cameron Highlanders

I can well understand why long-term prisoners feel reluctant to face the world again when finally they come to the end of their sentences and are released. Although I had fretted during the long weeks when we had been confined, now that the moment had come for action I shrank from it with something very like fear. Suddenly the big, square house seemed terribly safe, comfortable and infinitely desirable. Outside was the unknown, perilous and menacing.

(Derek Lang, Return to St Valéry, 110)

Born on 7 October 1913 in Guildford, Surrey, England, Derek Boileau Lang took a commission with Queen’s Own Cameron Highlanders in 1933 after attending Wellington College, Berkshire and the Royal Military College, Sandhurst. He served with the 2nd Battalion in the Middle East in the 1930s and was adjutant for the 4th Battalion at the outbreak of the Second World War. He was wounded and taken prisoner during the Battle of France in June 1940 but managed a remarkable escape across multiple countries and eventually rejoined the army.

Continue reading →