An impressive and early 'Special Forces' officer casualty group of four awarded to Captain T. Montgomerie, Special Boat Service attached 'L' Detachment, Special Air Service, late No. 4 Commando, 9th Battalion, Queen's Royal Lancers (R.A.C.) and Black Watch (Royal Highlanders). A veteran of Operation Claymore, Operation Aluite, and the 'extremely tricky' attack on a store dump of a forward fighter aerodrome at Daba, North Africa, he died in a jeep accident on 18 August 1942 whilst en route to the 1st S.A.S. Regiment at Kabrit, carrying the latest intelligence reports to facilitate an attack on the island of Rhodes

General Service 1918-62, 1 clasp, Palestine (Lieut. T. Montgomerie. B.W.); 1939-45 Star; Africa Star; War Medal 1939-45, extremely fine (4) £4,000-£5,000

Thomas Montgomerie was born in Irvine, Ayrshire, on 14 March 1914, the son of Captain The Honourable Francis Cunninghame Montgomerie of Gattonside House, Roxburghshire, and grandson of George Arnulph Montgomerie, 15th Earl of Eglinton and 3rd Earl of Winton. Educated at Wixenford Preparatory School and Eton, he entered the R.M.A. Sandhurst and was appointed to a commission in the Black Watch on 1 February 1934. Raised Lieutenant, Montgomerie served from January 1938 in Palestine, firstly on policing duties during the Arab Revolt and latterly as Camp Commandant of the 18th Infantry Brigade; he returned home to Scotland in July 1939. 

In October 1939, Montgomerie landed in France with the 1st Battalion, Black Watch, as part of the British Expeditionary Force. A week later he was transferred to the regimental training centre at Perth, a period briefly interrupted by a course of instruction at No. 165 Officer Cadet Training Unit at Dunbar. Advanced Acting Captain in June 1940, he volunteered in January 1941 for No. 1 Company, 3rd Special Service Battalion - then based at Troon - and relinquished a 'pip' in order to do so. This formation was soon disbanded and split up into its original Commando units, No. 1 Company reverting to its previous title of No. 4 Commando later in the month; on 21 February 1941, Montgomerie embarked at Gourock for what he believed to be the next in a long series of training exercises. However, the following day at Scapa Flow, he and his men were informed that they were to land on the Lofoten islands off Norway, the target designated as the herring and cod liver oil factories - the product of which (glycerine) was being used by the enemy in the manufacture of explosives. 

Operation Claymore
Upon completion of specific training in demolition techniques, Montgomerie led "A" Troop ashore at Svolvær, on the island of Austvågøya, on 4 March 1941. This landing was captured in a British newsreel titled 'British Soldiers liberate the Lofoten Islands in Norway (1941)', available online: 

‘The landing party went ashore and arrested German S.A. men and Quislings. Others began the systematic destruction (cheers). Within a few minutes of the landings, Quislings and Germans were prisoners. The Telegraph Office was in charge of British Tommies. Next on the list were the oil storage tanks. A few NAZIS resisted, the wounded were taken carefully onboard but our forces suffered no casualties. Then came the glorious hour for these Norwegian Islanders... A passage to freedom. And they jumped at it!’

Claymore resulted in the destruction of 11 fish oil factories and over 800,000 gallons of reserves; the sinking of ten enemy vessels; the capture of 215 Germans and 10 Norwegian Quislings; the recovery of 315 Norwegian volunteers; and the capture of rotor wheels and books vital to breaking the German Enigma code. Bolstered by British propaganda, few could argue that it had been anything but a military success story, yet for the officers in command, dissatisfaction remained simmering just below the surface; morale among many of the participants was low, not in consequence of failure or lack of resources, rather due to the Commando's slender deployment record since formation. The Lofoten Raid had simply served to whet many an appetite and on 8 July 1941, Montgomerie made the decision to follow a number of his comrades and move on in search of action. Intending to rejoin the Black Watch, he got only as far as No. 8 Infantry Training Centre where he remained for two months, before transferring to the 9th Queen's Royal Lancers, Royal Armoured Corps. His logic for doing so was made clear in a letter to the Centre's Adjutant:

'My reason for applying is that in my opinion there is more chance of immediate service in the R.A.C. than in the infantry and that the Officer Commanding the 9th Lancers has expressed himself willing to accept me in his regiment.' 

Proven correct, Montgomerie embarked for the Middle East, arriving in late November 1941. Two months later he arranged his attachment to the 2nd Battalion, Black Watch, and in April 1942 he was nominally posted to the Middle East Commando having joined the Special Boat Service. This small team of specialist canoeists, assigned to the Royal Navy submarine flotilla at Alexandria for special operations, fell under the command of 1st S.A.S. later that year, although many of its members - including Montgomerie - were already attached.

Operation Aluite
Named after a local tribe, the Aluite Plan of April 1942 aimed to combat the very real possibility of Rommel's Afrika Korps linking up with Kleist's Army Group South at the head of the Persian Gulf and conquering Syria. Co-ordinated by Montgomerie from a rented house in the hills above Beirut, his plan was to develop an in-depth knowledge of the beaches between the Palestine-Lebanon border in the south and the Syrian-Turkish border to the north, which would be suitable for the embarkation of special forces who would harass the enemy as guerillas. A contemporary account by Lieutenant David Sutherland of the Royal Highlanders, as published in He Who Dares: Recollections of Service in the S.A.S., S.B.S. and Mi5, adds:

'There was only one unit in the Middle East theatre with the required beach reconnaissance skills - the SBS. On 15 April SBS was ordered to carry out a detailed reconnaissance of every beach suitable for Special Service troops landing. Some twenty beaches were involved and six weeks allotted for the task. I was sitting around at Kabrit when Tom Montgomery (sic), a Captain in the Black Watch who had recently joined the SBS, sent for me... This was top secret, detailed beach reconnaissance work which had to be done right and in a hurry. Montgomery (sic) divided the beaches; Syria for Langton and Newby, Lebanon to Alexander and me. It was hard work, up at dawn sketching and photographing each beach in question. We had help from the Royal Navy, who provided two shallow-draft 'R' boats for taking soundings. Each evening we wrote up our reports before collapsing into bed.' 

Though the positions at Alamein and Stalingrad were to hold and the threat never became real, the work carried out by Montgomerie and his small team of SBS canoeists gave invaluable experience of operational surveys and reconnaissance. They also offered the men a fascinating introduction to the ancient Crusader castles, Krak des Chevaliers and Markab, the smells of Arab coffee and orange blossom, the sweet honeyed taste of baklava, and the chance to let their hair down in Beirut on their weekends off. 

The Daba Attack
The summer of 1942 witnessed a series of unfortunate events for the Special Boat Service, most notably the capture of George Duncan and his entire patrol in Sicily. This was followed by the apprehension of 'Tug' Wilson by a German patrol boat in Tobruk harbour; caught 'paddling with malice', his effects joined what seemed like lorry-loads of kit being shipped to Alexandria for future transportation to next-of-kin. Raiders from the Sea: The Story of the S.B.S. in WW2 takes up the story:

'Military units react in very much the same way as individual human beings to disaster: they do something quickly. Thus it was that Captain Montgomerie, a new man, but accompanied by Sherwood, Barnes and Mike Alexander, was briefed to land on the North African coast near Daba and destroy a large store dump about 1.5 miles inland. This was extremely tricky work. It must not be imagined that because S.B.S. always seems to land successfully that landings are therefore easy. In this case, Daba, seat of a forward fighter aerodrome and general staging-point, was next to no distance behind the Alamein front line. Tents were pegged neatly at ten yard intervals on the sandhills above the beach. To reach their targets the raiders had to pass these tents, and others; to pass a German mobile cinema and a canteen full of happy drunks brandishing bottles of beer brought at great expense from Pilsen. 

Some of the pairs never reached their objective at all. These laid their delayed-action bombs on tents, trucks, fuel-oil barrels, even a cook-house furnace. Montgomerie dealt with the dump and some captured British transport, but when he returned to the beach, Mike Alexander and Corporal Gurney were found to be missing. They were not to reappear. Gurney, surprising a German post, had been wounded by machine-gun fire. Alexander had remained behind in the hope of saving him. Both were taken prisoner... The occupational risks were becoming clearer. As Andy Lassen, the king of house-to-house fighters, was to say much later, "You can do it some of the time for quite a while, but you can't do it all of the time for very long."'

Returned home per Motor Torpedo Boat, Montgomerie next set about collecting the latest intelligence reports from Cairo regarding the island of Rhodes. He was on his way to deliver these to fellow Special Forces preparing for Operation Anglo when he was killed in a road accident. A subsequent Court of Enquiry conducted by the 1st S.A.S. Regiment in November 1942, called his driver, Private Henry Mullen, as witness: 

'I went into a skid which caused the Jeep to skid sufficiently far to strike a barrel placed on the side of the road, it being used as a road marker. The car, now out of control, ran over the embankment which was about 5 feet deep. Capt. Montgomerie and myself were then thrown clear.' 

Losing control at 40 miles per hour, Private Mullen was fortunate to survive the accident; Montgomerie struck his head and never regained consciousness. He died at No. 13 General Hospital a short while later. Mullen was later murdered after capture during Operation Bulbasket. Aged 28 years, Captain Montgomerie is buried in the Suez War Memorial Cemetery and is also commemorated upon the Eton College War Memorial.

Sold with copied research, including the recipient’s entry in the S.A.S. and L.R.D.G. Roll of Honour 1941-47, which offers a thorough analysis of 374 individuals killed during the Second World War, ands two photographic images of the recipient.

For the medals awarded to the recipient’s father, see Lot 256.