Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

Three: Sergeant John ‘Jock’ Cheyne, Gordon Highlanders, 11 Commando, who was posted to ‘L’ Detachment, Special Air Service Brigade in August 1941 and was killed in action on the first S.A.S. parachute drop in the Tmimi-Gazala raid in November 1941

1939-45 Star; Africa Star; War Medal 1939-45, with named Army Council enclosure in card box of issue addressed to his girlfriend ‘Miss Carmichael’ at Falkirk, extremely fine (3) £800-£1,000

2876138 Sergeant John Cheyne, Gordon Highlanders, late 11 Commando, attached “L” Detachment, Special Air Service Brigade, was killed in action on 16 November 1941. He was aged 25, the son of George and Helen Cheyne, of Kemnay, Aberdeenshire, and is commemorated by name on the Alamein Memorial.

‘John Cheyne was born at Muiryfold Turriff on the 1st of May 1916. (The night the German Airship crossed over the district). He was the second son of George Cheyne who was a horseman at that farm. Up to May 1929, John received his early education at Woodhead, Fyvie. His father moved to Todfold, Kemnay, where he worked with Allan Forbes of Tillybin, Kintore, and John finished his education at Kemnay Secondary School. He then worked for two years on local farms.

At a little over sixteen years old, he lied about his age and joined the 2nd Battalion Gordon Highlanders serving in Gibraltar and Singapore. Following his seven years in the Gordons, he worked with J. Joss in the sand quarries at Bridge of Don. At the first sign of hostilities, he was recalled from the reserves to train conscripts, a job which he disliked, as he could not bear to train boys to go out to be killed, while he, a trained soldier, remained at home.

When the 11th Scottish Commandos was formed, he was one of the first volunteers, taking part in many of the first raids [including the Litani River operation]. The 11th Commando was disbanded in the summer of 1941 and John Cheyne was one of the first to be picked by David Stirling to form the S.A.S., the elite band, who were trained to work in small numbers behind enemy lines.

He perished on their first raid on the night of 17/18 November 1941. They set off from an airfield in Cyrenaica in Libya, fifty five men in five old Bombay aircraft, with the intention of parachuting behind enemy lines to place a limpet mine on every plane at Malene and Tmimi aerodromes at Gazala. They ran into a terrific thunder storm and no one knows yet what happened to most of them. He has no known grave, and his name appears on the pillar of the Alamein Memorial, in Egypt in column 69’ (Kemnay Parish Church Records refer).

Cheyne is mentioned in numerous books and accounts of Operation ‘Squatter’ which also give varying accounts of his fate but it would seem most likely that he was badly injured, having broken his back on landing. Unable to walk Cheyne and another badly injured man ‘were left with a supply of water and two revolvers. Few words were said. There was little to say. Cheyne lay unconscious, “huddled in the blankets that were brought him”. The injured men were never seen again.’