Sir Thomas Macpherson RIP

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An obituary for Remembrance Sunday:

Sir Thomas Macpherson - obituary

Sir Thomas Macpherson was a highly decorated war hero who led the Maquis in a guerrilla operation against a Panzer division


Sir Thomas and Lady Macpherson at an exhibition in London in 1998 Photo: Desmond O'Neill Features
6:51PM GMT 07 Nov 2014Comments22 Comments

Sir Thomas "Tommy" Macpherson, who has died aged 94, was awarded three Military Crosses, three Croix de Guerre (two Palms and Star), and several Papal and Italian medals during the Second World War; he subsequently had a successful career in business.

Ronald Thomas Stewart Macpherson, the fifth son of Sir Thomas Stewart Macpherson, was born in Edinburgh on October 4 1920. His father was in the Indian Civil Service and became a judge of the High Court and chancellor of Patna University.

Tommy won a scholarship to Fettes where he was an outstanding athlete, winning the half mile and taking eight seconds off the school record for the mile. He subsequently gained the top scholarship to Trinity College, Oxford, in Classics but the outbreak of war intervened and, in September 1939, he was commissioned into the Queen's Own Cameron Highlanders, TA, and asked to raise a platoon from his village.

Macpherson volunteered for the Commandos and went through intensive training in Scotland. To shake hands with the instructor in unarmed combat, he said later, was the quickest way to find oneself flat on one's back. Lord "Shimi" Lovat taught fieldcraft and Macpherson, no stranger to mountains, became his assistant.

In January 1941 he embarked for Suez with 11th (Scottish) Commando. Arriving in the desert in March, they unloaded a large consignment of sandbags destined for the Eighth Army. (The export of many tons of sand to the Middle East caused some amusement.)

In June, he took part in the commandos' operation against the Vichy French, who were holding strong defensive positions on the Litani River, Palestine. At dawn on June 8, the main body of the force commanded by Major Geoffrey Keyes was landed close to the mouth of the river with the objective of seizing the Qasmiyeh bridge intact.

Macpherson, commanding No 10 Troop, was involved in the most northerly landing. His orders were to take the Kafr Badda Bridge and, after a fierce action, his men captured it intact and beat off a counter-attack of enemy armoured cars. But the Allied assault had been postponed by a day, the advantage of surprise was lost and the commandos took heavy casualties.

When Macpherson returned to Cyprus, as the only officer with a working knowledge of Greek he was appointed military governor of the north-east of the island. In October, promoted to captain, he was ordered to carry out a reconnaissance of the beach in advance of Operation Flipper, the raid by Keyes on Rommel's HQ in Cyrenaica (now Libya).


Thomas (later Sir Thomas) Macpherson during the war

Macpherson and three comrades embarked in the submarine Talisman and were landed in folbots (folding canoes) near Apollonia. For two successive nights the submarine failed to return to the arranged rendezvous and the men set out to walk to Tobruk. The party had no food, water, maps or adequate footwear and were dressed only in PT shorts.

After they split up, two of the group were captured by the Italians. Macpherson and a comrade reached the outskirts of Derna, where they sabotaged a telephone exchange. It proved to be a bad mistake; they were traced and picked up by an Italian patrol.

During his interrogation, one of the patrol brought in his unloaded Colt automatic and asked him to explain how it worked. Macpherson showed him by loading a spare magazine, which he was still carrying, and holding up his captors. At that moment, however, he was incapacitated by a severe attack of cramp, disarmed and placed in solitary confinement.

Three days later Macpherson escaped but was caught trying to get away on a motorbike. He was sent by destroyer to Réggio di Calabria and imprisoned in Campo 41 at Montalbo. In the summer, he and other "pericolosi" were transferred to Campo 5, a fortress prison built on a rock, at Gavi, near Genoa.

After the Italian armistice in September 1943, the Germans shot many of the guards, imprisoned others and took over the camp. The PoWs were being loaded on to a train bound for Austria when Macpherson made another attempt to escape.

He was caught quickly, but the guard was so annoyed that he emptied his rifle in single shots between his prisoner's feet as he marched him to the station.

There he was put against a wall and was going to be shot as a warning to other would-be escapers, but an officer countermanded the order. Arriving at the transit camp at Spittal, Macpherson and a New Zealander exchanged clothes with two Frenchmen, mingled with a party of agricultural workers and got away.

They were captured by a patrol of Austrian Alpine troops and sent to a Gestapo camp on the Polish-Lithuanian border before being moved to an other ranks' transit camp at Torún, Poland. One night four of them escaped by using one of the towers to shield them from the searchlights. They crawled under two perimeter fences and got clear.

They were picked up by the Polish Resistance and taken to a factory at Bydgoszcz. The nightwatchman hid them in the manager's office but, after an air-raid warning sounded, the manager arrived and they were lucky to escape detection.

The group took a train to Danzig, aiming to board a Swedish vessel. When one of the German security police came and sat in their compartment, they decided to get out at the next stop. No ships could sail from the bombed port of Danzig, so they hid in a lorry as far as Gdynia.

Macpherson and his comrades concealed themselves in a house near the docks for several days before they were smuggled aboard a Swedish ship carrying iron ore. When customs officials arrived to search the ship, Macpherson did his best to look nonchalant by leaning over the ship's rail and munching on a sandwich. One of the group, however, lost his nerve and gave himself up to the captain.

Macpherson and two comrades climbed down into the hold and tunnelled a hiding place in the iron ore. When the ship reached the limit of territorial waters, a launch came alongside and German soldiers with dogs came aboard. The hatches were lifted and the dogs were sent down into the hold, but the coal dust proved too much for them and they had to be brought out.

As soon as they were in international waters, Macpherson and his comrades gave themselves up to the Swedes. The ship was diverted to Gotland, where the men were incarcerated for a spell, before going on to Stockholm where they were released to the British Embassy.

Macpherson flew by Liberator to Kinloss and arrived home in Inverness-shire in November 1943, almost exactly two years after his capture. He was awarded an MC for his part in the Litani River raid, the Rommel operation and his successful escape.

He was then recruited by the SOE, promoted major and put through rigorous training at Milton Hall, near Peterborough, before flying on one of the first Jedburgh missions to be parachuted into France.

In June 1944, in an operation code-named "Quinine", he, a French officer and a radio operator were dropped into the borders of the Lot and Cantal departments to organise and lead Maquis resistance groups. Macpherson, who was wearing the kilt, was, for a time, mistaken for the wife of the French officer.

Within days of their arrival, the "Jeds" led the Maquis in a guerrilla operation against the Das Reich Panzer division, which was moving northwards into the Corrèze. The party demolished a bridge, which delayed the Germans for several hours, and then defended another for six days against enemy attacks.

They organised a raid by the Maquis on the road and railway from Montauban to Brive and, by July 1, had eliminated all rail traffic between Cahors and Souillac. Throughout that month, Macpherson organised ambushes on enemy convoys and, as the Allied armies advanced from the south, he co-ordinated large scale guerrilla operations with success.

At Le Lioran, during one of these operations, 300 Germans and 100 Milice, Vichy France militia, were trapped in a tunnel. When they attempted to escape in the train which had been forced to stop there, Macpherson, at great personal risk, went into the tunnel and blew up the railway track, thus sealing in 400 of the enemy.

French traitors, who had infiltrated the Maquis, made many attempts to trap him and a 300,000 Franc price was put on his head. He had been awarded the first Bar to his MC when, in September, he flew to Bari, southern Italy, and reported to SOE HQ at Monópoli.

In November he was parachuted into Friuli, north-east Italy, to seek out vulnerable rail targets. The Germans used a Fiesler-Storch to try to track him down and, on one occasion, he was nearly captured when Slovenes carved a huge arrow in the snow to indicate his hiding place.

After the end of the war in Europe, Macpherson was awarded a second Bar to his MC for his operations behind enemy lines and specifically for a raid on the marshalling yards at Udine. He also received the Medaglio d'Argento and the Italian Resistance Medal.

Macpherson moved his base to Udine and for some months commanded a unit patrolling the border between Italy and Yugoslavia. He complained that, in Yugoslavia, anyone in command of more than 30 men called himself a general and that being outranked led to difficulties. General McCreery's chief of staff advised him to put up red tabs and call himself a brigadier-general. After that, there were no more problems.

Macpherson returned to England in September 1945 and was demobilised. He rejoined the TA and was attached to 21 SAS TA from 1947 to 1952. In 1956 he was staying at a hotel on Lake Bled, near the border between Yugoslavia and Italy, when he received a rather peremptory invitation from Marshal Tito to visit him at his summer residence.

In the aftermath of the war, Macpherson had played a part in foiling a plot to incorporate the Friuli-Venezia region of Italy into Yugoslavia and he had reservations about complying. "Ah, Macpherson," said Tito as he was ushered in, "I have been looking forward to this meeting. We tried so hard to kill you."

Macpherson went up to Trinity College, Oxford, in October 1945 and took a First in Philosophy, Politics and Economics. He represented the university at rugby, hockey and athletics and was also a Scottish student international at athletics. He joined the Duchess of Kent's household for a spell as a tutor to Prince Edward (later Duke of Kent) and then joined William Mallinson & Sons, a timber company, as personal assistant to the chairman.

He was with the company for almost 30 years and became managing director in 1967. During his stewardship, profits substantially increased. While with Mallinson Denny, he was a member of the National Board for Prices and Incomes between 1965 and 1967.


Sir Thomas Macpherson in 2005 (Daniel Jones)

He held many directorships, including at Brooke Bond Group, Birmid Qualcast, Scottish Mutual Assurance, UPM Kimmegne, Independent Insurance and the National Coal Board. He was chairman of Annington Holdings, of Boustead, of the Association of British Chambers of Commerce (1986-1988) and of Eurochambres from 1992 to 1994.

Macpherson commanded the 1st Battalion London Scottish TA from 1961 to 1964. He then became Deputy Commander HQ 56 Infantry Brigade TA and, after a final appointment as Territorial Colonel London District, in 1968 he retired from the Army. He was appointed CBE (Military) the same year.

Macpherson was appointed a Deputy Lieutenant of Greater London in 1977, and served as High Sheriff of Greater London in 1983. He was knighted in 1992. Apart from his British decorations, he was also a Chevalier de la Légion d'honneur and was personally awarded the Star of Bethlehem and a papal knighthood by the Pope. He was a member of the Royal Company of Archers.

He was involved in many charitable activities, and listed fishing, shooting and languages among his recreations. He was proud of being the chieftain of the Newtonmore Highland Games, president of the British Legion for Badenoch and vice-president of the Newtonmore shinty club.

He published, in 2010, Behind Enemy Lines, an autobiography.

He married, in 1953, Jean Butler-Wilson, who survives him, with their two sons and a daughter.

Sir Thomas Macpherson, born October 4 1920, died November 6 2014