Tommy Macpherson

Colonel Sir Ronald Thomas Stewart Macpherson (4 October 1920 – 6 November 2014) was a highly decorated British Army officer during and after the Second World War.

He fought with the No. 11 Commando unit and French Resistance forces, becoming infamous among Axis forces as the "Kilted Killer".

He caused so much damage to enemy military infrastructure, a bounty of 300,000 francs was placed upon his head.

Three times he received the Croix de Guerre, the Military Cross, and the Légion d'honneur.

Macpherson was born in Edinburgh.

He was the youngest of seven children of Sir Thomas Stewart Macpherson CIE LLD and Helen, the daughter of the Reverend Archibald Borland Cameron.

His father's brother was the first Baron Strathcarron and one of his own brothers, Niall, was also raised to the peerage as Baron Drumalbyn.

Another brother was G. P. S. (Phil) Macpherson, captain of Scotland's first Grand Slam winning rugby side in 1925.

The family originates from Newtonmore, in the Highlands, yet he was raised in the city.

His childhood home was Edgebrooke, in East Fettes Avenue, and he attended Edinburgh Academy prep school before Cargilfield, in Barnton.

At 14, he went to Fettes College, where he joined the Officers' Training Corps.

He also attended Trinity College, Oxford, where he was awarded a first class degree in Philosophy, Politics and Economics.

He represented Oxford at rugby, hockey and athletics and was also an international student athlete, representing the UK in the 1500 Meters at the 1947 Universiade, the precursor of the World Student Games.

Macpherson was commissioned in the Queen's Own Cameron Highlanders Territorial Army in 1939, before serving in No. 11 (Scottish) Commando in 1940–1941.

Macpherson was part of a four-man team sent to reconnoitre beaches in preparation for Operation Flipper, an attempted raid on the headquarters of Erwin Rommel, the famous German Field Marshal.

In two canvas folboats, they waited at sea for their rendezvous with a submarine which was to return them to their base at Apollonia.

After two nights, the submarine had not appeared and one boat was leaking, so the men decided to land again and make a final attempt in one boat, but in the end the weather was too bad.

They then decided to walk to Tobruk, despite the fact they had no food, water or maps, and were dressed only in shorts.

Captain Ratcliffe and Lieutenant Ravenscroft were captured on 2 November, Macpherson and Corporal Evans managed to hold out for another day before they too were captured by Italian forces near Derna.

Interrogated by four army officers and six carabinieri, one asked MacPherson to demonstrate how his Colt Automatic worked, he did so "by putting in a spare magazine [he] still had, and then held the party up with the loaded weapon".

Unfortunately, he then suffered a severe attack of cramp, and was recaptured and placed in solitary confinement.

He made one further escape attempt before being taken to Italy in a destroyer, and held in a prisoner of war camp at Montalbo; here he made a further escape attempt, breaching the inner perimeter, but he could not find a way over the outer fence.

In June 1942 he was moved to another camp at Gavi, near Genoa.

After the Italian armistice the camp was taken over by German forces on 9 September 1943, and the prisoners transferred to German prisoner of war camps from 14 September when they were taken by road to Acqui.

From here they were to be taken by train to Austria.

Macpherson managed to get away from his guards, but was soon recaptured, and almost shot; fortunately the order by a feldwebel (NCO) was countermanded by an officer.

The prisoners were then transported by train to Stalag XVIII-A at Spittal an der Drau, Austria.

On arrival at this camp, Macpherson and a New Zealander, Captain Colin Norman Armstrong managed to hide from the Germans whenever they tried to take a roll call, and obtained assistance from the French held in a different part of the camp, escaping in French uniforms on 21 September, also accompanied by a Captain A. A. Yeoman.

They managed to recross the Italian border, and were intending to make their way into Yugoslavia and link up with Allied-supported partisans there.

Unfortunately, Armstrong became separated, and on 26 September Macpherson and Armstrong ran into a German patrol near Chiusaforte, Macpherson spoke to the patrol in Italian, pretending to be an Italian officer, and tried to convince the patrol that Armstrong was Croatian.

The Red Cross rations they were carrying revealed their true status, and they were sent to a camp in Hohenstein, arriving on 30 September after a five-day train journey with only a small amount of bread to eat and little water.

On 1 October they were transferred to Stalag XX-A at Toruń, Poland.

On 9 October they escaped again, with assistance from Private Hutson and Sergeant Glancy.

The four then managed to travel to Sweden via Bromberg and Gdynia; flying back to Kinloss, Scotland on 4 November 1943, two years after he had been captured in Egypt.

On 17 February 1944, Macpherson was awarded the Military Cross (MC) for his escape.

Within a few days of returning to Great Britain, McPherson was instructed to report to Milton Hall in the Soke of Peterborough.

There he discovered he was to be part of Operation Jedburgh.

Under this operation three-man units were to be dropped into occupied Europe to carry out sabotage and guerrilla warfare, acting as a high-profile focus for the local resistance.

His training lasted from January to March 1944, at the end of which he was promoted to Major and placed in charge of team Quinine.

His team members were a French lieutenant, Michel de Bourbon, and a British radio operator, Sergeant Arthur Brown.