Gordon MacMillan
Sir Gordon Holmes Alexander MacMillan of MacMillan and Knap, was a Scottish professional soldier who rose to become a general in the British Army. As a young officer during the First World War, he displayed outstanding bravery and was awarded a Military Cross and two Bars. At the age of 19 and while still a second lieutenant, he was appointed acting adjutant of the 2nd Battalion, Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders. Between the World Wars, MacMillan remained in the army, occupying posts of increasing seniority. He married Marian Blakiston Houston in 1929, and they had one daughter and four sons.
During the Second World War, MacMillan served initially in England, putting in place defensive strategies against a possible invasion by the Germans. He was appointed Brigadier General Staff IX Corps in December 1941, remaining in this post during the Operation Torch landings in North Africa and through to the fall of Tunis in May 1943. He was given command of the 152nd Brigade in June 1943 and led it during the successful Sicily campaign. Upon return to Britain, he was assigned command of the 15th Division and led the formation during the Battle of Normandy, Operation Epsom and Operation Bluecoat, towards the end of which he was wounded. Once recovered, in November 1944, he returned to mainland Europe as GOC 49th Division near Nijmegen. Upon the death of Major-General Thomas Rennie, he assumed command of the 51st Division immediately following the crossing of the Rhine on 23 March 1945.
After the war, MacMillan served as the army's Director of Weapons and Development. In February 1947 he was appointed GOC British Forces in Palestine and Trans-Jordan. Soon after his arrival, the British Government decided to bring to an end its Mandate in Palestine. This decision triggered an escalation of violence in the territory, leading to the withdrawal of all British forces by 30 June 1948. He then served as GOC Scottish Command. His final army posting was as Governor and Commander-in-Chief Gibraltar.
Gordon MacMillan was hereditary Chief of the Clan MacMillan. After retirement, he remained Colonel of the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders until 1958. Following his retirement, he immersed himself in Scottish life and society, being appointed chairman of several institutions. Much of his time was devoted to the upkeep of the house, gardens and woodlands at Finlaystone, the family house in the West of Scotland.
Early life and First World War
Gordon Holmes Alexander MacMillan was born near Bangalore, Kingdom of Mysore, India, on 7 January 1897. His father, Dugald MacMillan, was a coffee plantation owner. However, when he was three years old, his parents, both of Scottish origin, decided to return to Britain to bring up their only son. At the age of ten, he joined St Edmund's School, Canterbury, from where he won a Prize Cadetship to attend a shortened course at the Royal Military College, Sandhurst, in April 1915, several months after the outbreak of the Great War.MacMillan was commissioned as a second lieutenant into the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders on 11 August 1915.
Due to not having reached the age of 19, he was posted to the 3rd Battalion, Argylls, a training unit, stationed near Edinburgh. In April 1916 he was sent to the Western Front where he joined the 2nd Battalion, a Regular Army unit which was then serving as part of the 98th Brigade of the 33rd Division, in Northeast France, and immediately became involved in fierce trench warfare at Brickstacks.
This was followed by engagements, as part of the battles of the Somme and Passchendaele, at Cuinchy, Bazentin-le-Petit, High Wood, Mametz Wood, Arras, Le Cateau and the Selle.
While still only 19 years old and a second lieutenant, he was appointed acting adjutant of the battalion in November 1916. He was promoted to lieutenant in April 1917, and formally confirmed as adjutant in June. He remained in this post for the rest of the war, serving seven different commanding officers. The casualties were immense and, at one time, while a second lieutenant, he found himself by default commanding the battalion. MacMillan wrote "I would say that I was fortunate to belong to the best battalion in the Army, with an unbreakable spirit. You can see this from the record of their operations – and then look at the casualty list: 63 officers and 1175 men killed, and ready for anything at the end of it all".
MacMillan was one of only 168 soldiers to receive the Military Cross and two Bars in the First World War. His MCs were awarded for exceptional gallantry in the battles of High Wood, Arras and Le Cateau
Between the wars
After the war, MacMillan, having gained a Regular commission in 1915, remained in the army, continuing to serve as his battalion's adjutant until December 1920, when the battalion was stationed in Ireland during "The Troubles". He was promoted to captain on 28 August 1924, serving periodically as a company commander before entering the Staff College, Camberley from 1928 to 1929, where among his fellow students there in his year included several future high-ranking officers, such as Alexander Galloway, Gerard Bucknall, John Harding, Richard McCreery, Philip Gregson-Ellis, William Holmes, Claude Nicholson, Charles Murison, Alexander Cameron, Gerald Templer, Thomas Wilson, I. S. O. Playfair and Leslie Beavis. His instructors included Henry Pownall, Wilfrid Lindsell, Richard O'Connor, Harold Franklyn, Bernard Paget, George Giffard and Bernard Montgomery. On 10 August 1929, MacMillan married Marian Blakiston Houston; they had five children. He went on to serve successively as captain, staff captain and General staff Officer Grade 3 in the War Office in the early 1930s.Having rejoined his regiment, from August to October 1934, he commanded the Guard for the Royal Family at Balmoral. His next appointment, in 1935, was as an instructor at the Royal Military College of Canada in Kingston, Ontario, where he served for two years before rejoining his regiment and then returning to the War Office as a GSO 2 in the Training Branch. He was promoted to major on 1 August 1938, and, from 10 January 1939, served as a GSO2 to the staff of HQ Eastern Command.
Second World War
On 10 April 1940, seven months after the outbreak of the Second World War, MacMillan was promoted to acting lieutenant-colonel and appointed as GSO1 in HQ 55th Motor Division, a first line Territorial Army formation. The division was commanded by Major-General Vivian Majendie, who was some eleven years MacMillan's senior, and was serving in Northern Command. The division was a motorised infantry formation composed of only two, rather than three, brigades, and was among several responsible for coastal defence and for engaging any possible enemy airborne landings in the event of a German invasion. In late June, after the British Expeditionary Force was evacuated from Dunkirk and the fall of France, the division – composed initially of the 164th and 165th Infantry Brigades with supporting divisional troops – was reorganised as a standard infantry division with the addition of the 199th Infantry Brigade from the disbanded 66th Infantry Division.In May the following year, with the division, now under Major-General William Morgan and serving in East Anglia under Lieutenant-General Hugh Massy's XI Corps, being still concerned mainly with home defence, MacMillan was promoted, on 1 May 1941, to the acting rank of brigadier and took up command of the 55th Division's 199th Brigade. He trained the brigade very hard over the next few months in numerous large-scale exercises until, in late December 1941, he was chosen to be Brigadier General Staff in the HQ of IX Corps District. Initially the corps, commanded by Lieutenant-General Francis Nosworthy, was involved in coastal defences, supporting Eastern Command, but was soon to become engaged in preparing itself for the Allied invasion of French North Africa, codenamed Operation Torch.
North Africa and Sicily
The corps, commanded by Lieutenant-General John Crocker from September 1942, embarked from the Tail of the Bank in February 1943 and set themselves up near Algiers in French North Africa on 24 March as part of the 18th Army Group reserve. The corps, serving as part of Lieutenant-General Kenneth Anderson's British First Army, fought three major battles during the final stages of the Tunisian campaign against German troops and travelled 470 miles over six weeks before entering Tunis on 7 May, just days before the campaign ended, with almost 250,000 Axis soldiers surrendering. On 27 April Crocker, the corps commander, was badly injured and unable to continue in command. He was replaced temporarily by Lieutenant-General Brian Horrocks. MacMillan was later appointed a Commander of the Order of the British Empire for what Crocker described in his citation as his "very high order" of service in the command structure of IX Corps during the campaign. The CBE was awarded on 5 August 1943.With IX Corps HQ disbanded, MacMillan was transferred briefly as BGS to the First Army headquarters, whose responsibilities included arranging for the victory parade on 20 May 1943 which involved some 26,000 Allied troops of various nationalities. Following the parade, on 17 June, he was posted to command the 12th Infantry Brigade, taking over from Brigadier Richard Hull, part of the 4th Mixed Division, then commanded by Major-General John Hawkesworth. The division had come under IX Corps command for the final stages of the campaign and so MacMillan was familiar with it. However, just eight days later, he was given command of the 152nd Infantry Brigade, one of three brigades – the others being the 153rd under Brigadier Horatius Murray and the 154th under Brigadier Thomas Rennie – making up the veteran 51st Infantry Division, which was then commanded by Major-General Douglas Wimberley Under Wimberley's command the division had fought during the Second Battle of El Alamein and throughout North Africa, notably in Egypt, Libya and Tunisia, as an integral part of the British Eighth Army, commanded by General Sir Bernard Montgomery, who had been one of MacMillan's instructors at the Staff College, Camberley in the late 1920s, and had formed a good opinion of him.
The 51st Division was selected by Montgomery to take part in the Allied invasion of Sicily, codenamed Operation Husky, where it came under Lieutenant-General Sir Oliver Leese's XXX Corps. Just 19 days after his appointment, MacMillan led the brigade in the Allied landings in Sicily at Portopalo Bay on 10 July. Initially facing little resistance, the brigade's first major action was on 13 July at the village of Francoforte against German paratroopers of the Hermann Göring Division and, although the village was eventually taken after very difficult fighting, the brigade suffered very heavy casualties. The 152nd Brigade then, having suffered less casualties than the 153rd and 154th Brigades, led the division's drive forward to Paternò on 31 July, part of an attempt to break out towards Mount Etna. The following day it was clear that the Germans were on the retreat and later abandoned Sicily, with little major combat being seen afterwards and the campaign ending on 17 August. He was also awarded the Distinguished Service Order for his performance in this campaign, awarded on 18 November 1943. The award was recommended by General Montgomery and General The Hon. Sir Harold Alexander, commanding the Allied 15th Army Group.