1st Bn Queen's Own Highlanders enter Iraq - On this day in Scottish Military History - 1991

In late 1990 1st Bn Queen's Own Highlanders were part of 33 Armoured Brigade in the 3rd Armoured Division - part of BAOR in Germany. They were still equiped with the old FV 432 APCs rather than the new Warriors.

After the invasion of Kuwait by Iraq in August 1990 elements of the Queen's Own were allocated to units being sent to the Gulf. Their old equipment meant they would not be used as a mechanised unit as they had trained for, but they would be sent as reinforcements for other units.

The first contingent to go were the Regimental band attached to 7 Armoured Brigade as medical orderlies in October.

Over the next two months men from the battalion were sent to reinforce 1st Bn Royal Scots and 3rd Bn Royal Regiment of Fusiliers. Others were attached to 1st Armoured Division HQ. By 22nd November the rest of the battalion still in Germany was given two weeks notice to go to Saudi Arabia.

Then on 15th December 1990 1 QOHLDRS were taken of the Order of Battle of Operation Granby (Britain's operations against Iraq. Desert Shield / Storm was the US name for the operation).

It looked like only a quarter of the battalion would be involved. By 30th December the advance party of the main body of the battalion had returned to their base in Germany. The very next day they were ordered back to the Gulf. It would not be fighting together but 1st Bn Queen's Own Highlanders would now be in the war.

The units the Queen's Own were attached to included 1st Bn Royal Scots, 3rd Bn Royal Regiment of Fusiliers, 1st Bn The Staffordshire Regiment,1st Armoured Division Field Ambulance, HQ 1st Armoured Division, HQ 4 Armoured Brigade and HQ 7 Armoured Brigade. A large part of the army's reserve force called the Armoured Delivery Group was made up of 'A' and 'B' Companies and it was under the command of HQ Company of the Queen's Own Highlanders.

Shortly before the attack on the Iraqis the rear echelon troops of the battalion in Riyadh were sent up to the front line. In the words of General de la Billière they were "too sharp to be left out of the battle".

On this day twenty years ago it was G-Day; the day British forces poured through the holes in the defences punched by the American 1st Armored Division.

The first British troops to cross the breach on the morning of 24th February 1991 were from the Recce Platoon, 1st Bn Queen's Own Highlanders.

Fort George Museum Cash Pledge

An item from today's Press & Journal. It is another source of funding for the redevelopment of the Highlanders Museum at Fort George near Inverness.

The Highlanders Museum covers the history of the Seaforth Highlanders (1777 - 1961), the Cameron Highlanders (1794-1961), the Queen's Own Highlanders (1961 - 1994) and the Highlanders (1994-1996). It also covers 4th Bn Royal Regiment of Scotland (4 Scots) from 2006 to the present. The Lovat Scouts also have a small display area in the museum.

We have covered the appeal in previous posts here and here. Here is today's article:

Inverness city committee agrees to contribute £130,000 to facelift at the Highlanders centre


By Mel Fairhurst 


Generous councillors opened the civic purse for future projects after allocating £130,000 for a museum scheme being supported by Hollywood heart-throb Hugh Grant.


Inverness city committee agreed yesterday to help fund a project to give the Highlanders’ Museum a £3 million facelift. Half the money has been raised already for the redevelopment project and members agreed to the extra boost from the Inverness Common Good Fund over two years from 2011-12 and 2012-13.


The move comes after Four Weddings and A Funeral star Hugh Grant lent his support to the museum at Fort George in December last year. The actor’s father served in the Seaforth Highlanders regiment and his grandfather was depot commander at Fort George after World War II.


Museum chairman Major General Seymour Monro gave a presentation and told members that although the project was not in Inverness, from 2012 it would help boost the city’s economy by £320,000 every year. The money will be used to update facilities and it is envisaged the project will be completed by summer 2012. The money from the fund will be put towards £217,000 which will be earmarked for education space at the centre.


Aird and Loch Ness councillor Drew Hendry described the plans as “exciting”, while Inverness Central councillor Bet McAllister said it was an “ambitious project”. She added: “It ticks all the right boxes and I wish you well in your endeavours.

Distinguished WW2 hero Chandos Blair dies, aged 91

From The Scotsman:

Lieutenant-general Sir Chandos Blair, the first British Army officer to return home after his Scottish regiment was imprisoned by the Germans during the Second World War, has died. He was 91 and died on Saturday.

The soldier, who was awarded the Military Cross for his bravery, later became General Officer Commanding Scotland and Governor of Edinburgh Castle.

He was also chosen to undertake a diplomatic mission to try to secure the freedom of writer Denis

Hills who had been sentenced to death by Ugandan dictator Idi Amin.

As a young second lieutenant in the 2nd Battalion, Seaforth Highlanders, he was determined to escape after the original 51st (Highland) Division surrendered to Rommel's 7th Panzer Division at St Valery in northern France in June 1940.

The former fighting patrol officer managed to abscond from a work party the following year and spent eight days fraught with danger, walking 75 miles to neutral Switzerland, arriving home in January 1942.

The young soldier was later to distinguish himself again after being posted to the 7th Battalion, Seaforth Highlanders, part of the 15th (Scottish) Division which saw action during the Normandy invasion in June 1944.

He was awarded a bar to his MC after helping to repel a heavy counter-attack while wounded.

In 1959 he took command of the 4th Battalion, King's African Rifles in Uganda.

Among his troops was a young sergeant he promoted to lieutenant "because of his hard work and toughness on the battlefield". The soldier was Amin, the future dictator.

In 1975, Blair began an eight-year tenure as Colonel of the Queen's Own Highlanders, an amalgamation of his old regiment and the Camerons.

He was appointed OBE in 1962 and KCVO in 1972.

He married Audrey Travers in 1947 who predeceased him. They had a son and a daughter.

Fort George Highlanders' Museum receives cash boost

A follow-up to our story from last November about Hugh Grant fronting the campaign to raise funding for redevelopment of the Highlanders Museum, comes this article from the BBC News:

A project to redevelop the Highlanders' Museum at Fort George, near Inverness, has received £200,000 from Highlands and Islands Enterprise (HIE).

It comes just weeks after the project was awarded £924,000 by the European Regional Development Fund.

The Highlanders Museum Development scheme was launched in 2009 to bring the museum up to 21st Century standards.

The development of the attraction is expected to cost about £3m in total.

The museum will detail the history of all the regiments raised from the Highlands and surrounding islands, dating from just after the Battle of Culloden to present day operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The fort was originally built to guard the approaches to Inverness after the 1745 Jacobite uprising.

It attracts more than 66,000 visitors a year, with the museum as its main attraction.

'Much improved'

The re-development aims to transform the museum into a state-of-the-art interactive education and learning facility with full disabled access.

An independent economic assessment has suggested that when complete, the museum will contribute an extra £400,000 a year into the local economy - as well as supporting the equivalent of eight new full-time jobs.

HIE has previously awarded the museum £63k towards the initial project design and planning costs.

The public launch of the fundraising began on 25 November, with actor Hugh Grant and his father Capt James Grant as guests of honour.

Maj Gen Seymour Monro, chairman of the Highlanders' Museum, said: "This endorsement of our plans has taken our fundraising appeal over the half way mark, which gives us confidence that the project will go ahead and the region will gain a much improved cultural asset."

HIE spokeswoman, Nicola Ewing, added: "The Highlanders' Museum is home to the biggest military collection outside of London.

"The link between the museum and the local community is clear, with a history dating back centuries."

The Big Trip North - Day 2

Today saw us up reasonably early, in time to enjoy a fried breakfast...we'd need it during the day in order to fortify us from the biting wind we'd soon experience, for today we ventured to Fort George and the museum of The Highlanders.

Barrie and Sandy feeling the cold...

The initial signs were not good...as we arrived at the ticket office to be told "we've no power!". Yes, it seemed we arrived on the day they'd turned the power off to test it!

Fortunately some of the areas to visit didn't require power, so we trekked around the base, visiting the battlements, and looking for dolphins who didn't make any kind of appearance. By this time power had been restored so our visit wasn't wasted.
We visited the historic barrack room to see how soldiers lived in the Fort in the past, with different rooms representing different periods from history.

Other ranks barrack room from the late 1800s.

We then paid a visit to the Chapel, which contained a number of memorials ranging from the early 1800s to recent memorials commemmorating deaths in Afghanistan.

The front of the chapel. The drums belong to The Black Watch.

The Fort is an active army base, and The Black Watch are currently stationed there... you can't miss them as many soldiers pass you at various times of the day. We also couldn't escape the practising of bugle calls as well as gunfire from the nearby firing ranges.

Finally, we made our way to The Highlanders Museum...

The museum is on three floors, and contains numerous artifacts from several centuries of not just one, but two regiments - the Seaforth Highlanders and the Queens Own Cameron Highlanders.

There is a lot to take in, so I would recommend if you plan to visit give yourself plenty of time to see it all. Photography is not permitted in the museum so unfortunately I can't show you any of the exhibits - take my word for it thouggh, there are countless fascinating items to see, including sixteen Victoria Crosses. This is also the first museum I've visited that has two Field Marshals batons - I don't think any other military museum in Scotland can match that, can they?

The museum staff were very friendly and welcoming..even down to finding us when Barrie had bought something and they not only didn't charge him, but didn't give him his purchase! They looked throughout the fort for us, and even left word at every possible location in the fort we could visit! Top marks for service!

The rest of the day saw Barrie and myself pay a visit to Leakey's bookshop, which is located in Church Street in Inverness. I love a good bookshop, and you can't do better than a converted church filled with books! If money had been no object...I'd have needed a wheelbarrow.

So, our final day tomorrow...and possibly our busiest. Two museums in two cities - can we make it in time to Aberdeen for the Gordon Highlanders museum AND the Black Watch Museum in Perth? If we do, it'll mean driving for a total of nearly six hours...