# Lt-Col Turnbull, Gordon Highlanders, obit



## bossi (16 Jul 2004)

*Lieutenant-Colonel John Turnbull*
(Filed: 16/07/2004, the Telegraph) 

Lieutenant-Colonel John Turnbull, who has died aged 88, was an outstanding field commander who won an MC in Tunisia and a bar to the award at the Battle of Kangaw, the decisive action of the Arakan campaign.

Turnbull, then a lieutenant in the Gordon Highlanders and on attachment to the Commandos, took part in the Allied invasion of French North Africa, Operation Torch, in 1942. On the evening of November 30, 1 Commando, consisting of six British and four American Troops, embarked at Tabarka, Tunisia. Their orders were to support the advance of the 36th Infantry Brigade on Bizerte by turning the enemy's sea flank, cutting his communications and harrying his withdrawal.

Together with an Army Film Unit and eight donkeys to carry the mortars, 1 Commando landed by moonlight 60 miles to the east on a beach partly protected by a spur of land from the heavy swell. The Army Film Unit's apparatus was swiftly submerged and rendered useless, but five of the donkeys managed to swim ashore. Only two reported fit for further duties; the rest were "returned to store".

By dawn, 1 Commando had advanced five miles inland. The hills and valleys were covered in a Mediterranean heather which rose to a height of seven feet, and the most practical method of progressing was found to be on hands and knees, following the tracks of the goats which had forced their way through the undergrowth.

The enemy positions were well-concealed with machine-gun nests supported by two-pounders and armoured cars; but, over the next three days, 1 Commando held a number of strategic coastal roads with such tenacity that the Germans had to divert an armoured column to dislodge them.

During one part of the operation, Turnbull, a subaltern in 5 Troop, was ordered to withdraw his section after a fierce engagement. To do this, he had to lead his men, some of whom were wounded, through a curtain of intense fire. Having personally extricated one man and moved him to relative safety, he discovered that another was missing and went back, found him and brought him too into cover. More than 20 soldiers were recommended for decorations. Turnbull was awarded an immediate MC.

John Hugh Stephenson Turnbull, the son of Sir Hugh Turnbull, a former Commissioner of the City of London Police, was born at Montrose, Angus, on January 10 1916. He was educated at Haileybury and commissioned into the London Scottish in 1937.

On September 3 1939 Turnbull's platoon was at the Albert Docks in London guarding the German merchantman Pomona. A few minutes after war was declared, the vessel was seen to be lower in the water. Shortly afterwards, the engine was started and Turnbull hurried on board. He discovered that the captain had opened the sea-cocks and intended to ram the dock gates. The ship was promptly commandeered, thus forestalling a damaging act of sabotage.

Turnbull was provisionally accepted by the Gordon Highlanders, but the outbreak of war thwarted his attempt to pass the Army Exam. In 1941 he volunteered for the Commandos and, after taking part in several operations on the coast of France, served with 1 Commando in North Africa and Burma.

In March 1943 1 Commando took part in fierce fighting at Sedjenane, Tunisia, before returning briefly to England to prepare for operations in the Far East. Their ship was bombed in the Mediterranean and they did not reach Ceylon until September 1944, arriving in Burma in November.

In December 1944 Lieutenant-General Sir Philip Christison, commanding 15th Indian Corps, planned to cut off the only escape route for the retreating Japanese in the Arakan by seizing the Myebon Peninsula and striking at Kangaw in a series of amphibious operations. On January 22 1945, 1 Commando, part of 3 Commando Brigade, navigated five miles of the Daingbon Chaung, a muddy tidal creek flanked by mangrove trees, landing on beaches south-west of Kangaw under cover of a heavy sea and air bombardment.

1 Commando cleared the bridgehead and pushed on to its objective, Hill 170, a steep-sided, wooded feature about 1,000 yards long and 160 ft high at its highest point. Turnbull, then a major, was with the leading troops when they came under heavy machinegun and mortar fire.

The forward platoon withdrew, leaving three casualties in a highly exposed position and under fire. Turnbull dashed into the open, throwing smoke grenades, and engaged the enemy. He provided covering fire for a rescue party and remained there until the wounded had been withdrawn; he then helped carry back the comrade who had charged out with him and who had been killed.

1 Commando, supported by 5 Commando, secured the hill, apart from a small pocket at the northern edge. That night, the Japanese counter-attacked 1 Commando from this position but were beaten back. On January 31, at first light, Japanese artillery put down a heavy concentration of fire on 1 Commando's position on Hill 170, and their troops dug themselves in close to the base of the hill. Showering grenades over the Commandos' forward trenches, the Japanese then attacked, platoon by platoon, on a 100-yard frontage.

1 Commando made five counter-attacks during the day, breaking up every attempt of the enemy to launch their final assault. By early afternoon, the whole of 3 Commando Brigade was on the hill and, by dusk, some of the Japanese could be seen withdrawing. The battle for Hill 170, which lasted for a day and a night, was the crisis of the Arakan operations. It cost the Japanese about 2,500 casualties and its outcome broke the spirit of General Miyazaki's Division.

Lieutenant George Knowland of the Royal Norfolk Regiment, attached to 4 Troop, 1 Commando, was killed in the battle and awarded a posthumous VC. The men of 1 Commando received 30 decorations for gallantry; Turnbull received a bar to his MC.

In January 1945 Turnbull took command of 1 Commando and, having finally obtained a regular commission in the Gordon Highlanders, accompanied the unit to Hong Kong six months later. After attending Staff College, he commanded a company in the 5th Scottish Parachute Battalion in BAOR before moving to Malaya as a company commander with 1 Gordons during the "Emergency".

Under Turnbull's leadership, "D" Company proved highly effective in operations against the Communist terrorists; he was mentioned in dispatches at the end of his tour. In 1954 he was appointed GSO 2 at Rhine Army HQ before returning to Scotland for a spell to command the depot.

Very little was allowed to come between Turnbull and his fishing. He once arrived at the depot with barely enough time to get out of his waders before escorting a beady-eyed brigadier on the annual "Admin" inspection. Turnbull had, however, a very efficient adjutant, and the inspecting officer, perhaps to his disappointment, found nothing to cavil at.

After a spell as second-in-command of 1 Gordons and a staff appointment in Northern Ireland, Turnbull retired in 1961 in the rank of lieutenant-colonel. For the next 24 years he was able to give full rein to his prodigious energy sheep-farming in the hills of Argyll.

He enjoyed fishing in Scotland and Ireland, and used to joke that he had been found guilty of poaching on the Bundrowes in Donegal and had his rod, reel and line confiscated by the waterkeepers. He had not realised that in Northern Ireland (unlike Scotland) he needed a licence and, after a successful appeal to the Minister of Justice, his tackle was returned to him.

In 1984 Turnbull moved to Comrie, Perthshire, where he continued to enjoy country activities until a back injury, sustained during the war when his Jeep ran over a mine, became a serious problem. It eventually confined him to a wheelchair, but he bore this affliction with characteristic stoicism.

John Turnbull was a Commander of the Order of the Hospital of St John of Jerusalem and a member of the Royal Company of Archers. He died on June 26.

He married, in 1964, Sophie Landale, who survives him with their daughter.


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