Simon Fraser, 15th Lord Lovat

Brigadier Simon Christopher Joseph Fraser, 15th Lord Lovat, DSO, MC, TD, JP, DL (9 July 1911 – 16 March 1995) was a prominent British Commando during the Second World War and the 24th Chief of the Clan Fraser of Lovat. Known familiarly as Shimi Lovat, an anglicised version of his name in Scottish Gaelic; his clan referred to him as MacShimidh, his Gaelic patronym. During Operation Overlord, he led the Special Service Brigade at Sword Beach and to successfully capture Pegasus Bridge, accompanied by his piper Bill Millin.
Fraser was born at his ancestral home of Beaufort Castle near Beauly, Inverness-shire, the son of Simon Fraser, 14th Lord Lovat (commonly known as the 16th Lord), and Laura, daughter of Thomas Lister, 4th Baron Ribblesdale. After being educated at Ampleforth College (where he was a member of the Officer Training Corps) and Magdalen College, Oxford, where he joined the university's Cavalry Squadron,
Fraser was commissioned as a second lieutenant in the Lovat Scouts (a Territorial Army unit) in 1930. On 3 September 1932, he transferred to the Scots Guards, British Army, with seniority in the rank of second lieutenant from 27 August 1931. In both units, he served alongside his cousin Bill Stirling. The following year, Fraser succeeded his father to become the 15th Lord Lovat (referred to as the 17th Lord Lovat) and 25th Chief of the Clan Fraser. He was promoted lieutenant in August 1934. Lovat resigned his regular commission as a lieutenant in 1937, transferring to the Supplementary Reserve of Officers.
He married Rosamond Broughton, the daughter of Sir Henry John Delves Broughton, on 10 October 1938, with whom he had six children. Lord and Lady Lovat lived at Beaufort Castle.
In June 1939, just months before the Second World War, Lord Lovat also resigned his reserve commission. In July, however, as war approached, he was mobilized as a captain in the Lovat Scouts. In 1940 together with his Stirling cousins (Bill and David) and friends, including Donald Cameron of Lochiel, Lovat planned to create a new unorthodox group of shock fighters (Commandos) who would combine sea, air and land attacks using surprise as a key component. It was essential to use volunteers only. Crucial to the plan was the personal blessing of Winston Churchill, which they duly obtained. Lovat was personally involved in the training of the Commando troops on the West coast of Scotland. He was eventually attached to and led No. 4 Commando. On 3 March 1941, Nos 3 and 4 Commando launched Operation Claymore, a raid on the German-occupied Lofoten Islands. In the successful raid, the commandos destroyed fish-oil factories, petrol dumps, and 11 ships. They also seized encryption equipment and codebooks. As well, the commandos captured 216 German troops; 315 Norwegians chose to accompany the commandos back to Britain.
As a temporary major, Lord Lovat commanded 100 men of No. 4 Commando and a 50-man detachment from the Canadian Carleton and York Regiment in a raid on the French coastal village of Hardelot in April. For this action he was awarded the Military Cross on 7 July 1942. Lord Lovat became an acting lieutenant-colonel in 1942 and was appointed the commanding officer of No. 4 Commando, leading them in a successful component of the abortive Dieppe Raid (Operation Jubilee) on 19 August. His commando attacked and destroyed a battery of six 150 mm guns. Lovat was awarded the Distinguished Service Order (DSO).
The raid as a whole was a disastrous failure with over 4,000 casualties sustained, predominantly Canadian. Yet No. 4 Commando captured its objectives, the only successful part of the operation, and most of Lovat's men returned safely to Britain.
According to Hilary Saunders, the official biographer of the Commandos the men "were to arouse such a passion of hate and fear in the hearts of their enemies that first Von Runstedt and then Hitler in 1942 ordered their slaughter when captured down to the last man. Lovat had 100,000 Reich marks placed on his head, dead or alive. The infamous "Commando Order".
During the planning of Operation Overlord, in 1944 Lord Lovat was made a brigadier and appointed the Commander of the newly formed 1st Special Service Brigade. Lord Lovat's brigade was landed at Sword during the invasion of Normandy on 6 June 1944. Lord Lovat probably waded ashore in battle dress; this is contrary to the depiction in the film The Longest Day which had him wearing a white jumper under his battledress, with "Lovat" inscribed on the collar while armed with a full stocked Mannlicher-Schoenauer stutzen rifle. This probably harks back to the Dieppe raid where Lovat was armed with a Model 1893 Steyr-Mannlicher. The latter claim is disputed; however, in some earlier pictures he is seen with a bolt-action .30-06 Winchester Model 70 sporting rifle. However, in his memoirs, 'March Past', Lovat states that he was armed with a "short barreled U.S. Army carbine" (presumably an M1 carbine) on D-Day.
Lord Lovat instructed his personal piper, Bill Millin, to pipe the commandos and himself ashore, in defiance of orders specifically forbidding such actions in battle. When Private Millin demurred, citing the regulations, he recalled later, Lord Lovat replied: "Ah, but that's the English War Office. You and I are both Scottish, and that doesn't apply".
Lovat's forces swiftly pressed on, Lovat himself advancing with parts of his brigade from Sword to Pegasus Bridge, which had been defiantly defended by men of the 2nd Bn the Ox & Bucks Light Infantry (6th Airborne Division) who had landed in the early hours by glider. Lord Lovat's commandos arrived at a little past 1 p.m. at Pegasus Bridge though the rendezvous time stipulated in the plan was noon. (A common misconception holds that they arrived almost exactly on time, late by only two and a half minutes.) Upon reaching the rendezvous, Lord Lovat apologised for his unit's lateness to Lieutenant-Colonel Geoffrey Pine-Coffin, of 7th Parachute Battalion. He went on to establish defensive positions around Ranville, east of the River Orne. The bridges were relieved later in the day by elements of the British 3rd Infantry Division.
During the Battle of Breville on 12 June, Lord Lovat was seriously wounded whilst observing an artillery bombardment by the 51st Highland Division. A stray shell fell short of its target and landed amongst the officers, killing Lieutenant-Colonel A. P. Johnson, commanding officer of the 12th Parachute Battalion, and seriously wounding Brigadier Hugh Kindersley of the 6th Airlanding Brigade.
Lovat was awarded the Légion d'honneur and the Croix de Guerre by a grateful French Fourth Republic.
Lord Lovat was a stalwart of the Inverness Highland aristocracy. In 1942 he was appointed a Deputy Lieutenant (post-nominal "DL") of the county, and two years later a Justice of the Peace. Lord Lovat made a full recovery from the severe wounds he had received in France but was unable to return to the army (he transferred to the reserve in 1949). In early 1945 Churchill sent him to Moscow as his envoy in a Parliamentary delegation to pay his respect to Stalin and the Presidium. Churchill notes in the final volume of his biography of the Second World War that at the crucial meeting with Stalin and President Roosevelt at Yalta in 1945 when the boundaries of Europe were being discussed Stalin kept coming back again and again, in conversation, to military questions: Stalin said he had acquired a new interest in life, says Churchill, an interest in military affairs. "He liked young military fighters like Lord Lovat". ref: WC: the Second World War, volume VI, p. 344 Yalta finale. Winston Churchill requested that he become Captain of the Honourable Corps of Gentlemen-at-Arms in the House of Lords; however, Lord Lovat declined the offer and in 1945 joined the Government as Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, "becoming responsible for the functions of the Ministry of Economic Warfare when these were taken over by the Foreign Office", resigning upon Winston Churchill's election defeat. In 1946 he was made a Commander of the Venerable Order of Saint John. His formal retirement from the army came on 16 June 1962, he retained the honorary rank of brigadier.
Lord Lovat's involvement in politics continued throughout his life, in the House of Lords where he spoke on Scottish Affairs and served in the Inverness County Council for the next forty-two years where he pressed for modernising improvements. He also devoted much of his time to the family estates of 250,000 acres in the highlands and to Fraser Clan affairs. He bred a pedigree herd of shorthorn cattle and was an international judge of cattle travelling widely to Canada, America, Latin America and Australia in that regard. He lectured on agronomy and loved racing. He was chieftain of Lovat Shinty Club, the local shinty team which bears his family name. Lord Lovat experienced a great deal of sadness in his final years; two of his sons predeceased him in accidents within days of each other. In 1994, a year before his death, the family's traditional residence, Beaufort Castle, was sold by his eldest son, Simon Fraser, to pay inheritance taxes.
Lord Lovat's second son, Kim, played the pipes at Lord Lovat's funeral.
The Longest Day, a 1962 film based on the book of the same name, features "Lord Lovat", played by Peter Lawford.
There is some suggestion that the charlatan commando character "Trimmer" in Evelyn Waugh's Sword of Honour trilogy of novels is based on Lovat. Lovat was closely associated with Waugh's forced resignation from the Commandos, which is the subject of an exchange of correspondence between them which Waugh pasted into his war diaries. In an article in Standpoint magazine, Paul Johnson wrote:
Simon Christopher Joseph Fraser, Master of Lovat and 15th Lord Lovat (9 July 1911 – 16 March 1995), was the son and eldest child of Simon Joseph Fraser, 14th Baron Lovat (25 November 1871 – 18 February 1933), and the Hon. Laura Lister (12 January 1892 – 24 March 1965). His younger brother was the Hon. Sir Hugh Charles Patrick Joseph Fraser (23 January 1918–6 March 1984).
He married Rosamond Delves Broughton on 10 October 1938. They had six children:
The 15th Lord Lovat's first son and heir Simon Augustine Fraser, Master of Lovat, and his fourth son Andrew predeceased him in 1994 within days of each other. The 15th Lord Lovat then died a year later in 1995. The title then passed to his grandson Simon Christopher Fraser, who became the 16th Lord Lovat.