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David Fraser (British Army officer)

British Army general (1920–2012)

Summary

British Army general (1920–2012)

Field	Value
honorific_prefix	General
name	Sir David Fraser
honorific_suffix
birth_date
birth_place	Camberley, Surrey, England
death_date
death_place	East Hampshire, England
placeofburial	Holy Cross Churchyard, Binsted, East Hampshire, England
allegiance	United Kingdom
branch	British Army
serviceyears	1940–1980
rank	General
servicenumber	184424
unit	Grenadier Guards
commands	Royal College of Defence Studies (1978–1980)
4th Division (1969–1971)
battles	Second World War
Malayan Emergency
Suez Crisis
Cyprus Emergency
awards	Knight Grand Cross of the Order of the Bath
Officer of the Order of the British Empire
spouse
relations	Brigadier William Fraser (father)

4th Division (1969–1971) Malayan Emergency Suez Crisis Cyprus Emergency Officer of the Order of the British Empire

General Sir David William Fraser, (30 December 1920 – 15 July 2012) was a senior British Army officer who served as Commandant of the Royal College of Defence Studies from 1978 until his retirement from military service in 1980. He was also a prolific author, publishing over 20 books mostly focused on the history of the Second World War.

Early life

Fraser was born on 30 December 1920. He was the son of Brigadier William Fraser, the younger son of the 19th Lord Saltoun, and Pamela Maude, widow of Billy Congreve a Victoria Cross recipient and daughter of actors Cyril Maude and Winifred Emery. He was educated at Eton College. He left school to join the British Army but was refused. Instead, in January 1940, he matriculated at Christ Church, Oxford.

Military career

While studying at the University of Oxford, Fraser joined the Home Defence Force. In October 1940, he was training at the Guards' Depot in Caterham, Surrey. He was streamlined during training before taking an intensive four-month course at the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst. He was commissioned into the Grenadier Guards as a second lieutenant on 4 April 1941. He was given the service number 184424. His first posting was as a troop commander in the 2nd Battalion, 5th Guards Armoured Brigade, part of the Guards Armoured Division. In the last two years of the Second World War, he was involved in the North West Europe Campaign. He finished the war as a war substantive lieutenant.

On 27 February 1946, Fraser's promotion to lieutenant was confirmed with seniority from 30 June 1943. On 30 December 1947, he was promoted to captain. He served as a company commander in the 3rd Battalion, Grenadier Guards in the Malayan Emergency of 1948. Having attended Staff College, he was promoted to major on 30 December 1954. He was involved in the Suez Crisis in 1956 and the Cyprus Emergency in 1958. On 6 June 1960, he was promoted to that rank.

Appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire in 1962, Fraser was posted to the Ministry of Defence as Director of Defence Policy (Army) from December 1966 until 1969. He was appointed General Officer Commanding 4th Division in 1969, and Assistant Chief of Defence Staff (Policy) in 1971. He went on to be UK Military Representative to NATO in 1975, and Commandant of the Royal College of Defence Studies in 1978 before retiring in 1980. He had been advanced to Knight Grand Cross of the Order of the Bath just prior to his retirement.

Later life

Fraser was president of the Society for Army Historical Research from 1980 to 1993.

Personal life

In 1947 he married Anne Balfour-Fraser but they divorced in 1952; they had one daughter (Antonia Isabella Fraser). In 1957 he married Julia Frances Oldridge de la Hey; they had two sons (Alexander James Fraser and Simon William Fraser) and two daughters (Lucy Caroline Fraser and Arabella Katherine Fraser).

Books

He was the author of the following books:

Knight's Cross: A Life of Field Marshal Erwin Rommel
Frederick the Great: King of Prussia
And We Shall Shock Them: British Army in the Second World War
Alanbrooke
The Grenadier Guards (Men at Arms Series, 73)
Fairest Isle: BBC Radio 3 Book of British Music
The Fortunes of War
The Christian Watt Papers
Wales in History: The Defenders, 1066–1485 Bk. 2
Codename Mercury (Hardrow Chronicles)
Around the House
Wars and Shadows : Memoirs of General Sir David Fraser
A Candle for Judas (Treason in Arms)
Dragon's Teeth (Treason in Arms)
The Pain of Winning (Hardrow Chronicles)
Imperatives for Defence (Policy challenge), 1990
Adam Hardrow (Hardrow Chronicles)
Adam in the Breach (Hardrow Chronicles)
The Killing Times (Treason in Arms)
The Seizure (Treason in Arms)
Wellington and the Waterloo Campaign (Wellington Lectures), March 1996
August 1988
To War with Whitaker: Wartime Diaries of the Countess of Ranfurly, 1939–45, (Reed Audio) with Hermione, Countess of Ranfurly, and Imogen Stubbs (Audio Cassette, 1995)
Kiss for the Enemy (Thorndike Large Print Popular Series)

References

(26 July 2012). "General Sir David Fraser". The Telegraph.
Debrett's People of Today 1994
"Training for the Grenadier Guards". World War II Today.
(28 July 2012). "General Sir David Fraser". The Herald.
{{London Gazette. (13 May 1941)
{{London Gazette. (22 February 1946)
{{London Gazette. (26 December 1947)
{{London Gazette. (28 December 1954)
He was made a [[Brevet (military). brevet]] [[Lieutenant colonel (United Kingdom). (30 October 1959)
{{London Gazette. (9 September 1960)
{{London Gazette. (29 December 1961)
{{London Gazette. (2 June 1973)

Wikipedia Source

This article was imported from Wikipedia and is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Content has been adapted to SurfDoc format. Original contributors can be found on the article history page.

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