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No.11 Commando
No. 11 (Scottish) Commando was formed in 1940, they saw action in May 1941 in Cyprus and in Syria in June. They were disbanded in 1941 with some personnel transfering to Middle East Commando.
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Those known to have served with No.11 Commando during the Second World War 1939-1945. The names on this list have been submitted by relatives, friends, neighbours and others who wish to remember them, if you have any names to add or any recollections or photos of those listed,
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Records of No.11 Commando from other sources.
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Want to know more about No.11 Commando? There are:1318 items tagged No.11 Commando available in our Library
These include information on officers, regimental histories, letters, diary entries, personal accounts and information about actions during the Second World War. |
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Pte. Thomas Young 2nd Btn. Seaforth Highlanders    Tom Young, (my father) joined the Seaforth Highlanders on 11th of August 1939 and was initially posted to 7th Battalion.
In July/August 1940, he volunteered for the No.11 (Scottish) Commando and on 7th of September 1940 was accepted and went for further training on the Isle of Arran, before sailing to Egypt via Cape Town. He served with this Commando unit until August 1941, being involved in the Battle of Litani River, Lebanon in June 1941.
When the 11th Commando was disbanded, he volunteered for and was accepted into the Long Range Desert Group (LRDG) on 3rd of September 1941. He served with the LRDG until 19th of January 1943, mostly behind enemy lines.
He was then posted back to the 2nd Battalion, Seaforth Highlanders, in Libya and Tunisia and was involved in the Sicily landings, being wounded in the battle for Sferro Hills.
He then returned to the UK and was involved in Operation Overlord, being evacuated back to the UK and treated in a Glasgow Hospital.
Tom's medals include the Africa Star with 8th Army clasp, the Italy Star, and the France/Germany Star.
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Pte. John "Daisy" Mackay C Btn. No.11 (Scottish) Commando Private John Mackay, son of Hugh Kenneth and Elizabeth Mackay and brother of Georgie Mackay, was a 16 year old farm servant when he enlisted with 5th Battalion Seaforth Highlanders in 1938. He left home on September 2nd 1939. In the summer of 1940, his time was spent patrolling remote sites in Wester Ross and Sutherland when he and some of his fellow soldiers decided to volunteer for the Special Service Brigade. He was then sent to Africa to join the 11th Commando.
John Mackay set off on his first patrol on 11th Oct 1941, destined for Kharga in the Libyan Desert. In Egypt, April 1943, the fit and healthy members of the Long Range Desert Group, of which John was now a member, were sent to train in Lebanon at the Mountain Warfare School. He was then ordered to fight for the Dodecanese Islands, and LRDG were sent to the island of Calino at the start of the campaign. On 20th October the Battle of Leros was underway, and British command gave the LRDG orders that the island of Levitha was to be captured immediately. On the night of 22nd October the commandos of ‘B’ Squad slipped into canvas assault boats and prepared to land on the nearby beach. Unfortunately they came under heavy machine gun fire and the end result was that there was no option but to surrender. John Mackay was officially captured by the Germans on October 24th 1943. The LRDG men taken prisoner on Levitha were first shipped over to Yugoslavia from where they began the long train journey to Germany. Private Mackay ended up a POW in Stalag 8b, Lamsdorf, Poland. In late January 1945 he made the journey to Trieste to work salt mines in northern Italy.
Once he was set free he had to make his way back to the British lines on foot, and once back in Britain he spent a period convalescing in hospital prior to coming home. John arrived at Fort George in March 1946, and was reunited with his family two months later.
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L/Cpl. Dennis Coulthread 10/11 Commando My uncle, Dennis Coulthread, was with Geoffrey Keyes on Operation Flipper, the raid on 'Rommel's House' at Beda Littoria in Libya, November 1941. The raid did not go well (to put it mildly) and he was eventually captured by the Italians. I don't know the sequence of events, but he ended up in Stalag 8b, part of the Auschwitz complex. He only spoke to me once about this. He did forced work in a local factory and said he kept his head down and his mouth shut.
One morning he gave a Jewish boy some food from a Red Cross parcel. When he returned from the factory, he saw that the boy had been hanged, having refused to say who had given him the food.
He said that towards the end of the war the prisoners were force-marched into Germany. Many died on this march, and anyone who tried to help someone was shot there and then. Dennis was a robust, tough man, and he said it was this that got him through.
I think that by the time Hitler issued his infamous 'commando order' they must have lost track of his real identity, either by chance or deception. No doubt they would have carried out this order retrospectively. My father said Dennis's hair had gone from jet black to pure white over a couple of years and this made him appear older - probably saving him from hard labour in the mines and further concealing his real identity.
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L/Cpl. Frank Ernest Varney 10 Troop 11th Commando My Dad, Frank Varney, served with 11th commando 10 troop in the raid to capture Rommel in November 1941, Operation Flipper. He also spent a period of time at a POW camp PG65 in Italy. I would love to hear from any of his mates.
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