Sgt. Howard Jeffrey Fraser MID.
British Army 6th Btn. Gordon Highlanders
My grandfather, Howard Jeffrey Fraser (1924-1961) of the 6th Gordon Highlanders, likely served alongside the Seaforth Highlanders. He served in Java and at Monte Cassino.
He was born in Dehra Dun, India in 1924 the younger of two brothers. His mother, a nursing sister met her husband to be, George Fraser, a dentist working in the same area and they became engaged and subsequently married in India. They decided to send their sons home to the United Kingdom for schooling at Panel Ash College and as parents saw very little of their children between the ages of 8 to 17.
On leaving school Jeff Fraser returned to India briefly to visit his parents following which, he returned to the United Kingdom and joined the Gordon Highlanders, 6th Battalion as a private soldier to fight in the Second World War.
He was a jocular individual not much taken with authority to all accounts but nevertheless acquitted himself with some distinction being Mentioned in Dispatches and receiving some extensive wounds from shrapnel in an action that was fought at Monte Cassino in Italy.
Following a period of convalesance, he was posted to the Far East where he saw further action against the Japanese. During this period he was attached to the 1st Battalion Seaforth Highlanders and had reached the rank of Sergeant in charge of a mortar platoon.
In Java he contracted pneumonia. When he resumed service the pneumonia returned and left him in a weakened state. Nevertheless, he completed his service in 1946 returning to the United Kingdom on conclusion of hostilities.
Post war, he secured employment as a trainee manager on a tea plantation and returned to India living and working in the Darjeeling district. On a brief home leave, he met his future wife and they married in 1951 returning to India together where they had three children and he was promoted to Tea Plantation Manager on the Teesta Valley Tea estate.
Sadly, his war wounds and the damage caused to his lungs by pneumonia impacted on his health and he died in December 1961 at the age of 37 while still in India.
