In Memory of Major Bill Fraser MC

November 2022 Update: I discovered Major Bill Fraser’s remarkable Wartime service ten years ago after reading ‘Born of the Desert’, an outstanding book written by medical officer Captain Malcolm James Pleydell MC, a medical officer who served with the SAS in 1942/43. I conducted my own research (with a lot of assistance) and published it below, but it does contain some errors (Bill was part of the British Expeditionary Force in 1940, but returned to England before the Dunkirk evacuation for example). I am very pleased to say someone far more qualified was also researching Bill Fraser’s service and has just published a far, far better account, one I would say supersedes all previous accounts of the SAS’s Originals. It is the definitive history of the origins of Britain’s special forces, called ‘Speed, Agression, Surprise’ by SAS veteran Tom Petch, and is linked here

Major Bill Fraser MC — 1917-1975

Gordon Highlanders 193 /40 — No.11 Commando 1940/41 — Special Air Service 1941/45 — Service No. 132513

Major Bill Fraser was born to a military family and was the first to receive an officer’s commission in the Gordon Highlanders, pre-world war two. He was part of the British Expeditionary Force in 1940 France before joining the newly formed commandos. After training in Scotland they deployed to the Mediterranean and Bill was one of the first ashore at the Battle of the Litani river in June 1941 Syria. In August 1941 Bill’s listed as commanding A-Squadron in the newly formed Special Air Service. Bill served across the Mediterranean theatre before returning to Britain to prepare for Operation Houndsworth - leading a troop of SAS and the local resistance fighters deep behind enemy lines in France. Those forces under Bill’s command were relieved by advancing US forces three months later, in October 1944. Bill returned to the German front and in March 1945 after crossing the Rhine he was shot in the hand as he led a force to clear a stubborn Germany position in some woods that had been holding up Canadian units wanting to advance. Bill was twenty-eight years old in 1945.

Bill returned to the Gordon Highlanders after the war but was almost immediately demoted for being drunk on duty and left the army. He lived another thirty years, with jobs as varied as baker, costing clerk and a cat burgurler, for which he was caught. Bill died in Warick's Edward VII Memorial Hospital in 1975, aged fifty-eight. He's omitted from most SAS history books but I do recommend Born of the Desert by Malcom James.

The Originals, ’Rebirth’: L Detachment Operations Dec 1941 to March 1942 — by Alan Orton

L Detachment’s Forgotten Hero - by Alan Orton

Bill Fraser War Diary Chronologically Listed - .pdf fie

Bill Fraser / SAS Originals Photo Album - .pdf album

Bill Fraser West European Areas of Operation, 1939-1945 - .pdf map

Original Documents:

Bill Fraser Litani River Campaign Map - National Archives .pdf map

Bill Fraser (WIA) Litani River After Action report - National Archives .pdf file

SAS Nominal Role 1st August 1941, L Detachment - National Archives .pdf file

C Battallion War Diary, August 1941 - National Archives .pdf file

Bill Fraser Agedabia Commendation - National Archives .pdf file

Bill Fraser Houndsworth Medal Recommendation - National Archives .pdf file