Determining No. 11 (Scottish) Commando's Troop Names

Hello,

I'm trying to determine if not extrapolate the Troop Names for No. 11 Commando, I've already discovered that there were only 10 Troops in 11 Cdo, and the 6th Troop was said to be named the Seafourths.

A link or a list or document itself with each Troop and they're names in No. 11 (Scottish) Commando would be excellent.
But if someone knows of a manifest of a Troop or the whole commando listing the members' names, which Troop they were assigned to, and which unit they came from originally then I would use that to extrapolate the names of the Troops from the original unit with the most members in each Troop.

This perhaps will help others trace which original unit each No. 11 Commando member most likely came from.

Hi CameronStuart,
i doubt that this reply will answer your query but i have recently seen a reference to a "Gordon" troop to go along with the "Seaforth" troop, the "Gordon" troop ref. didn't give a no. but mentioned 2 names J V Bryne and D.R. Tait both of whom their parent Regt. was the Gordons and both along with my father J.Orton (Seaforth) went to "L" Detachment. This set me thinking was then the troops named in Army Precedence? The first being the Royal Scots and ending with A and S Highlanders. This then gives you 10 troops, it does fall down though as if this was correct then the Seaforths would have been the 7th but if one troop was an amalgamation of 2 Regts. then this could thus become pheasible, as i said it doesn't answer your query but it could point you in the right direction. I trawelled through the War Diary and found no names given to the troops neither are they mentioned in the Special Forces book but that did give names of most of the Troop Commanders. I can give you this info. if reqd.
Hope this will be of some use to you,
Kind regards,
Alan Orton.

Hi Alan,
Welcome to the CVA.

Alan Orton wrote:... I trawelled through the War Diary and found no names given to the troops neither are they mentioned in the Special Forces book but that did give names of most of the Troop Commanders. I can give you this info. if reqd.

As I'm sure you are fully aware, finding the names of any commandos can be quite a daunting task and so information such as the names of Troop Commanders is very useful to the CVA and would certainly save us a bit of valuable time and effort - I wonder if you'd be prepared to share this information with us?

Regards,
Nick

Hi CameronStuart (now which is your first name?)

Oh if life was only that easy and there were lists of all the troops and the names of the Commandos in them available !! Sadly that is not the case and most of the information/troop lists we find are actually supplied by Veterans or their relatives. As it happens I have made a couple of good contacts very recently with regard to 11 Commando, and I will be posting any information I get as and when i receive it. I am interested to know what is your connection with 11 Commando, ie. are you a relative, friend, historian, author, etc. Also how much research you have already done on them?

Regards

Pete

Hi Alan,

Once again thanks for the info - all very useful as indeed I have started a No11 Cdo Nominall Roll which will be posted in the Nominal Roll Forum very shortly.

http://www.commandoveterans.org/cdoForum/forums/show/24.page

Any other names/info is always very welcome.

Grateful thanks,

nick

I received some information from Ian McHarg relating to the Troop names and can confirm that 2 Troop was Royal Scots Greys, 4 Troop was Wiltshires, 6 Troop was Seaforths, 8 Troop was Gordons and 10 Troop was Camerons.
Alan.

This message was edited 3 times. Last update was at 02/10/2010 21:50:27

Having visited Piper Jimmy Lawson at his home today I asked him if the troops were ever referred to as Seaforth troop or Gordons troop, etc. He stated this was never the case. They were always referred to by their troop number. He stated that when volunteers were called for, 50 men from each of the 11 Scottish Regiments were initially taken. Those regiments consisted of the 6 Lowland and 5 Highland Regts. However there were only 10 troops, and there were also others who came from the Wiltshires and Manchester Regts etc. As has been said many from the same Regt would have gone into the same troop but not all. Hence they were always referred to by troop number. As he said to me, in their mind they were all now Commandos.

More about Piper Jimmy Lawson can be seen on this forum link:

http://www.commandoveterans.org/cdoForum/posts/list/1701.page

Regards

Pete

Hi Pete

I would agree that the Troops were only referred to by their numbers, however when I visited Sir Tommy Macpherson a couple of years ago he told me that Col Dick Pedder was keen to form the Troops around the officers who had hand picked men from their own regiments.

I would say this is where the reference to the parent units came from, for example Sir Tommy, No.10 Troop, was a Cameron Highlander and over half of 10 Troop consisted of men from the Camerons. The same example is applied to Lt Col Geoffrey Keyes VC, who took men from the Royal Scots Greys who were serving with him at Redford Barracks in Edinburgh.

In a conversation with No 4 Troop?s Reg Harmer DCM, Wiltshire Regiment, he also made reference to this happening when they mustered at Galashiels:
?We used to march in a group, like a Troop, there was ten Troops and he (Col Pedder) kept most of the regiments together so I had all the Wilts with me, and then there was Lincoln?s, North Hants all infantry in my lot?.

I would hazard a guess and say that the parent unit designation only happened for administration purposes during the initial muster at Galashiels and as Jimmy didn?t join the Commando until they were in Arran the Troop numbers would have been well established before he got there.

Once training got underway, and the ten Troops were established, Dick Pedder was very keen to instil a Commando ethos and gel his men into a proud Commando unit. It was during the process of fostering the esprit de corps attitude that he introduced a uniformal headdress for the Commando.

Cheers

Ian

This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 05/11/2010 13:04:25

Ian

Your last post I believe sums up entirely the situation regarding troops in 11 Commando. It also happenned in my father and my uncle's 5 troop of No.2 Commando when it was originally formed. They were known, not officially of course, as No.2 Commando 5 Scottish troop ( also 5 Liverpool Scots troop) with Andrew Davidson (Liverpool Scots) as their OC until he was injured in an accident, and then Donald Roy (Liverpool Scots) took over . That all changed after St Nazaire however.

Regards

Pete