Douglas Wimberley

Douglas Neil Wimberley was born on 15 August 1896 at 8 Ardross Terrace, Inverness, Scotland, the son of Surgeon-Captain Charles Neil Campbell Wimberley, and Minnie Lesmoir Gordon, daughter of R. J. Wimberley.[1][2]

Wimberley was educated at Alton Burn, Nairn, Wellington College, followed by Cambridge University. In December 1914, four months after the outbreak of the First World War, he entered the Royal Military College, Sandhurst and, on 11 May 1915, he was commissioned as a second lieutenant, into his grandfather's regiment, the Queen's Own Cameron Highlanders.[3] His first posting was with the 3rd (Militia) Battalion of his regiment at Invergordon before his eventual posting, in September, to the 1st Battalion on the Western Front. The battalion, a Regular Army unit, formed part of the 1st Brigade of the 1st Division. In October Wimberley, now aged 19 and the machine gun officer of his battalion, fought in the Battle of Loos.[1]

In January 1916 he was seconded to the newly created Machine Gun Corps (MGC) and served with the 1st and 2nd Brigade machine gun companies, serving with them during the Somme offensive in the second half of 1916. He was promoted to lieutenant on 17 March 1916,[4] and, in October, was sent to England, where he attended the Machine Gun Training Centre at Grantham, Lincolnshire and, returning to the Western Front, was promoted to the acting rank of captain on 12 February 1917,[5] and assumed command of the 232nd Machine Gun Company, which in July became part of the 51st (Highland) Division, a Territorial Force (TF) formation.[1]

Wimberley's company fought in the Battle of Passchendaele (also known as the Third Battle of Ypres). In November he was wounded and awarded the Military Cross during the Battle of Cambrai.[1] In early 1918 the four machine gun companies of the division were merged into the 51st Machine Gun Battalion, resulting in his company being retitled as 'D'Company. On 18 February 1918 Wimberley was promoted to the acting rank of major.[6] The German Army launched its Spring Offensive in late March and Wimberley was again wounded and, evacuated to England, was passed fit for service in June and attended a machine gun refresher course at Grantham the following month, but was not to see any further action during the war. He was soon afterwards posted as a company commander in the 9th Reserve Battalion, Machine Gun Corps, a training unit. In October/November he attended a Royal Air Force (RAF) cooperation course, with the intention of training infantry officers to be air observers. He was there by the time of the Armistice with Germany in November, which brought the war to an end.[1]

Shortly after the end of the war, in 1919, Wimberley, now serving with the 8th Battalion, MGC, was despatched to Russia during the Russian Civil War. In December 1919 he returned to the Queen's Own Cameron Highlanders. Wimberley chose to stay in the army during the interwar period and, in 1921, served as the assistant adjutant of the 2nd Battalion, Cameron Highlanders, then stationed at Queenstown during the Irish War of Independence.[1][7] Wimberley's battalion, a Regular Army unit, was regarded by Bernard Montgomery, the brigade major of the parent Cork Brigade, to be the best troops available to act as a "flying column" to round up rebels.[8] 1922 saw Wimberley made an adjutant of the 2nd Battalion, Camerons. Two years later he gained distinction in promotion examinations and was allowed to spend a year at Emmanuel College, Cambridge.[7]

Following his studies, Wimberley attended the Staff College, Camberley from 1926 to 1927, where he was a student in a class of instructors who would lead the army to victory in the next war, such as Bernard Montgomery, Alan Brooke and Bernard Paget, with fellow students such as Harold Alexander, Charles Hudson, Roy Bucher, Alan Duff, George Wood, John Clark, Noel Holmes, Sidney Archibald, William Holden, Richard Bond and Richard Lewis.[9][7] On 29 April of that year, he married Elsye Myrtle Livingston, daughter of Captain F. L. Campbell of the Royal Navy, of Achalader, Perthshire. With her, he had one son and one daughter.[1]

After his marriage, the still-young Wimberley's peacetime career progressed steadily. In 1929 he was appointed brigade major of the 1st Gurkha Brigade,[7] which was involved in operations in the North West Frontier Province a year later. On 1 January 1933 Wimberley was promoted to the brevet rank of major,[10] the same year that he won the Army Quarterly military prize for an essay on recent military campaigns.

Wimberley then served as a General Staff Officer Grade 2 (GSO2) at the War Office for four years, during which time he received a promotion on 3 January 1934 to major,[11] and brevet lieutenant-colonel on 1 January 1936,[12] before returning to an active command when he was promoted to the rank of lieutenant-colonel on 19 December 1938[13] and succeeded Lieutenant-Colonel James Gammell as Commanding Officer (CO) of the 1st Battalion, Cameron Highlanders, then stationed in England, which he commanded until the outbreak of war nine months later.[7]

Shortly after the Second World War began, in September 1939, Wimberley took his battalion to France, where it formed part of the British Expeditionary Force (BEF). The battalion was part of Brigadier Gerald Gartlan's 5th Infantry Brigade, part of the 2nd Infantry Division, then commanded by Major-General Charles Loyd, and arrived in France in late September.[14] There was no immediate action, however, and in late December Wimberley was sent to England and made GSO1 and Chief Instructor at the Senior Officers' School, Sheerness, so missing the hostilities in France which commenced in May 1940.[14]

Made an acting colonel on 16 March 1940, Wimberley was, on 20 July 1940, shortly after the Dunkirk evacuation, promoted to the acting rank of brigadier[1] and succeeded Brigadier Miles Dempsey in command of the 13th Brigade, part of the 5th Infantry Division.[7] The division was then stationed in Scotland under Scottish Command, reforming after having played a distinguished part in the Battle of France, but suffering alarmingly heavy casualties in the process. The division was commanded by Major-General Horatio Berney-Ficklin, succeeding the original General Officer Commanding (GOC), Major-General Harold Franklyn, on the same day as Wimberley took command of the 13th Brigade.[14] Wimberley was to remain with the brigade for just seven weeks, however, as in mid-September he was posted to the 152nd Infantry Brigade, part of the 51st (Highland) Infantry Division, whose GOC was then Major-General Alan Cunningham, who was replaced in late October by Major-General Neil Ritchie.[14] On 17 October 1940 Wimberley's permanent rank was promoted to colonel, with seniority backdated to 1 January 1939.[15]

On 21 May 1941 Wimberley was promoted to the acting rank of major-general[16] and became GOC of the 46th Infantry Division, succeeding Major-General Charles Hudson, who had been one of Wimberley's fellow students at the Staff College, Camberley in the late 1920s. The division was a second-line Territorial Army (TA) formation that had fought with the BEF the year before and, like the 5th Division, had suffered heavy losses but was now reformed.[17] He was to remain with the division for just three weeks as, in mid-June, after handing over the 46th to Major-General Miles Dempsey, he returned to the 51st (Highland) Division, this time as its GOC. He was made GOC at the specific request of his predecessor, Ritchie, who was then being posted to the Middle East.[17]

The 51st (Highland) Division to which Wimberley was now GOC was a very different formation from that which Wimberley had served with during the Great War.[17] Formerly, the division's reputation had been forged over successive battles in the trenches of the Western Front. The division which he now commanded was in reality the untried 9th (Highland) Infantry Division, the sister TA division to the 51st, created with the intention of supplying drafts of men as reinforcements to the 51st, which had been renumbered after the latter's surrender during the Battle of France on 12 June 1940. The division as it stood would now be able to fight as a unit, and Wimberley made a successful effort to instill a sense of esprit de corps in the unit. He refused "sassenach" troops for his brigades and battalions whilst "poaching" Scottish troops from other units, and appealed to his men's Scottish patriotism by encouraging the wearing of their respective tartans as much as possible, for which he was dubbed "Tartan Tam", and later "Lang Tam", due to his 6'3" height.[17] The only non-highland unit in the 51st Division was the 1st/7th Battalion, Middlesex Regiment, because there was no machine gun battalion in the British Army which recruited exclusively in Scotland. The cockneys, as it turned out, got along very well with the Highlanders. At the same time, training was not neglected. The results would manifest themselves in action.[17]

Upon leaving the army Wimberley became principal of University College, Dundee, which was at the time a constituent college of the University of St Andrews. The University of St Andrews, steeped in tradition and jealous of its academic reputation refused to allow the academic expansion of its sister college which led to agitation in Dundee for the independence of the Dundee College. Wimberley attempted to expand University College whilst at the same time not undermining the parent University, and its principal, James Irvine.[33]

Without much academic power, Wimberley sought to give the college the same esprit de corps with which he had invigorated the 51st (Highland) Division. He worked as closely with the staff and students of the college as he had with the officers and men of his division.[34]

In 1947 he wrote the "Wimberley Memo", which set the scene for the parting of ways between the University of St Andrews, and the former University College, Dundee. In honour of this event, the University of Dundee awards annually the Wimberley Award to the student who has contributed most to university life.[35]

In his role as Principal of University College, Dundee Wimberley helped to found the Abertay Historical Society in 1947, along with the History lecturer Dr. Wainwright. The society, which is still active, was formed to encourage the study of the history of the Abertay area (Dundee, Angus, Perthshire and northern Fife).[36] According to University of Dundee historian Kenneth Baxter, Wimberley set up the Society as part of a process of developing 'town and gown links' in Dundee.[37]

In 1954, University College was replaced by Queen's College Dundee. The post of Principal of University College was replaced by the new role of Master of Queen's College. Wimberley was not considered for this new position and left the University.[38][39] Having retired, he took up genealogy and lived with his wife in the town of Coupar Angus, Perthshire. From 2 September 1951[40] until 1961 he was colonel of the Queen's Own Cameron Highlanders. In 1973, Wimberley collated his papers and diaries into a five-volume autobiography called Scottish Soldier. This unpublished memoir was deposited by the general in the National Library of Scotland.[41]

He died at Foxhall, Coupar Angus, on 26 August 1983, shortly after turning 87. He was survived by his son Neil Wimberley, who lives with his wife in Foxhall, and daughter Lesmoir Edington living in Haddington, Scotland.[42]

His name lives on in Dundee with the Wimberley Houses, Dundee University student accommodation by Ninewells Hospital. The University of Dundee Archive Services also holds his papers relating to his time as Principal of University College.[38]

• Alanbrooke, Field Marshal Lord (2001). Danchev, Alex; Todman, Daniel (eds.). War Diaries 1939–1945. Phoenix Press. ISBN 1-84212-526-5.
• Hamilton, Nigel (1981). Monty : the making of a general, 1887–1942. London: Hamish Hamilton. OCLC 174371477.
• Hamilton, Nigel (1983). Monty: Master of the Battlefield 1942–1944. London: Hamish Hamilton. OCLC 174371481.
• Mead, Richard (2007). Churchill's Lions: a biographical guide to the key British generals of World War II. Stroud (UK): Spellmount. ISBN 978-1-86227-431-0.
• Smart, Nick (2005). Biographical Dictionary of British Generals of the Second World War. Barnesley: Pen & Sword. ISBN 1844150496.
• Scottish Soldier by Major-General D.N. Wimberley. Unpublished memoir in the possession of the NLS.
• Monty: A Personal Memoir by Major-General D.N. Wimberley. Unpublished memoir.

• "Wimberley, Douglas Neil". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/63740. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.) (in Volume 59 of print edition)
• British Army Officers 1939−1945
• Generals of World War II