Hugo Roland (Haig) MacDonald-Haig MC (1912 - 2011)

Born 10 Nov 1912 in St Andrews, Fife, Scotland

Ancestors

Died 26 Apr 2011 at age 98 in Drumallan, Drumnadrochit, Highland, Scotland

Problems/Questions Profile manager: Phil Richardson [send private message]

Biography

Major Hugo Macdonald-Haig , who has died aged 98, was awarded an MC in the Eritrean Campaign.

The Battle of Keren, in 1941, was fought between British and Commonwealth forces and the Italian colonial army defending Eritrea. Keren was of considerable strategic importance since its road and rail routes afforded access to the Red Sea port of Massawa.

In the middle of March, after a battle which had already lasted five weeks, crack Italian troops — including units of the Savoy Grenadiers, Bersaglieri and Alpini — together with colonial battalions of Eritreans, were occupying Mount Sanchil, a key feature rising some 2,000ft from the valley floor. On March 15, MacDonald-Haig was in command of the forward company of 2nd Battalion the Queen’s Own Cameron Highlanders (QOCH) in an attack on Mount Sanchil. At first light, a heavy artillery barrage was put down. Several men in each section wore red flags on their backs to help the supporting gunners lift their fire as the infantry climbed the hill. The company, including the stretcher bearers, was 58-strong. As they approached the crest, two platoons were pinned down by machine-gun fire. MacDonald-Haig led the third in a flanking movement, but as he tried to bring a Bren gun to bear on the enemy he was spotted, and hand grenades rained down on him.

He reached his objective with 10 men. All his officers and platoon commanders had been killed or wounded. He had been wounded in the head and the hand, and found it impossible to think clearly; but he took a gulp of neat whisky and a couple of opium pills and felt better.

The stretcher bearers could not get to them because the enemy had been continually shelling and mortaring the valley. At 2am on March 16, the order was given to withdraw. MacDonald-Haig did not return to base for two days until the survivors had been relieved. The battalion had suffered casualties of close to 75 per cent.

Keren fell on March 26. The QOCH pipers played The Flowers of the Forest on the top of Mount Sanchil. An officer who had been mortally wounded in the attack almost two weeks earlier was found near the crest, sitting where he was left, a book of poetry in his hands. MacDonald-Haig was awarded a Military Cross.

Hugo Roland MacDonald-Haig was born at St Andrews on November 10 1912. He was the great-nephew of the 1st Earl Haig and his father was a brigadier-general who was awarded a DSO and Bar. Hugo was educated at Glenalmond and Sandhurst before joining the QOCH in 1933. He served with the 1st Battalion in India and the Sudan before moving to Palestine and Egypt with the 2nd.

On the outbreak of war he was back in India and accompanied 2 QOCH to the Western Desert. After recovering from his wounds received on Mount Sanchil, he rejoined the battalion in May 1941, but was wounded again the following month at Halfaya Pass, Egypt, and taken prisoner.

After his release he was posted to the Liverpool Scottish in Gibraltar, but he rejoined 2 QOCH in Italy in 1947. He returned to England the following year, and when the battalion was put into suspended animation he was seconded to the Royal West African Frontier Force in Nigeria. After four years in BAOR he moved to the Records Office at Perth and then to the Record Centre, GHQ Far East Land Forces. On retiring from the Army, he moved to the family home at Drumnadrochit in the Highlands.

Having qualified as a barrister, he decided that the Law was not for him. A lifelong exponent of the Highland bagpipe, he played a leading role in forming and running the Drumnadrochit Piping Society. He was also for many years Chieftain of the Glenurquhart Highland Games and Gathering . Hugo MacDonald-Haig died on April 26. He married, in 1966, Neva MacDonald, who had five children from a previous marriage. She survives him with two of his stepsons and a stepdaughter; his other two stepsons predeceased him.

Sources

• Obituary at www.telegraph.co.uk
• Obituary at www.scotsman.com