General Sir Ian Gourlay KCB CVO OBE MC Royal Marines

 Commissioned into the Royal Marines in 1940, Ian Gourlay joined the fleet carrier Formidable in September 1941 and saw action in the Mediterranean, including the Allied landings in North Africa and the occupation of Sicily.  In early 1944 he was posted to 43 Commando as a Troop Commander and fought in operations amongst the Adriatic islands and in Yugoslavia. 

            For his gallantry, zeal and skill at the seizure of the island of Solta, Gourlay was awarded the MC.  He sustained a minor scalp wound from long-range artillery fire from the mainland at Split

            In the winter of 1944, the commando had  been harassing the 30,000 men of the German XXI Mountain Corps amongst the freezing highlands of Yugoslavia when the British became no longer welcome to Tito’s Communist partisans who foresaw the successful expulsion of German forces and the subsequent political evolution of their country.  The Royal Marines were subsequently redeployed  to the wet and bleak marshes around Lake Commachio near the Italian coast just north of Ravenna. With other army commando units, Gourlay’s unit fought a bitter and difficult battle throughout April 2 and 3, 1945, with little natural cover to help their advances across minefields towards well-prepared German positions.

            In this action, the Royal Marines’ tenth Victoria Cross was posthumously awarded  to Corporal Thomas Hunter of 43 Commando, the only one of the second world war.  The objective of drawing Marshal Kesselring’s reserves away from a thrust elsewhere was achieved.

            After the war, Gourlay held a variety of training posts and was selected for the army Staff Course in 1954.  After graduation, he was appointed Brigade Major to 3 Commando Brigade and took part in counter-insurgency operations against the EOKA pro-Greek terrorist organisation in Cyprus. 

            The 1956 demand for a major amphibious landing in Egypt as a result of President Nasser’s unilateral nationalisation of the Suez Canal found Britain woefully underequipped.  However, material and political considerations resulted in a delay of some four months between Nasser’s action and the ill-starred Anglo-French invasion. This in turn made time for pioneering plans to be laid and practised for the innovative use of helicopters in an opposed assault from two light fleet carriers.  On November 6, two of the three commandos in the brigade were landed conventionally over the beach, but the third arrived by helicopter at a point near the De Lesseps statue on the canal bank.  The Royal Marines had to deal with some of Nasser’s Russian-made tanks before establishing control over Port Said, taking a number of casualties.  Gourlay was made an OBE for his contribution to the planning and execution of this operation.

            His next foreign deployment was to the Far East in 1959 as second-in-command of 42 Commando.  Embarked in the newly converted ‘commando’ carrier Bulwark, much experimentation was needed further to develop this new and flexible operational concept. 

            Promoted Lieutenant Colonel in 1963 and commanding 43 Commando, Gourlay again found himself in the Far East – on this occasion in the jungles of Borneo contributing to Britain’s largest, and indeed final, military commitment of the entire post-war East of Suez period.  This was the ‘confrontation’ with Indonesia who, by a campaign of subversion and infiltration, intended to disrupt the newly instituted Federation of Malaysia.  Gourlay and his men had a busy tour defending the borders of Sarawak and Sabah, protecting the indigenous tribespeople from murder and harassment by President Sukarno’s dacoits.

            After a staff appointment in the Ministry of Defence, Gourlay was promoted Brigadier in 1966 and posted to Singapore in charge of the commando brigade during the period when Britain’s military commitment in the region was being rapidly reduced. 

            His subsequent tours as a Major General in command of all Royal Marines training  and, from 1971, his lengthy tenure as Commandant General, were coincident with the remarkable shift in national and naval strategic policy that occurred in the early 1970’s consequent upon economic constraints, defence reviews and the end of empire.  This shift largely renounced the ‘east of Suez’ roles and fell back on a major contribution to the NATO doctrine of forward defence and flexible response in the Eastern Atlantic theatre. 

            For the Royal Marines this meant swapping jungle and desert for the mountains and glaciers of North Norway where they became, save for the Norwegians themselves, the most proficient of NATO troops in the business of cold weather survival and fighting in the sparsely populated but vital northern flank of NATO.  Gourlay’s task was to oversee this transition and also to initiate cooperation with the Royal Netherlands Marines, a relationship that has since prospered enormously by reason of a shared humour and a hearty attitude in favour of the militarily irregular.

            On retiring in the rank of General in 1975, Gourlay was appointed a KCB and was invited by Earl Mountbatten to become Director General of the United World Colleges.  He held this post for fifteen years, serving under the presidency of both Mountbatten and the Prince of Wales. He was made a CVO and appointed Vice-President himself in 1990.

            A man of great charm and seemingly effortless ability, Gourlay was much admired by all who knew him.  He is survived by his wife Natasha, whom he married in 1948, and their son and daughter.

General Sir Ian Gourlay, KCB, CVO, OBE, MC,

Commandant General Royal Marines 1971-1975,

Director General and thenVice President United World Colleges 1975 -1990.

was born on November 13, 1920.  He died on 17 July 2013 aged 92.