Have You a Tiger In Your Family?

Rank : Major

Army Number : 121662

Unit : 2/5th Bn

Biography :

Donald Brown was born in 1925 in Galashiels, Selkirkshire, and was educated at St Mary's Preparatory School, Melrose, and at Merchiston Castle School, Edinburgh. He matriculated into the Royal (Dick) Veterinary College in May 1938 and had passed his First Year examination before leaving in July 1939 to join 165 Officer Cadet Training Unit at Dunbar. He was commissioned into The King's Own Scottish Borderers (KOSB) on 9.3.1940, and posted to the 9th Battalion. In May 1943 he was attached to the 2/5th Battalion The Leicestershire Regiment in Tunisia. With that Battalion he took part in the landings at Salerno in Italy. Recently promoted to temporary Major, on 16.9.1943 while commanding C Company 2/5th Leicesters he was posted Missing in Action near Salerno. In the London Gazette dated 21.2.1946 he was awarded a posthumous D.S.O. in recognition of gallant and distinguished services in the field, the award backdated to the date of his death 16.9.1943, aged 28 years. A truncated version of the DSO citation, which appeared in The Scotsman on 23.3.1946, read:
"In an attack near Salerno in September 1943, Captain Brown, alone and armed only with a pistol and grenades, held the summit of a hill against continued assaults, and was last seen being attacked on all sides, after he had killed a number of the enemy. Unsupported, he inspired his company to renewed efforts to reach him and to drive back the enemy." The full citation can be found attached elsewhere on this web page.
His body was not recovered. He is commemorated on the Cassino Memorial in Italy (which currently does not show his DSO suffix, an omission of which the CWGC are aware), at the Royal (Dick) Veterinary College, and on the Merchiston Castle School war memorial. His father, also KOSB, was killed in the First World War, and they are the only father and son on that school memorial.
In 1946 Donald's widow Mary, whom Donald aged 21 had married in 1935, married Donald's brother Charles, himself badly wounded in the war and a former Japanese POW.
A lengthy article on Donald Brown was published in the Autumn 2013 edition of The Green Tiger.
In early September 2017 the The Royal Tigers' Association (RTA) was notified by the Italian 'Salerno 1943' Association that early that month two of its members had found Donald Brown's metal ID bracelet in the hills where he was killed near Salerno. The MOD's Joint Casualty & Compassionate Centre (JCCC), together with the RTA and other parties, became involved in seeking to establish through DNA testing if either of the two bodies found near Brown's bracelet in March 2017 was Donald Brown's. Short update articles on Donald Brown were published in the Autumn 2017 and Spring 2018 editions of The Green Tiger. In February 2019 the RTA was contacted by Donald Brown's only child, Patricia Clark (sometime Basso), who has one child Simon Basso who in turn has one child, a son. DNA testing of another member of Donald Brown's family concluded that neither set of bones was his. A further article on this matter was published in the Spring 2019 edition of The Green Tiger. A concluding article on this was published in the Autumn 2019 edition of The Green Tiger: on 3.7.2019 the two sets of bones were laid to rest with full military honours in the Salerno CWGC cemetery; the bearer party was found by members of B (Leicestershire) Company 2nd Battalion The Royal Anglian Regiment (the historical successors of The Leicestershire Regiment); that same day Donald brown's metal ID bracelet was handed over to an official of the JCC, who in turn at Woolwich Barracks, the home of 1st Battalion The Royal Anglian Regiment, on 24.9.2019 presented the bracelet to Donald Brown's 81-year-old daughter Patricia Clark.

This web page was last edited on 29.11.2019.

Date of Birth : 22.8.1914

Place of Birth : Galashiels, Selkirkshire

Date of Death : 16.9.1943

Place of Death : Salerno, Italy

Civil Occupation : trainee Veterinary Surgeon

Period of Service : 1939-43

Conflicts : WW2

Places Served : UK, Tunisia, Italy