"Brian Wilson, who has died aged 99, narrowly survived an attack during the Normandy campaign which must have seemed like the realisation of a 20-year old infantry officer’s worst nightmare; despite being severely wounded in the war, he subsequently had a successful career in the Colonial Service. In August 1944 he was a platoon commander serving with 3rd Battalion The Irish Guards (3 IG) when the battalion, commanded by Lt Col JOE “Joe” Vandeleur, was ordered to take on the tip of 11th Armoured Division’s deep salient at Sourdeval, near Vire. At midnight on August 9 the battalion relieved the Royal Norfolks and Monmouthshires and moved into their position just below the crest of a razor-back ridge, the site of the tiny hamlet of Sourdeval. The whole area was under constant shell and machine-gun fire from the high ground and was a graveyard of burnt-out vehicles and charred orchards. The Germans had attacked several times and caused heavy losses among the defenders. The stench of death was everywhere. At dawn the next day, the Germans started shelling again. Early that evening they attacked the two forward companies but the Guardsmen drove them off. Reconnaissance patrols had shown that they were up against battle-hardened German paratroopers. Brian Denis Wilson was born to Irish parents in Penang, Malaya, on June 12 1924. His father, a solicitor, was formerly an officer in the Suffolk Regiment and was badly wounded in France in the First World War. Young Brian was educated at Charterhouse, where he captained the hockey side. He was awarded an Exhibition to read law at Brasenose College, Oxford, but went down after two terms and joined the Irish Guards in the summer of 1943. He completed his basic training at Pirbright Barracks, Surrey, before going to OCTU at Aldershot. Commissioned into the Irish Guards in January 1944, in April he was posted to 3 IG at Malton, Yorkshire. On July 27, some seven weeks after D-Day, he embarked on a Landing Ship Infantry at Newhaven and joined 3 IG in Normandy as a platoon commander. He quickly recovered from being wounded during the battle at Sourdeval, and on one occasion had a lucky escape when talking to a brother officer as bullets from a machine gun passed between them." Brian Wilson, platoon commander who survived a savage assault in Normandy but was badly hit in Holland – obituary (msn.com)
