THE DESERT PIPER
The 51st Highland Division underwent bayonet training in September 1942, having landed in Egypt untested the previous month
“THE ARTILLERY BARRAGE STARTED WITH 1,000 GUNS, THE BIGGEST ARTILLERY BARRAGE SINCE WORLD WAR I”
The 51st Highland Division suffered disastrous losses during the fall of France in 1940, when more than 10,000 men were forced to surrender to the Germans on 12 June, after being surrounded at Valéry-en-Caux (between Dieppe and Le Havre).
Consequently, a new 51st Highland Division was raised. The new Division included the 153rd Infantry Brigade, compromised of the First Battalion The Gordon Highlanders, 5/7th Battalion The Gordon Highlanders and Fifth Battalion The Black Watch.
The 51st Highland Division sailed from the UK for the Middle East, via the Cape of Good Hope, in June 1942, and arrived in Egypt two months later. The 51st Highland Division was first deployed in defensive duties on the western approaches to Cairo. Then, in October 1942 it marched the 150-or-so miles to El Alamein, accompanied on its way by the music from the division’s pipers.
One of these pipers was James Simpson, D Company, Fifth Battalion, The Black Watch. Born and bred in Dundee, Jim left school in 1934 aged 16 and just five years later was called up to serve.
Commander of the 51st Highland Division Major General Douglas Wimberley
WHEN DID YOU JOIN THE ARMY?
I received my call-up papers in October 1939 and was told to report to this place in Perth. A series of doctors examined us – I was graded A1 – and then we had an interview with a colonel, and he decided what to do with us. He decided I could join the band, having learned to
