Awards OBE & DSO Lt-Col. D.G. Thorburn, M.C. 2nd Bn Highland Light Infantry (Athens & North Africa)

Commander Lt-Col. Douglas Glendenning Thorburn, 2nd Bn Highland Light Infantry (City of Glasgow Regiment) D.S.O., O.B..E., M.C. KIA 10th July 1943 Sicily aged 46 buried Syracuse War Cemetery, Sicily

Award: Order of the British Empire (Highland Light Infantry attached Force H.Q.)

WO 373/77/597

Award: Distinguished Service Order

WO 373/21/14

Wounded 5th June 1942



nine year old daughter Elizabeth The Tatler 1st March 1944

 

To the north of Avola, at Cassibile, the 2nd Battalion, Highland Light Infantry (City of Glasgow Regiment), under the command of Colonel Douglas Glendinning Thorburn, had been assigned as part of No.32 Beach Brick, tasked with assisting the landings of the 5th Infantry Division. 46-year-old Thorburn had been commissioned in the HLI in 1915 and served on the Western Front during World War One, where he was awarded the Military Cross and Bar, and was mentioned in dispatches. By the time World War Two began, he had been promoted to Major. Thorburn was awarded the OBE for staff work in Greece in 1941, and the Distinguished Service Order (DSO) for gallant and distinguished service at Bir-el-Tamar, Libya, in June 1942. Later that year, he became Lieutenant Colonel, commanding the 2nd Battalion, and by the time Operation Husky began, he had been made Acting Colonel. Shortly after the first waves of landing craft had touched down, Thorburn went forward to reconnoitre but was soon after shot dead by a sniper.

Operation Husky: The Fallen - Part One (combatarchives.com)