Logan Scott-Bowden CBE DSO MC*, Major General

Brigadier Logan Scott-Bowden with General Sir John Anderson as General Anderson takes the salute at 7 UDR's first passing out parade.

The first Commander of The Ulster Defence Regiment was Brigadier Logan Scott-Bowden, a career Army Officer who had a distinguished war record. Logan Scott-Bowden was born at Whitehaven, Cumberland, on 21 February 1920 and died aged 93 on 9 February 2014. He was educated at Malvern and the Royal Military Academy, Woolwich, where he was an accomplished athlete and swimmer. He was commissioned into the Corps of Royal Engineers on 3 July 1939 and served with 162 Independent Company in the Norwegian Campaign.

The following year he was posted to 53rd (Welsh) Division RE as adjutant. After a spell in Canada and America on liaison duties, he joined Combined Operations Pilotage Parties (COPP) at Hayling Island in May 1943. The COPP was a small unit specialised in the clandestine survey of potential sites for the Allied landings in Italy and later France. He was heavily involved in the long planning process for D-Day.

On the night of 31 December 1943, the then 24 year-old Scott-Bowden set out in a Motor Torpedo Boat to reconnoitre the area around Luc-sur-Mer. He and a Sergeant (Bruce Ogden-Smith) swam under cover of darkness to the beaches. They carried a shingle bag, brandy flask, sounding lead, underwater writing pad and pencil, boring tool, compass, gradient reel and stake, torch, revolver, and a trowel. Taking care to leave no evidence of their visit, the pair took samples of sand, mud, peat and gravel, which they stored in condoms! Their mission continued in a similar fashion the following night.

A month or so later, this time using a midget submarine for transport (towed part of the way), he was involved in surveying the area to the west of Port-en-Bessin and Vierville and later what was to become the Omaha Beach landing area. His mission was a complete success, paving the way for the landings and deployment of Mulberry Harbours. Indeed Major Scott-Bowden helped pilot ashore the first wave of amphibious tanks from V (US) Corps, 1st (US) Division onto Omaha Beach on D-Day itself. He was awarded the MC and DSO for these various actions.

He had been ordered to return to England as his tasks with COPP had finished, but, on June 10, he took command of 17 Field Company Royal Engineers, whose commander had been badly wounded. He was soon busy laying 5,000 mines across the expected axis of an enemy counter-attack. For the next 10 months, he led his Company in every action. When his men were responsible for 'gapping' large and treacherous minefields, invariably Scott-Bowden carried out the reconnaissance himself and directed the work, often under heavy fire. In April 1945, at Lingen, his company was building a bridge over the Dortmund-Ems canal when a self-propelled gun opened up at close range. Scott-Bowden directed the operation, standing on the bridge, until he was wounded. The citation for the award to him of a Bar to his MC stated that 'his individual feats of gallantry are almost too numerous to record'.

After the war he was posted to the Far East, briefly as GSO2 in Singapore, then as Brigade Major of 98 Indian Infantry Brigade countering insurgency in Burma. A two-year tour in the Middle East with 1st Division, commanding 12 Field Company RE, was followed by an appointment as DAQMG at the War Office. He reassumed command of 12 Field Company in Korea and, on returning to England, became Brigade Major of the Training Brigade at Aldershot. After a course at the Joint Services Staff College, in 1956 he was posted as Deputy Commander Royal Engineers (Works) Schleswig-Holstein and Hamburg. During this appointment, he was honorary secretary of the British Kiel Yacht Club. Two years in Aden followed, and he then returned to the 1st Division in Germany as Commander Royal Engineers. After appointments as head of the UKLF Planning Staff and Assistant Director of Defence Plans at the new Ministry of Defence, he returned to Aldershot in 1966 to command the Training Brigade.

He was completing a course at the Indian National Defence College when he was recalled for the new post of Commander of the newly formed Ulster Defence Regiment, which he could not be formally told about until the relevant legislation had passed through Parliament. He reportedly had reservations about the word ‘Defence’ being included in the Regiment’s title, citing that no conflict had ever been won by defending! He moved to Northern Ireland in December 1969 and quickly set about the task of raising the Regiment and getting it operational. He was optimistic and did not see a problem in encouraging recruitment from all sections of the community. His optimism was well placed, at least initially. Indeed he made a personal appeal on television for recruits and became quite a well-known face locally.

Having raised and commanded The Ulster Defence Regiment, his next appointment saw him leading the British Defence Liaison Staff in India. He retired in 1974 to farm in Oxfordshire. Holidays were spent in Italy, camping in Bavaria and skiing in Austria. He was also Colonel Commandant, Corps of Royal Engineers from 1975 to 1980.

(Above left, arriving for the first UDR passing-out parade at Ballykinler.)