John Desmond Beauchamp Doran (6 April 1913 – 9 September 1946) was a

British Army The British Army is the principal land warfare force of the United Kingdom, a part of the British Armed Forces along with the Royal Navy and the Royal Air Force. , the British Army comprises 79,380 regular full-time personnel, 4,090 Gurk ...

Intelligence Officer who started his career in intelligence in the

Secret Intelligence Service The Secret Intelligence Service (SIS), commonly known as MI6 ( Military Intelligence, Section 6), is the foreign intelligence service of the United Kingdom, tasked mainly with the covert overseas collection and analysis of human intelligenc ...

. He spent most of his active service career in the Middle East during the Second World War and the troubles that followed in the British Mandatory Palestine. Doran's family were a long established military family with roots in

County Wexford County Wexford ( ga, Contae Loch Garman) is a county in Ireland. It is in the province of Leinster and is part of the Southern Region. Named after the town of Wexford, it was based on the historic Gaelic territory of Hy Kinsella (''Uí Ceinns ...

, Ireland. His father

Walter Robert Butler Doran Brigadier General Walter Robert Butler Doran, (15 December 1861 – 6 February 1945) was a highly decorated senior British Army officer who served with distinction in the Second Boer War, commanding an infantry battalion. He was a brigade comman ...

was a highly decorated British Army Officer, as were his uncles and grandfather. He is recorded as being an officer in the

before transferring to the army. He was commissioned in the Intelligence Corps as a Lieutenant on 12 February 1943; his service number was 274197. He is recorded as having been on the staff of

Security Intelligence Middle East Security Intelligence Middle East (SIME) (1912-1946) was an organisation made up of a number of British intelligence agencies supporting the British Military Government during the Second World War, based in Cairo, Egypt. It was composed of Securi ...

(SIME) based in Cairo. His preferred titling was Desmond Doran whilst on government service. At the end of the war Doran was transferred from Cairo to British Mandatory Palestine and became the Area Security Officer for Jaffa/Tel Aviv. His living quarters and office were located above another government office located at the municipal boundary between Jewish Tel Aviv and the Arab port of Jaffa. He died of wounds received in a terrorist attack on his quarters on 9 September 1946. He was buried at the Ramleh War Cemetery now located in Israel. Major Doran had been specifically targeted by the

Lehi Lehi (; he, לח"י – לוחמי חרות ישראל ''Lohamei Herut Israel – Lehi'', "Fighters for the Freedom of Israel – Lehi"), often known pejoratively as the Stern Gang,"This group was known to its friends as LEHI and to its enemie ...

because he was a threat to the organistation. Doran's Romanian-born wife Sanda and other military personnel Arab and British were involved in the attack. Major Doran's obituary notice indicates that Sanda Doran did survive the injuries received in the attack.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Doran, Desmond 1913 births 1946 deaths MI6 personnel British Army personnel of World War II Intelligence Corps officers Burials at Ramleh Commonwealth War Graves Commission Cemetery British military personnel killed in action Military personnel from Marylebone British military personnel of the Palestine Emergency Terrorism deaths