Major General Major general (abbreviated MG, maj. gen. and similar) is a military rank used in many countries. It is derived from the older rank of sergeant major general. The disappearance of the "sergeant" in the title explains the apparent confusion of ...

William Archibald Kenneth Fraser, (19 December 1886 – 9 February 1969) was an officer in the British Indian Army during the

First First or 1st is the ordinal form of the number one (#1). First or 1st may also refer to: *World record, specifically the first instance of a particular achievement Arts and media Music * 1$T, American rapper, singer-songwriter, DJ, and rec ...

and

Second World War World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposi ...

Military career

Born in British India, Fraser was the son of Colonel James Fraser of the Royal Army Medical Corps and Susan Alberta Graves of County Waterford.''India, Select Births and Baptisms, 1786–1947'' His father died in 1899 and the family returned to Ireland, where he was educated in

Dublin Dublin (; , or ) is the capital and largest city of Ireland. On a bay at the mouth of the River Liffey, it is in the province of Leinster, bordered on the south by the Dublin Mountains, a part of the Wicklow Mountains range. At the 2016 c ...

. He attended the

Royal Military College, Sandhurst The Royal Military College (RMC), founded in 1801 and established in 1802 at Great Marlow and High Wycombe in Buckinghamshire, England, but moved in October 1812 to Sandhurst, Berkshire, was a British Army military academy for training infant ...

and then joined the

Indian Army The Indian Army is the land-based branch and the largest component of the Indian Armed Forces. The President of India is the Supreme Commander of the Indian Army, and its professional head is the Chief of Army Staff (COAS), who is a four- ...

in 1905.Liddell Hart Centre for Military Archives
/ref> He served with the

9th Queen's Royal Lancers The 9th Queen's Royal Lancers was a cavalry regiment of the British Army, first raised in 1715. It saw service for three centuries, including the First and Second World Wars. The regiment survived the immediate post-war reduction in forces, but wa ...

and

16th The Queen's Lancers The 16th The Queen's Lancers was a cavalry regiment of the British Army, first raised in 1759. It saw service for two centuries, before being amalgamated with the 5th Royal Irish Lancers to form the 16th/5th Lancers in 1922. History Early wars ...

on the Western Front during the

First World War World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

, taking part in the

Great Retreat The Great Retreat (), also known as the retreat from Mons, was the long withdrawal to the River Marne in August and September 1914 by the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) and the French Fifth Army. The Franco-British forces on the Western Fro ...

in August 1914, the

Battle of Neuve Chapelle The Battle of Neuve Chapelle (10–13 March 1915) took place in the First World War in the Artois region of France. The attack was intended to cause a rupture in the German lines, which would then be exploited with a rush to the Aubers Ridge a ...

in March 1915 and the Battle of Arras in April 1917. Fraser became Commanding Officer of the South Persia Rifles in 1919, Assistant Quartermaster General in 1920, and Inspector General of the South Persia Rifles later that year. He went on to be military

attaché In diplomacy, an attaché is a person who is assigned ("to be attached") to the diplomatic or administrative staff of a higher placed person or another service or agency. Although a loanword from French, in English the word is not modified accord ...

Kabul Kabul (; ps, , ; , ) is the capital and largest city of Afghanistan. Located in the eastern half of the country, it is also a municipality, forming part of the Kabul Province; it is administratively divided into 22 municipal districts. Acco ...

in 1922, military attaché in

Teheran Tehran (; fa, تهران ) is the largest city in Tehran Province and the capital of Iran. With a population of around 9 million in the city and around 16 million in the larger metropolitan area of Greater Tehran, Tehran is the most popul ...

in 1924 and military Secretary to the Governor of Bengal in 1930. He was made Commandant of

12th Cavalry (Frontier Force) The 12th Cavalry Sam Browne's Cavalry (Frontier Force) is an armoured regiment of Pakistan Army. It was formed in the British Indian army in 1922 by the amalgamation of 22nd Sam Browne's Cavalry (Frontier Force) and 25th Cavalry (Frontier Force) ...

and Commander of the Jubbulpore Brigade in 1935, a General Staff Officer Grade 1 at Lahore District in 1936 and Commander of the Mhow Brigade in 1937. Fraser served in the

and, having been promoted to

major general Major general (abbreviated MG, maj. gen. and similar) is a military rank used in many countries. It is derived from the older rank of sergeant major general. The disappearance of the "sergeant" in the title explains the apparent confusion of ...

on 26 December 1940 (with seniority from 21 April), he became Commander of the 10th Indian Infantry Division on 15 January 1941. During the

Anglo-Iraqi War The Anglo-Iraqi War was a British-led Allied military campaign during the Second World War against the Kingdom of Iraq under Rashid Gaylani, who had seized power in the 1941 Iraqi coup d'état, with assistance from Germany and Italy. The ca ...

in 1941, the ground forces from

India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...

that landed in

Basra Basra ( ar, ٱلْبَصْرَة, al-Baṣrah) is an Iraqi city located on the Shatt al-Arab. It had an estimated population of 1.4 million in 2018. Basra is also Iraq's main port, although it does not have deep water access, which is han ...

were initially part of an operation codenamed Operation Sabine and, as a result, the force itself was known as Sabine Force. Fraser, commander of the 10th Indian Infantry Division, arrived in Basra on 18 April with his headquarters, one brigade of infantry and a regiment of artillery and assumed command of all ground forces in the Kingdom of Iraq. The name

Iraqforce Iraqforce was a British and Commonwealth formation that came together in the Kingdom of Iraq. The formation fought in the Middle East during World War II. Background During World War I, the British Army defeated the Ottoman Army in the Middle Eas ...

replaced Sabine Force and, as force levels built up, Fraser was succeeded as commander of Iraqforce on 8 May by a more senior commander, Lieutenant General

Edward Quinan General Sir Edward Pellew Quinan (9 January 1885 – 13 November 1960) was a British Army commander during the Second World War. In the early part of his career, he was involved in Indian Army campaigns in Afghanistan and Waziristan on the N ...

. On 16 May, having fallen sick, Fraser was replaced as commander of the 10th Indian Infantry Division by Major General

William Slim William is a male given name of Germanic origin.Hanks, Hardcastle and Hodges, ''Oxford Dictionary of First Names'', Oxford University Press, 2nd edition, , p. 276. It became very popular in the English language after the Norman conquest of Engl ...

. Fraser retired on 1 June 1941. Fraser was then re-employed by the British Army in the rank of colonel from 18 December 1941 until November 1945 as the military attaché in Teheran; he was restored to the rank of major general on retiring once again.

Honours and Decorations

* Companion of the Order of the Bath – 1 January 1941 *

Commander of the Order of the British Empire The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is a British order of chivalry, rewarding contributions to the arts and sciences, work with charitable and welfare organisations, and public service outside the civil service. It was established ...

– 29 September 1922 – for valuable services rendered in connection with minor military operations undertaken by the South Persia Rifles, to be dated 1 September 1922 *

Distinguished Service Order The Distinguished Service Order (DSO) is a military decoration of the United Kingdom, as well as formerly of other parts of the Commonwealth, awarded for meritorious or distinguished service by officers of the armed forces during wartime, ty ...

– 12 September 1919 to date from 3 June 1919 for "distinguished services rendered in connection with military operations on the North West Frontier, India, in Persia and Trans-Caspasia" &

Bar Bar or BAR may refer to: Food and drink * Bar (establishment), selling alcoholic beverages * Candy bar * Chocolate bar Science and technology * Bar (river morphology), a deposit of sediment * Bar (tropical cyclone), a layer of cloud * Bar (u ...

– 17 June 1921 for "distinguished services rendered in connection with minor military operations within the Indian Empire or territories adjacent thereto" *

Member of the Royal Victorian Order The Royal Victorian Order (french: Ordre royal de Victoria) is a dynastic order of knighthood established in 1896 by Queen Victoria. It recognises distinguished personal service to the British monarch, Canadian monarch, Australian monarch, o ...

– 20 March 1928, for the visit of the King of Afghanistan *

Military Cross The Military Cross (MC) is the third-level (second-level pre-1993) military decoration awarded to officers and (since 1993) other ranks of the British Armed Forces, and formerly awarded to officers of other Commonwealth countries. The MC ...

– 14 January 1916 to date from 1 January 1916 – New Years honours * Mentioned in despatches – 1 January 1916 * Croix de guerre (Belgium) – 14 May 1948 * Order of Astaur and sash (Afghanistan) – 1928

Personal life

Fraser married in 1920 Cicely Annie Bill, widow of John Hugo Hepburn Bill of the Indian Civil Service (they had married in 1911 and he was killed by Kurds on 3 November 1919 while lieutenant colonel and Political Officer, Mosul, late resident at Bushire), daughter of Major Robert W. Bill and had one daughter, born 27 November 1923.

Notes

References

* * * * * Indian Army List (various dates) *

External references

* *
Portrait and Biography
{{DEFAULTSORT:Fraser, William Archibald Kenneth 1886 births 1969 deaths Graduates of the Royal Military College, Sandhurst Indian Army personnel of World War I Indian Army generals of World War II Commanders of the Order of the British Empire Companions of the Distinguished Service Order Companions of the Order of the Bath Members of the Royal Victorian Order Recipients of the Military Cross British military attachés British Indian Army generals Military personnel of British India