Murdo Macleod

A sailor's family story meets Norway's royal escape in 1940.

In June 1940, HMS Devonshire carried King Haakon VII and Norway's government to safety as German occupation tightened its grip on the country. Family history connects Royal Naval Reserve sailor Murdo Macleod with this chapter of the Second World War, although his individual ship postings have yet to be independently confirmed through service records.

Macleod is remembered by his family as having served in the Royal Naval Reserve, including reported service aboard the heavy cruiser HMS Devonshire. On 7 June 1940, the cruiser embarked King Haakon VII, Crown Prince Olav and Norwegian government representatives at Tromsø. Their arrival in Britain allowed Norway's government in exile to continue its resistance.

On 8 June, the German warships Scharnhorst and Gneisenau sank HMS Glorious and her escorts HMS Acasta and HMS Ardent. HMS Devonshire received a difficult to read signal from Glorious during the wider operation. Macleod's personal presence and duties aboard the cruiser during these events remain unestablished.

Family accounts also associate Macleod with HMS Alaunia, a requisitioned Cunard liner used as an armed merchant cruiser. Alaunia undertook patrol and convoy related service on Atlantic and Indian Ocean routes, with movements through East Africa, India and Ceylon, now Sri Lanka. She was withdrawn from armed merchant cruiser service in May 1944 and later converted into a naval repair ship. Macleod's dates aboard her require confirmation.

In May 1945, HMS Devonshire escorted the surrendered German cruiser Prinz Eugen from Copenhagen toward Wilhelmshaven. Prinz Eugen subsequently passed to United States control and was used in the 1946 Operation Crossroads atomic bomb tests. No individual evidence places Macleod in the escort or the later American operations.

The seven awards currently attributed to Macleod are the 1939–1945 Star, Atlantic Star, Arctic Star, Africa Star, Burma Star, War Medal 1939–1945 and Royal Naval Reserve Long Service and Good Conduct Medal. They remain a provisional family attributed group pending individual entitlement records. The Arctic Star was instituted retrospectively in 2012 and first issued in 2013, so it could not have been in an original medal display assembled in the 1990s.

According to the family account, Macleod's grandson framed medals held by the family as a Christmas present during the 1990s. This display preserved the memory of his reported wartime service. His RNR record and original medal documentation are needed to establish his full service chronology and honours.