His elder brother, the Hon Simon Fraser, who had only been commissioned on 1 August from the 3rd (Special Reserve) Battalion, Gordon Highlanders, was killed in the same action.
[8] By the end of the war Fraser was a temporary lieutenant-colonel, with a Distinguished Service Order, a Military Cross, and three Mentions in Despatches, on 1 January 1918,[9] but on the return of peace he reverted to the substantive rank of captain, serving on the staff at Sandhurst.
He commanded the 1st Battalion, Grenadier Guards for a year, until he was sent to Paris as British military attaché, where he was serving when the Second World War broke out in September 1939.
[11] He was not there for long, however, as in mid-February Fraser was appointed to command the newly created 24th Infantry Brigade (Guards), organising for the proposed intervention in Norway.
[12] Eventually, after much changing of plans, the brigade set out in early April as the first echelon of 'Avonforce', under Major General Pierse Joseph Mackesy, to recapture the port of Narvik from the German invaders.
Mackesy and two companies of Scots Guards from Fraser's brigade arrived on 14 April, the day after the conclusion of the Battles of Narvik that had destroyed German naval forces in the area.
[13] By the time Fraser resumed command of his brigade on 14 May, the situation had changed, and attention was directed to the area of Mo, to prevent German reinforcements advancing from the south.
[14] However, the following day, while travelling back from Mo to Harstadt aboard HMS Somali, the destroyer was damaged by enemy bombing and had to return to the United Kingdom for repairs, taking Fraser with her.
[4] From 1945 to 1947 he was chief of the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration mission in Paris, delivering food and medical aid and dealing with displaced persons.