Brigadier Ian MacAlister Stewart, 13th Laird of Achnacone, DSO, OBE, MC & Bar, DL (17 October 1895 – 14 March 1987) was a Scottish military officer who served in the British Army during both the First and Second World Wars.
Known for his eccentric training methods, he commanded the 2nd Battalion of the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders, which participated in the Malayan campaign and the Battle of Singapore during the Second World War.
[1] Stewart was commissioned into the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders in February 1914[2] and on 11 August of that year became the first British soldier to land on French soil[3] and the first to be mentioned in a despatch.
[4] He served throughout the First World War and was highly decorated, earning the Military Cross[5] and Bar,[6] and was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire.
Stewart's military career was dominated by his service with the Argylls, a regiment to which he was so wedded that when he was given command of the 2nd Battalion in the 1930s some of his brother officers did not even realise that he was married with a daughter.
[10] Due to this obsession with jungle training Stewart earned himself a reputation as a crank amongst the more traditional minded officers of Malaya Command.
[10][11] When the 2nd Argylls were thrown into the battle in early December 1941, the battalion was one of the few effective units the Japanese would face in their rapid advance down the peninsula, inflicting heavy casualties in every engagement.
[12] When the Battle of Malaya finally ended and the surviving Allied soldiers retreated across the causeway onto Singapore Island, Stewart and his batman, Drummer Hardy, were the last to cross.
Officers with jungle warfare experience who had actually fought the Japanese and seen their tactics in action were in high demand by the army command in India.
[16]Stewart's report, written after his arrival in India, and his knowledge along with that of the other officers and men who escaped from Singapore, had a direct effect on the training and tactics that would be used by the British and Commonwealth Armies in fighting the Japanese throughout the rest of the war.