Gustavus Henry March-Phillipps, (1908 – 12 September 1942; sometimes spelled "March-Phillips") was the founder of the British Army's No. 62 Commando, also known as Small Scale Raiding Force (SSRF), one of the forerunners of the

Special Air Service The Special Air Service (SAS) is a special forces unit of the British Army. It was founded as a regiment in 1941 by David Stirling, and in 1950 it was reconstituted as a corps. The unit specialises in a number of roles including counter-terr ...

(SAS). He was also noteworthy as being one of

Ian Fleming Ian Lancaster Fleming (28 May 1908 – 12 August 1964) was a British writer, best known for his postwar ''James Bond'' series of spy novels. Fleming came from a wealthy family connected to the merchant bank Robert Fleming & Co., and his ...

's main inspirations for the character of

James Bond The ''James Bond'' franchise focuses on James Bond (literary character), the titular character, a fictional Secret Intelligence Service, British Secret Service agent created in 1953 by writer Ian Fleming, who featured him in twelve novels ...

Military career

March-Phillipps was a special operations veteran who proved remarkably successful in his missions.Combined Ops website
/ref> In ''

The Daily Telegraph ''The Daily Telegraph'', known online and elsewhere as ''The Telegraph'', is a British daily broadsheet conservative newspaper published in London by Telegraph Media Group and distributed in the United Kingdom and internationally. It was found ...

'',

Max Hastings Sir Max Hugh Macdonald Hastings (; born 28 December 1945) is a British journalist and military historian, who has worked as a foreign correspondent for the BBC, editor-in-chief of ''The Daily Telegraph'', and editor of the ''Evening Standard''. ...

noted: "In January 1942 he launched

Operation Postmaster Operation Postmaster was a British special operation conducted on the Spanish island of Fernando Po, now known as Bioko, off West Africa in the Gulf of Guinea, during the Second World War. The mission was carried out by the Small Scale Raiding ...

, a picaresque 'cutting-out expedition', which seized two Italian merchantmen from the neutral Spanish colonial port of Santa Isabel in West Africa, and towed them triumphantly to Lagos." After the raid March-Phillipps was awarded the

Distinguished Service Order The Distinguished Service Order (DSO) is a Military awards and decorations, military award of the United Kingdom, as well as formerly throughout the Commonwealth of Nations, Commonwealth, awarded for operational gallantry for highly successful ...

. He was

killed in action Killed in action (KIA) is a casualty classification generally used by militaries to describe the deaths of their personnel at the hands of enemy or hostile forces at the moment of action. The United States Department of Defense, for example, ...

during

Operation Aquatint Operation Aquatint was the codename for a failed raid by British Commandos on the coast of occupied France during the Second World War. The raid was undertaken in September 1942 on part of what later became Omaha Beach by No. 62 Commando, also ...

, which took place on the German-occupied French coastline in September 1942. Intending to harass the enemy and boost the Allied morale, March-Phillipps led a raiding team of 11 men onto a beach in Goatley canoes. The landing was on an incorrect area of the beach, and they came under heavy fire from a German patrol. Four of the raiders were injured and taken prisoner, four men went on the run but were eventually captured; the rest of the team were killed, including March-Phillipps who was shot when trying to swim ashore after his canoe got damaged. On the Commando Veterans website, the following note accompanies the text on his gravestone: "In Memory of Major 39184 Gustavus Henry March-Phillipps DSO MBE Royal Artillery and Commando, Small Scale Raiding Force who died age 34 on 12 September 1942. Remembered with honour at ST. LAURENT-SUR-MER CHURCHYARD" HeadstoneGusMarchPhillipps

Personal life

March-Phillipps married fellow SOE agent Marjorie Stewart (an actress before and after the war, later Lady Marling) on 18 April 1942. He was the nephew of Gustavus Hamilton Blenkinsopp Coulson.

In popular culture

March-Phillipps is portrayed by

Henry Cavill Henry William Dalgliesh Cavill ( ; born 5 May 1983) is a British actor. He gained worldwide recognition for portraying Superman in the DC Extended Universe (DCEU), beginning with '' Man of Steel'' (2013) and reprising the role in '' Batman v S ...

in the 2024 film ''

The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare ''The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare'' is a 2024 action comedy war film directed, co-written and produced by Guy Ritchie, and starring Henry Cavill, Eiza González, Alan Ritchson, Henry Golding and Alex Pettyfer. Based on the 2014 book ' ...

'' which depicts a heavily fictionalised version of the events of

Notes

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:March-Phillipps, Gus 1942 deaths 1908 births Special Air Service officers British Army personnel killed in World War II British Army Commandos officers Officers of the Order of the British Empire Royal Artillery officers Companions of the Distinguished Service Order English military personnel