Page 239 - They Also Served

115
Carol Mather 1940.
David Carol Macdonald Mather was
born in Adlington, Cheshire, on 3rd
January 1919. Educated at Harrow, he
went up to Trinity College, Cambridge,
where, riding in a point-to-point race,
his horse threw him. Remounting, he
won the race when the four jockeys in
front all fell at the final fence. Mather
volunteered for service immediately
upon the outbreak of war, entering
Sandhurst on one of the first wartime
intakes. Although destined for the Welsh
Guards, he was permitted to interrupt
his training to join the newly formed 5th Battalion Scots Guards, created to support Finland in the Winter War with Russia. However, the war ended before troops could be deployed, so he completed his training at the Welsh Guards depot and was commissioned in March 1940.
After the fall of France, Carol Mather volunteered for service with 8 Commando, then, after brief service in the Middle East, for L Detachment under David Stirling, the nucleus of the SAS. His first operation was the raid against Sidi Haneish Airfield, where 25 enemy aircraft were destroyed. Offered a chance to serve with his brother on the staff of General Montgomery, Mather took part in one last raid behind enemy lines but was captured and, such was his value, sent to Italy on a submarine. When Italy capitulated in September 1943, he escaped before the Germans arrived to take over the camp and walked 600 miles to Allied lines. Employed on Montgomery’s staff as a forward reconnaissance officer, he was awarded the MC for acting as the general’s ‘eyes and ears’ during the Arnhem operation.
In January 1945, he was carrying out an aerial reconnaissance of the front line when the Auster he was a passenger in was attacked by German fighters and then shelled by friendly forces. Despite being shot four times, he survived the crash-landing as the other passenger leaned across the dead pilot to bring the aircraft to earth while Mather operated the flaps. Monty visited him in hospital and questioned the doctor, ‘How many holes in him?’ To which the reply was, ‘counting the shrapnel, thirteen’,
233