Alexander Wallace Fielding
|
Major Xan Fielding DSO |
|
|---|---|
| Birth name | Alexander Percival Wallace |
| Born |
26 November 1918 Ootacamund, India |
| Died | 19 August 1991 (aged 72) Paris, France |
| Allegiance |
 United Kingdom
|
| Service/branch | British Army |
| Years of service | 1940 – 1946 |
| Rank | Major |
| Service number | 159770 |
| Unit |
Cyprus Regiment Special Operations Executive |
| Battles/wars | World War II |
| Awards |
|
| Other work | Author, translator |
Major Alexander Wallace Fielding DSO (26 November 1918 – 19 August 1991) was a British author, translator, journalist and traveller, who served as a Special Operations Executive agent in Crete, France and the Far East during World War II.
Xan Fielding was born at Ootacamund, India, where his father, Alexander James Lumsden Wallace, served in the Indian Army, as a major in the 52nd Sikhs (Frontier Force). Fielding's mother Mary Gertrude (née Feilmann) died soon after his birth, on 13 December 1918, and he was largely brought up in Nice, France, by his maternal grandparents who adopted the name Fielding. He was educated at Charterhouse School, and then studied briefly at the Universities of Bonn, Munich and Freiburg in Germany. In the late 1930s Fielding moved to Cyprus, where he worked as a sub-editor on The Cyprus Times and ran a bar.
Following the fall of France, Fielding joined the Army, and was commissioned into the Cyprus Regiment as a second lieutenant on 1 September 1940. After the fall of Crete in May 1941, he joined the Special Operations Executive, and was eventually landed in Crete with a supply of weapons and explosives by the submarine Torbay, under Commander Anthony Miers. Fielding teamed up with Patrick Leigh Fermor, and built an intelligence gathering network which provided detailed information on the movement of Axis troops, shipping, and air transport.
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