Peter Cochrane (soldier)

James Aikman Cochrane, DSO, MC (12 May 1919 – 5 December 2015) was a Scottish soldier who was awarded the Military Cross and the Distinguished Service Order during the Second World War. He later had a career in book publishing and printing and wrote a well-received account of his war-time experiences.

James Aikman Cochrane was born in Glasgow on 12 May 1919, the only son of Margarita Cochrane and Major James Aikman Cochrane. Major Cochrane, who served with the Royal Scots Fusiliers and Royal Flying Corps in the First World War, won the Military Cross, and the Belgian Croix de Guerre avec Palme and Croix de Chevalier de l'Ordre de Leopolde. Peter had a younger sister Marigold. His mother decided that he should be known as "Peter" to differentiate him from his father and a cousin. He spend his early years at his father's posting in the Far East, and was later educated at Loretto School in Edinburgh. In 1938 he went up to Wadham College, Oxford University, where he read law but left to join the army before he could graduate.

Cochrane was commissioned into the Queen's Own Cameron Highlanders in February 1940 and joined the 2nd Battalion in Egypt soon afterwards. On 22 October, during the start of the Western Desert campaign, he and his men were ordered to test the strength of the enemy in a raid on an Italian position near Sidi Barrani. They found vehicles rather than the expected enemy fortifications, and destroying the vehicles, withdrew to base on board the last remaining one. Their interpreter was a Libyan prisoner conversant in Italian. As soon as they started their withdrawal, they were shelled and mortared by enemy positions with rifles. The Libyan driving the vehicle proceeded very slowly stuck in bottom gear, forcing them to abandon the lorry in a wadi. Cochrane ordered his men to disable the vehicle under heavy shelling and tracer rounds. On his return to Company HQ with his small group he was recommended for and received a Military Cross for "coolness, resource and initiative under fire beyond praise" in that action.

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