Name Arthur Swinson Role Writer | Died 1970, Spain Books Scotch on the Rocks | |
Arthur Horace Swinson (c.1915–1970) was a British Army officer, writer, playwright, and historian.
Born in St Albans, Hertfordshire, Swinson attended St Albans School. He enlisted in the Rifle Brigade in 1939 and in 1940 was commissioned into the Worcestershire Regiment. In the Far East he fought at the 1944 Battle of Kohima as a Staff Captain with the British 5th Brigade, which commanded the 7th Battalion of his Regiment. The diaries he kept during the battle are now lodged in the Imperial War Museum. He served until 1946, with postings in Malaya, Burma, Assam and India during World War II. He subsequently became a writer and producer at the BBC where he produced a number of programmes for Richard Attenborough.
In 1966 Swinson wrote and published "Kohima," an account of the Battle of Kohima which was fought from April to June, 1944 and in which he was a participant. The preface states that Field Marshal William Slim directed Swinson to ensure that Kohima and Imphal are described as twin battles fought under Slim's 14th Army. This Swinson does. Ultimately, however, the book focuses on the experience of the British 2nd Infantry Division. The book is a good adjunct to Slim's "Defeat Into Victory" and Masters' "Road Past Mandalay." He was married with three children.
Swinson was the author of Scotch on the Rocks (1963 and 2005), which told the true story of the wartime wreck of the S. S. Politician, on which Compton Mackenzie's novel Whisky Galore (1947) - and the Ealing Comedy of the same title - were based.