William Buchan, 3rd Baron Tweedsmuir

William James de L'Aigle Buchan, 3rd Baron Tweedsmuir (10 January 1916 – 29 June 2008), also known as William Tweedsmuir, was an English peer and author of novels, short stories, memoirs and verse. He was the second son of the writer and Governor General of Canada, John Buchan.

Early life and career

Brought up at Elsfield Manor, outside Oxford, he frequently wrote poetry as a boy and appeared as "Bill" in his aunt Anna Masterton Buchan's popular novels, written under the pen name "O. Douglas". Visitors to the family home included a 15-year-old Jessica Mitford in the summer of 1932, T. E. Lawrence, a week before his death in 1935, and, that same year, Virginia Woolf, who called him "a simple".

Buchan attended Dumpton School in Dorset and the Dragon School in Oxford, Visiting the set of Alfred Hitchcock's film version of The Thirty-Nine Steps, a novel written by his father, the young man became interested in the movie industry, and Buchan senior got him a job working with Hitchcock at Gaumont-British Motion Picture Corporation. His salary as third assistant director was a token five shillings a week, so he lived off an allowance from his parents and lodged in London with the writer Elizabeth Bowen. It was becoming clear to him that he was being edged out of his job at Gaumont-British when a throat ailment resulted in an operation, causing him to leave sooner. To recuperate, he went to Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, where his father was serving as governor general. On the order of the Canadian prime minister, Mackenzie King, the young Buchan was barred, along with his brother Alastair, from a nightclub outside Ottawa.

He then moved to New York in 1937, where his father provided him with literary connections. At one point he asked the critic Alexander Woollcott for a job but was told, "When I was a boy you were supposed to go to the bottom of the nearest tree and climb steadily until you got to the top." the commission was confirmed, and he was promoted to war substantive flying officer, precisely a year later. After the Japanese invasion of Singapore, 261 Squadron was sent to reinforce the air force on Java. By the time it arrived at Ceylon (now Sri Lanka), on the carrier Indomitable, the pilots were ordered to fly to RAF Station China Bay on that island. On Easter Day, 5 April 1942, the squadron saw intense action against Japanese bombers from five aircraft carriers mounting a major attack against Colombo. When the Japanese force withdrew four days later, the carrier Hermes and two cruisers had been sunk, and only six of 261 Squadron's original 18 aircraft were serviceable.

Buchan twice had to bale out of his aircraft and came close to death on other occasions. At one point a cannon shell struck behind his cockpit seat; on another, a shell hit his ammunition reserve but didn't go off. After serving with air defence for Ceylon and Madras, he was transferred to air headquarters in Calcutta for six months, then returned to join No. 17 Squadron in Ceylon. He was back in England in April 1945 to serve at RAF Training Command, where he compiled a history,