Alan George Warren

Though the first Royal Marine to complete the Staff College, he decided to transfer to the RAF and learnt to fly at RAF Netheravon (27 Apr 1925) and RAF Leuchars (16 Nov 1925). He flew with 441 Flight on the aircraft carriers HMS Hermes and HMS Eagle in the 1920s in the Mediterranean and China Sea

He was an officer with MI(R) in 1939 and took part in an abortive attempt to rescue men who had evaded the Germans in Belgium but not escaped from Dunkirk. This was wholly unsuccessful and the men had to row back across the English Channel ending with their rescue by the Dungerness Lightship.

He was briefly in Kent with Auxiliary Units with Peter Fleming in 1940.

26 Dec 1941 he then went on to join SOE, serving with Force 136 in the Far East. He role was to set up a stay behind force in Malaya, working with Spencer Chapman. He ended up at Padang in Sumatra, now Indonesia, having arranged escape lines to there from Malaya. Finding 800 men abandoned by their senior officers there, causing upset to the civilian population and Dutch Authorities, he took charge and surrendered them on behalf of the British Army to the advancing Japanese. It was a dangerous thing to have done as the Japanese had placed a bounty on his head. All were sent to a camp on the River Kwai in Thailand. He survived the ordeal and the Japanese never realised his identity as the saboteur they intended to execute.

He went on to command 42 Commando RM, 23 Jun 1947 to 27 Jan 1948, and became Adjutant General, Royal Marine.

He  changed his surname by deed poll to Ferguson-Warren on 11 Nov 1949.

He retired on 21 Jan 1953.

He became Head of the English Department at Flint Hill School, Oakton, Virginia, USA

On being diagnosed with cancer, he returned to the UK to die, seeing out his last year in Hampshire.