Major Mark Gilchrist Gregson

Mark Gregson was Guy’s brother and, like him, a gunner. He served as a Major in the 1st Field Regiment, Royal Artillery, and was killed in action on 15 July 1942, during the First Battle of El Alamein. He was thirty-three years old. At that very moment, Guy was serving in the Middle East — two brothers, both Royal Artillery officers, both in the desert.

The Commonwealth War Graves Commission certificate for Mark names both parents — Colonel Henry Guy Fulljames Savage Gregson, CMG, and Inez Mary Mowat Gilchrist — and connects the childhood portrait, the signet ring, and the Fairbairn’s entry into a single family story.

Commonwealth War Graves Commission

Service Number: 40383

Unit

1st Field Regiment, Royal Artillery

Died

15 July 1942

Age

Son of

Henry Guy and Inez Mary Mowat Gregson

Husband of

Christine Rozel Pigot Gregson, of Chard, Somerset

Buried at

El Alamein War Cemetery

Plot

XXI

Row

Grave

The Cemetery & The Grave

Photographs and records from El Alamein War Cemetery, 130 kilometres west of Alexandria. 7,240 burials.

Headstone of Major Mark Gilchrist Gregson, El Alamein War Cemetery

Mark’s Headstone

Plot XXI, Row D, Grave 19. The Royal Artillery badge. The space for a personal inscription is blank.

El Alamein War Cemetery

The cemetery lies on the coast road between Alexandria and Mersa Matruh, near the battlefield.

Rows of Headstones

7,240 servicemen are buried here, 815 of them unidentified. Designed by Sir J. Hubert Worthington.

The Cemetery Grounds

Maintained by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission since 1942.

The Cross of Sacrifice

The standard CWGC Cross of Sacrifice, present in every Commonwealth war cemetery of significant size.

The Cemetery Approach

130 kilometres west of Alexandria, on the Egyptian coast.

Plan of El Alamein War Cemetery showing plot locations

Cemetery Plan

The layout of El Alamein War Cemetery. Mark lies in Plot XXI, toward the rear of the cemetery.

Grave registration document for Major M.G. Gregson

Grave Registration Report

The original grave registration, recording Mark’s details as entered by the burial party or graves registration unit.

Grave Concentration Report

After the battle, scattered field burials were concentrated into the permanent cemetery. This report records the transfer.

El Alamein War Cemetery

Location

El Alamein, Egypt

130 km west of Alexandria, on the coast road to Mersa Matruh

30.83819°N, 28.94707°E

The Cemetery

7,240 burials — 815 unidentified

View on CWGC →

Mark’s headstone carries the badge of the Royal Artillery and his name, rank, and date of death. Below, where other families wrote their farewells — a line of scripture, a word of love — the space is blank.

No personal inscription was requested. Whether no family member was asked, or whether the choice was deliberate, is not known.

Christine Rozel Pigot Williams

Christine was born on 28 May 1910, the daughter of Admiral Hugh Pigot Williams and Christine de Villiers Steytler. Her father had commanded the British naval mission to the Ottoman Empire and served as Fleet Commander of the Ottoman Navy from 1910 to 1912. Her grandfather was General Sir John William Collman Williams, KCB, of the Royal Marines. Her uncle, Major-General Edward Ingouville-Williams — known as “Inky Bill” — was killed on the Somme on 22 July 1916. Another uncle, Major-General George Williams, was killed in the Boer War.

Two military dynasties were joined by Mark and Christine’s marriage: the Gregsons of Lancaster, three brothers in the Royal Artillery, and the Williams family of Havant, where a general, an admiral, and two major-generals served across three generations — and two were killed in action. Christine’s uncle fell on the Somme; her husband at Alamein. Two world wars took men from the same family.

Her middle name “Rozel” is a Jersey place name, honouring her grandmother Georgiana Isabella Ingouville of La Frégonnière, Jersey. Her mother was Christine de Villiers Steytler — South African, of Huguenot descent — who died in 1924 when Christine was only fourteen. After Mark’s death, Christine remarried Henry Woodward. She died in September 1991 in Chichester, West Sussex.

Two Brothers in the Desert

Guy and Mark Gregson were both gunners, both in the Western Desert in 1942. When Mark was killed during Operation Bacon at Ruweisat Ridge — the first major counterattack of the First Battle of El Alamein — Guy was serving in the Middle East at that very moment. Three Gregson brothers served in the Royal Artillery: John, Guy, and Mark. The full story of how their paths converged, and how one came home and one did not, is told in the biography.

Read Chapter Two: Two Brothers →