Alistair Stuart MacLean (April 28, 1922 - February 2, 1987) was a Scottish novelist who wrote successful thrillers or adventure stories, the best known of which are perhaps The Guns of Navarone and Where Eagles Dare. He also used the pseudonym Ian Stuart.

Life

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MacLean was the son of a minister, and learned English as his second language after his mother tongue Scottish Gaelic. He was born in Glasgow but spent much of his childhood and youth in Daviot, near Inverness.

He joined the Royal Navy in 1941, serving in World War II with the ranks of Ordinary Seaman, Able Seaman, and Leading Torpedo Operator. First he was assigned to PS Bournemouth Queen, a converted excursion ship fitting for anti-aircraft guns, in duties off the coasts of England and Scotland. From 1943, he served on HMS Royalist, a Dido-class light cruiser. On Royalist he saw action in 1943 in the Atlantic theatre, on two Arctic convoys and escorting carrier groups in operations against Tirpitz and other targets off the Norwegian coast; in 1944 in the Mediterrean theatre, as part of the invasion of southern France and in helping to sink blockade runners off Crete and bombard Milos in the Aegean Sea (during this time MacLean may have been injured in a gunnery practice accident); and in 1945, in the Far East theatre, escorting carrier groups in operations against Japanese targets in Burma, Malaya, and Sumatra. (MacLean's late-in-life claims that in this last theatre he was captured by the Japanese and tortured have been dismissed by both his son and his biographer as drunken ravings. p. 191) After the Japanese surrender, Royalist helped evacuate liberated POWs from Changi Prison in Singapore.

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