David Paton: Wartime medical officer who took part in 'The Greatest Raid of All'

David Paton was a wartime medical officer involved in one of history's most audacious raids behind enemy lines. The last survivor of what has been dubbed "The Greatest Raid of All", the St Nazaire raid of 28 March 1942, he was part of an elite Royal Navy and Army commando unit, under Lord Louis Mountbatten, Chief of Combined Operations, which was sent to destroy the dry dock at the French port in an attempt to neutralise the Tirpitz, the German battleship that threatened Britain's vital Atlantic supply lines.

Born in 1912, in Lanarkshire, he attended Hamilton Academy before reading medicine at Glasgow University. It was there that he joined the Officer Training Corps and, after qualifying as a doctor, he worked at the Western Royal Infirmary until his call-up to the Royal Army Medical Corps in 1939. He served at the War Office and in various camps in the south of England before being appointed medical officer at the Catterick Garrison in Yorkshire.

There he met the "love of my life", Phyllis Dimmock, who became his wife in 1941. It was during that spell that he experienced what he later described as "the life of Reilly" in the armed forces, but he knew that reality was just around the corner. Just before Christmas 1941 he was transferred to Orkney, and then to Ayr, where he was seconded to the Commandos.

His exploits helped him to become an outstanding raconteur and wit, both in uniform and back in "civvy street", and he contributed valuable background to a Channel 4 series on the history of the Commandos which was broadcast in 2002.

The purpose of the new commando unit was to carry out spectacular assaults and lower the morale of the enemy, and Operation Chariot – the St Nazaire Raid – was so daring that it depended on the Germans never imagining that it would ever be attempted. Army intelligence calculated that by destroying the only dry dock big enough to accommodate the Tirpitz, the big battleship would be rendered impotent. The plan was to ram a First World War destroyer, the obsolete HMS Campbeltown, packed with explosives, into the site, accompanied by 18 shallow drift boats which were fishery protection vessels made of wood.

In a letter to his wife, to be read after his death, Paton wrote: "It may be of some comfort to you to know that if I go down at least I go down in an attack, and I want you to hold your head high as I am managing to do despite my forebodings." His fears that raid would be rumbled proved correct, and, he said, "all hell broke loose" as his little fleet of ships became sitting ducks under the searchlights. At one stage he and his comrades found themselves kicking shells off the decks as he jumped from boat to boat tending the wounded.

He was particularly annoyed because he had warned that an observation post would almost certainly have mounted guns. Intelligence officers (photographic reconnaissance analysts), however, had said the opposite.

From below decks where he was tending the wounded, Paton saw the battle unfold through a hole in the side of the boat. He also remembered the captain asking if he had any spare sticking plasters to cover some of the holes.

Only three of the 18 wooden "little ships" made it back home. After the war he was often asked which of the three boats he was on and he replied: "All of them." The Campbeltown was rammed into the dock and later exploded after German soldiers had boarded it with captured men. The captured commandos, although facing certain death, did not reveal that Campeltown was about to explode. Their bravery put the dry dock out of action and the Tirpitz was finished off by the RAF months later.

It was an heroic but costly action. All but 27 commandos were either killed or captured. Of the 622 men who took part in the raid, 168 men were killed and 214 taken prisoner. Only 22, including David Paton, returned to Britain, and five escaped to the Spanish border.

When he returned to base three days later, almost a mental and physical wreck, a nurse reprimanded him for being unshaven. None of the survivors received medals for their gallantry. Paton saw action again on D-Day when he landed on Sword Beach, Normandy. He left the army with the rank of Lieutenant-Colonel.

After the war he became a general practitioner in Slough. He retired in 1972 at the age of 60, but continued to work as a police surgeon for the Thames Valley Force.

Terence Pattinson

David Paton, doctor and wartime medical officer: born Hamilton, Lanarkshire 30 July 1912; married 1941 Phyllis Dimmock (died 1995; two sons, two daughters); died Slough, Berkshire 10 July 2008.