Lt Col Graham McKinley OBE WKhM(G)

The following obituary is reproduced from an item published on the Rifles Network website.

Graham McKinley, who died on Alderney on 15th April, won his spurs serving in the Northern Frontier Regiment of the Sultan of Oman’s Armed Forces in the Dhofar Insurgency in 1970/71. While there he was awarded the Sultan's Distinguished Service Medal (for gallantry), WKhM (G), proving himself as a spirited, aggressive and able tactical commander. He was probably happiest soldiering on operations but nevertheless, proved to be an equally well-organised and decisive staff officer.

Graham, one of three sons of the distinguished RAF wartime commander, Air Vice- Marshal D. C. McKinley CB CBE DFC AFC, was commissioned into 3rd Green Jackets in 1965. The author, then a volunteer rifleman in the Battalion, remembers a dashing platoon commander, admired by us, who matched Shakespeare’s ideal young officer who would have been the first up the ladders on the enemy’s tower and just as promptly daringly assailing a lady’s bower.

His selection as adjutant to (then) Lt Col Bob Pascoe’s 1 RGJ in Celle in 1972 on his return from secondment in Oman, is evidence of an ascendant star. He had early command of Letter B Company on the 1973 Belfast tour, in the notorious Divis Flats, and again in the following year in Crossmaglen. At about this time Graham completed the full SAS selection course but had to face rejection right at the very end. It must have been a bitter blow to an officer of his proven operational experience and fitness, but he never allowed the disappointment to colour his time at regimental duty.

A posting to 4th Volunteer Battalion in Davies Street as Training Major was perhaps an odd decision by the posting authorities in the light of his evident operational expertise, but he made use of the stability of the job, becoming a family man and passing Staff College selection. His posting as Military Assistant to the Chief of Staff, BAOR, on graduation from Camberley shows that the directing staff thought highly of his potential as a staff officer.

Returning to company command in 1 RGJ, he completed a tour in Bessbrook Mill, South Armagh, as Patrols Company commander, then moved with the same battalion to Aldergrove, for an active tour commanding Letter B Company. It turned out to be his last appointment at regimental duty.

Graham’s next posting was as OC of the Platoon Commander’s Division at the School of Infantry, which was an acknowledgment of his well attested tactical and soldiering ability. This was followed by a one-year tour in the recently re-won Falkland Islands as a Lieutenant Colonel heading the operations branch of the British Forces Headquarters. Here he played a leading role in the development of the Mount Pleasant airfield and base, for which he was appointed an OBE on his return from the Falkland’s in 1985. Perhaps as a reward, he spent the following year at the US Command and General Staff College, Fort Leavenworth, Kansas.

His next appointment was back in HQ BAOR in Rheindahlen, in the Operational Requirements Branch during the interesting and sometimes tense last years of the Cold War. The records show that he moved from there on a long language course at Beaconsfield to upgrade his Arabic. But the actual defence diplomacy posting that followed took him not to the Middle East but to West Africa, as Defence Adviser in the British High Commission in Accra, where regional tensions were growing around the deteriorating situation in Sierra Leone and other nearby fragile states. Graham finished his Army career in West Africa, where he clearly found an agreeable mix of challenging operational problems, soldier-to-soldier diplomacy and independence of action.

Following his retirement under the redundancy scheme in 1993, he remained in the region working as a security consultant for the UN and World Food Programme to deliver their humanitarian programmes. It was the kind of work for which he held all the right qualifications earned in a long career as an operational commander, linguist and staff officer. He could be unconventional and had an independent streak that might sometimes have appealed more to overseas colleagues and superiors than to the strait-laced commanders at home.

Graham married Jackie (Jacqueline), from whom he was later divorced. They had a son and two daughters: Tom, who predeceased him, Emma and Sophie. A fourth daughter, Sereita, was born in West Africa. Following in his father’s footsteps, Graham bought a house on Alderney in 1985, and from there he continued to advise on humanitarian projects world-wide before finally settling down in 2005. He was active in local government on the Island, serving on the States Council and, for a time, as the Alderney representative in the Guernsey States Council.

Graham was buried on Alderney. A thanksgiving event is being considered.

Address for letters of condolence: please address to Henry Jones (son-in-law) with a request to share with other members of Graham’s family. hsmjones111@hotmail.com