Alastair Malcolm was born in Glasgow, Scotland on 7 September 1923, the son of Mr Alexander Stirling Malcolm and Mrs Margaret Dorothy Malcolm (née Bailey). In the 1939 Register the Malcolm family were living at 39, Hesketh Drive, Southport, Lancashire – his father was listed as an advertising space salesman and Alastair Malcolm was listed as being at school.

Alastair Malcolm joined the Royal Navy Volunteer Reserve as a Temporary Midshipman on 22 January 1943. He volunteered for ‘Special Service’ and was appointed to HMS VARBEL on 25 February 1943 where he trained as a X-Craft submariner. He was promoted to Temporary Acting Sub Lieutenant RNVR on 1 September 1943. He was selected for the operational crew of HMS X5.

X5 took part in the attack on the German battleship TIRPITZ in Kaa Fjord, Northern Norway on 22 September 1943. X5, with a passage crew on board, left Loch Cairnbawn on 18 September 1943 and was towed to the operational area by HMS THRASHER (Lieutenant A R Hezlet, RN). The operational crew took over from the passage crew for the approach to the target and the attack. It is known that X5 made its way into the area around the TIRPITZ but was not seen again after being fired at and depth charge attacks.

HMS X5 was lost with its operational crew. Alastair Malcolm of Southport, Lancashire, who was Mentioned in Despatches (posthumously – see London Gazette of 1 August 1944) “for great daring and enterprise in the attack the German Battleship Tirpitz carried out by Midget Submarines in September 1943“.  He commemorated on the Portsmouth Naval Memorial on Panel 80, Column 1 and on the 12th Submarine Flotilla memorials at Rothesay on the Isle of Bute and at Kylesku.