William Alan Watson Shearer (13 August 1917 – 9 July 1995) was a member of the British Free Corps in the Waffen-SS during the Second World War. Shearer was born in Northamptonshire in August 1917. A Lieutenant in the 4th Seaforth Highlanders, he was the only British officer to join the Corps, with the exception of the brief involvement of Douglas Berneville-Claye. This was the result of his having suffered a serious nervous breakdown in March 1943. He had become suicidal in the wake of this. He rarely left his room and would not put on his BFC uniform. After a few weeks he was returned to the Ansbach mental asylum and eventually repatriated to Britain by the Red Cross in January 1945.[1] He died in Northamptonshire in July 1995 at the age of 77.[2]