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The 2nd Battalion The Cameron Highlanders
At the out break of The Second World War, The 2nd Battalion The Cameron Highlanders were in Egypt, they served in the campaigns of North Africa from September 1940 when they were captured at Tobruk on the 22 June 1942, 24 hours after their Brigade command had capitulated. Some men were able to escape but the majority were marched into captivity led by their pipers, an awesome sight to the enemy and fellow prisoners alike.
A Royal Artillery officer was witness to the arrival of 2nd Camerons to the POW cage:
"We heard, although we could scarcely believe it, the skirl of pipes. There, in the brilliant sunshine, marching down the centre of the road from the escarpment, came a long column of men. The Jerry traffic was brought to a standstill or forced on to the verges. A strange awed murmer went up from the cage: "The Camerons!"
"In columns of threes they marched with a swing to the tune of their pipers - 'The March of The Cameron Men' - each company led by its company commander, just as though they were on parade. It was a supremely moving sight, although some of us could only see it hazily through our tears.
"Even the Jerry sentries sprang to attention as the battalion neared the gates. There, the Camerons halted. Their Colonel reported to the Brigadier, saluted, and dismissed his men, who had held out for twenty-four hours after the surrender order had been issued."
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List of those who served with 2nd Battalion The Queen's Own Cameron
Highlanders during The Second World War
Select a story link or scroll down to browse those stories hosted on this site.
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Cpl. George Meek Matthews 2nd Battalion Cameron Highlanders (d.15th Jun 1941) I'm trying to find out about how my great uncle, George Matthewa died. I have just been given his medals and would like to know more about him. All I have is he died in North Africa on the 15/06/1941. |
Pte. Harold Thomas Shore 2nd Btn. Queens Own Cameron Highlanders (d.8th Sept 1939) The following is the story that my mother told me about her older brother, Harold Shore.
Harold was on duty at the Liverpool Docks at the beginning of the War. He was on night duty and when the morning came he was nowhere to be found. It was presumed that he had run away when the German fighters came and was therefore a deserter. White feathers were put through the letter box of his parents' house and people would turn their backs when the family walked down the street. When one of the docks was drained, Harold's body was found at the bottom with a German bullet in it. He was then declared one of the first victims of the war in Liverpool. The funeral hearse was pulled by black horses, his coffin covered with a Union Jack and a salute was fired over his grave. He is buried in a Commonwealth War Grave at Liverpool Allerton Cemetery. If anyone knows the truth or otherwise of this story I would like to know. |
Pte. Stewart Nisbit Russell 2nd Btn Queens Own Cameron Highlanders Stewart Russell was my dad. He died in June 1991 from cancer. In 1939 when the war was about to start my father lived in Parkhall, Clydebank with his mum and dad, four brothers and six sisters . He was in the employ of the Clydebank Co-op as an apprentice butcher when he got his call up papers on 27th June 1940. He enlisted in Perth and became a member of 5th battalion Queens Own Cameron Highlanders. His training and drilling etc. took place in and around Fort George and Inverness Castle (Inverness) after about six months' training he and his comrades sailed from Greenock bound for Egypt and the western desert. There they were to join the 2nd battalion (QOCH). En route they stopped off in Cape Town and it was there my father discovered the apartheid system. This came about when he was told he could not visit a township because he was white. On arrival in Egypt he and his comrades settled into life in the desert (the heat, the cold at night, the flies and of course the Afrika Korp). My father and his mates had the utmost respect for their opponents, Rommel, the German soldiers and the Italian troops that they were fighting. He told me many stories about his time there, but all of it was overshadowed by Tobruk. In 1942 his battalion defended the outer perimeter and after fierce fighting (my dad carried a Bren gun) a bombardment by artillery and Stuka bombers, the order was given to surrender with the Camerons fighting longer than any other regiment. As they were marched off to captivity and years as POWs my father remembers Rommel saluting him and the other British and Commonwealth troops (not the Nazi salute but an army one). After that they were shipped off to Italy where my father worked on a farm. Then they were moved by train through the Brenner pass to prisoner of war camps in Germany and Poland. My dad worked in the coal mines of Silesia where .the Germans would try to get defectors to join the British SS brigade (with no takers, they would pass leaflets in English extolling the virtues of joining the fight against the communist threat). When the Russians were nearing the camp my dad and his comrades were taken on the long march by their guards towards the American and British lines. Many didn't make it as they died on the way. Finally dad got home in a Lancaster bomber and he was eventually released from army service at York on 11th June 1946. I have his soldier's release book (marked 'conduct exemplary') and a photo of him in uniform taken in Alexandria in 1941/42. It has pride of place in my living room. He was entitled to wear the Africa Star 39/45 Star of Italy, Germany and France. He never did go back to his old job, but joined the Post Office as a postie and served in Clydebank (his home town ) for thirty years retiring in 1980. He married my mum in 1949 and my older brother Douglas was born in 1953 and they had me in 1959. |
Lance Corporal Joe McGoran 2nd Btn Queen's Own Cameron Highlanders Joe McGoran is my father. He was conscripted into the Army early in 1940 and sent up to Inverness (Fort George) for Basic Training. During his first leave in March 1940 he returned to Glasgow to marry my mother (Isabella McLeod McLeish) and they had a few days in Inverness before he returned to base. He is now living in Erskine Home, Renfrewshire and will be 94 years of age in December this year.
In the summer of 1940 the Battalion was in the Cherbourg Peninsula in North West France as a rear guard against further German advances after the fall of France and the evacuations at Calais and Dunkirk. After withdrawal they were returned to Scotland. He says the Camerons were "defending Scotland" at this time and as the then 2nd Battalion was actually in Egypt fighting Rommel then he must have been a member of the 4th Battalion which was stationed, the records suggest, in Orkney and Shetland.
Sometime in 1941 he was sent to Aruba (Dutch West Indies) to guard the oil refineries there and remained for about 18 months until relieved by the Americans who had entered the war after Pearl Harbour. The Camerons were then shipped home via New Orleans and were the first British soldiers to sail up the Mississippi since the War of 1812. They transited via New York city where my father sang in front of a large audience of US troops and city dignitories. He had sung with a Dance Band in Glasgow before the war and was a popular performer with his comrades in arms.
The 4th Battalion was then officially disbanded and reformed as the new 2nd Battalion in place of the heroic original 2nd Battalion soldiers who were exemplary in their valour and conduct at the fall of Tobruk.
In 1943 the new 2nds were then shipped as reserve troops to North Africa and thence to Sicily and the Italian mainland following in the footsteps of the advancing front line troops. In January of 1944 they entered the line at Monte Cassino and as part of the Indian Division held the Front at Cassino along with Ghurka and Polish troops.
Joe was a Bren gunner and has many startling tales of how the campaign was run, not all of them complimentary to tacticians or local NCOs! On the 25th of March 1944 while actually off duty in the watch rota my father and his loader were hit by an exploding German rifle grenade fired into their 'foxhole'. His right arm was blown off above the elbow and his right leg almost detached at the hip requiring a complete 'disarticulation' of the leg/hip. He was hauled down the mountain to a field hospital where the medical officer on duty saved his life by some magnificent surgery and suture work.
He was eventually shipped home to a Military Hospital in Birmingham and thence after some 5 months to Erskine Hospital in Renfrewshire where he spent almost a year in recovery. After returning home to his wife and two children in Glasgow he had to be fitted with prosthetic limbs and learn to walk, write, use cutlery, put coal on the fire and wash the dishes with only one arm and one leg.
In August of 1946 I was born. In 1948 Joe got a clerical job in the Ministry of Labour in Glasgow and worked there until a minor stroke caused his retirement at age 63 in 1979. He had learned to drive his own car and continued to do so until well into his 80's. He had fathered 4 more children and was a founder member and sometime Chairman of the Glasgow Branch of BLESMA (British Limbless Ex-Servicemen's Association) and a pillar of his Church and Community in the South West of the City where we had moved in November of 1948.
Although frail, and a widower of 15 years, Joe still enjoys conversation, company and singing when presented with the opportunity in the happy and supportive surroundings of the (now) Erskine Home.
We love you Dad and you'll always be our quiet hero! |
Dvr. Duncan "Bebe" Mackay 2nd Battalion Cameron Highlanders Duncan Mackay was a Land driver, he was posted in Egypt in 1944 |
Charlie Company: In Service with C Company 2nd Queen's Own Cameron Highlanders 1940-1944 Peter Cochrane
"Charlie Company" is something original, the story of a rifle company of the Cameron Highlanders whose record of service in the Western Desert, Eritrea, and throughout the Italian campaign fully deserves this tribute to their courage and endurance. Peter Cochrane joined the company as a young platoon commander in 1940. He won an MC in their first action in Libya, and followed this with a DSO for his part in the grim assault on Keren. Badly wounded there, he missed the disaster at Tobruk, but was back as company commander at Monte Cassino and afterwards for the long haul up Italy. From his own experience he has told the remarkable story of a small group of soldiers of whom any country would be proud. The stresses and horrors of war are there, but so is the humour and the wonderful spirit of men whose morale was somehow sustained to the very end. It is a deeply moving book.More information on:
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Charlie Company: In Service with C Company 2nd Queen's Own Cameron Highlanders 1940-1944
