206092 Pte. Stewart Nisbit Russell British Army 2nd Btn Queens Own Cameron Highlanders from:Clydebank 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.
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