206118 Lance Corporal Joe McGoran British Army 2nd Btn Queen's Own Cameron Highlanders from:Glasgow 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!
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