206687 Pte Alexander Lauder British Army 8th Battalion Argyle & Sutherland Highlanders from:Deanston, Perthshire Sandy Lauder served in France in 1940 and went to North Africa, Tunisia, Sicily, Italy. He was captured at Termoli 1943 and spent rest of war as POW. The camp he was in was liberated by the Russians who pointed them in the direction of the Allies. Eventually they reached the American Army who put them in trucks to take back behind the lines. Unfortunately the truck he was in was involved in an accident which left him with a fractured skull.
After returning back to Britain and recuperating he was demobbed.
On the bus home he overheard someone saying that the village had organised a welcome home for him. He had the driver stop the bus and he walked a mile over the fields and slipped in the back door of his parents house to avoid the crowd. Like many of the returning soldiers he had that hidden guilt of surviving when so many of his friends had not.
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