The Wartime Memories Project - The Second War

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208619 Drummer Thomas Aitken Copland British Army 1st Battalion Gordon Highlanders My uncle Tom Copland was captured along with the rest of his comrades at St Valery. He, like many others, spoke little of his time in the camps but he has spoken to a cousin and as soon as I get more tales I shall add them. The one story I am aware of was of him sitting in a car many years post war. I don't know where they were or what the circumstances were but Tom was sitting in front. All at once a man sitting in the back announced that he would know that voice anywhere. He had been in a punishment pit in the camp, and Tom had risked his own life to drop bits of bread down to him so that he would have something to eat. Neither man had ever seen the other face to face, but Tom's voice and strong Aberdeenshire accent was truly the voice of an angel to his comrade. Tom returned home to Aberdeenshire after the war and was, in the words of his sister, a puir sowel when he got home. Dreadfully thin. He went on to be a Deputy Firemaster, continuing to fight to save lives. Andi Neilson Add to this record.  Related Content: 1st Battalion, Gordon Highlanders Can you help us to add to our records? Add a record to our website. The names and stories on this website have been submitted by their relatives and friends. If your relations are not listed please add their names so that others can read about them Did you or your relatives live through the Second World War? Do you have any photos, newspaper clippings, postcards or letters from that period? Have you researched the names on your local or war memorial? Were you or your relative evacuated? Did an air raid affect your area? If so please let us know. Help us to build a database of information on those who served both at home and abroad so that future generations may learn of their sacrifice. Contact us. Celebrate your own Family History Celebrate by honouring members of your family who served in the Secomd World War both in the forces and at home. We love to hear about the soldiers, but also remember the many who served in support roles, nurses, doctors, land army, muntions workers etc. Please use our Family History resources to find out more about your relatives. Then please send in a short article, with a photo if possible, so that they can be remembered on these pages.

The free section of the Wartime Memories Project website is run by volunteers. We have been helping people find out more about their relatives wartime experiences since 1999 by recording and preserving recollections, documents, photographs and small items. The website is paid for out of our own pockets, library subscriptions and from donations made by visitors. The popularity of the site means that it is far exceeding available resources and we currently have a huge backlog of submissions. If you are enjoying the site, please consider making a donation, however small to help with the costs of keeping the site running. Hosted by: The Wartime Memories Project Website is archived for preservation by the British Library Copyright MCMXCIX - MMXXIV - All Rights Reserved We do not permit the use of any content from this website for the training of LLMs or for use in Generative AI, it also may not be scraped for the purpose of creating other websites.