The Wartime Memories Project - The Second War

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241721 L/Cpl. James Albert Whyteside British Army 1st Btn. Queen's Own Cameron Highlanders from:Glasgow My father, James Whyteside, headed from Glasgow to Inverness to enlist shortly after war was declared in 1939. Up to that point he had been training as a lawyer's clerk. I knew that he had been evacuated from Dunkirk and used to show me the stump of his big toe that been shot off! Otherwise, he really didn't speak about his experiences. He died in 1978 and it was only recently that I was able to find out more. We now know he was the 1st Battalion in Belgium and France and was made an acting Lance Corporal, probably because of the horrendous loss rate in the battle of France. We could not understand why he joined the Cameron Highlanders as there is no obvious family association with either the Regiment or Inverness. Perhaps in his youthful enthusiasm (he had turned 19 in August 1939) he just wanted to join a kilted regiment. His father had served with the Scottish Rifles in WWI (he lost a leg and subsequently infection killed him when my father was 11 or 12, so our other theory is that my grandmother, who was not a great one for detail, confused the Cameron Highlanders with the Cameronians when talking to my father about his dad. After returning to Britain, I know that my father was posted to Wick as we have a photo of him dated that year in uniform at the beach. Volunteers were being sought for the RASC, which offered higher rates of pay for clerks, and being a trained clerk this must have seemed an attractive option to my dad. Unfortunately, he was posted to Singapore just in time to become a POW of the Japanese - an experience that affected him very badly both mentally and physically. Jim Whyteside Add to this record.  Related Content: 1st Battalion, Cameron Highlanders (Queens Own) Operation Dynamo - The Evacuation from Dunkirk and nearby Beaches Battle of France and The Low Countries 1940 Battle of Singapore Royal Army Service Corps Royal Army Service Corps Royal Army Service Corps Royal Army Service Corps 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.