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Those known to have served with No.3 Commando during the Second World War 1939-1945. The names on this list have been submitted by relatives, friends, neighbours and others who wish to remember them, if you have any names to add or any recollections or photos of those listed,
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Records of No.3 Commando from other sources.
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The Wartime Memories Project is the original WW1 and WW2 commemoration website.
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Library contains an ever growing number diary entries, personal letters and other documents, most transcribed into plain text. |
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Want to know more about No.3 Commando? There are:1367 items tagged No.3 Commando available in our Library
These include information on officers, regimental histories, letters, diary entries, personal accounts and information about actions during the Second World War. |
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RE Hickey 3 Commando Special Service Battalion RE Hickey served with the 3 Commando Special Service Battalion British Army. I have his unissued dogtags, made in preparation for deployment to the Far East and would love to get them home to his family. I am happy to cover all costs. If you are a family member or can put me in touch with them please get in touch. Update: The Wartime Memories Project is no longer in contact with Dan , his website, facebook page and email have all ceased to function. But if you can add any details about the person listed, please use the add to record link below.
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CJ Coughlin 3 Commando Special Service Battalion CJ Coughlin served with the 3 Commando Special Service Battalion British Army. I have his unissued dogtags, made in preparation for deployment to the Far East and would love to get them home to his family. I am happy to cover all costs. If you are a family member or can put me in touch with them please get in touch. Update: The Wartime Memories Project is no longer in contact with Dan , his website, facebook page and email have all ceased to function. But if you can add any details about the person listed, please use the add to record link below.
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Pte. John Airy No. 3 Commando John Airy was a private in No. 3 Commando. His landing craft came ashore at Sword beach ten minutes behind Lovat and Millen. He didn't hear any pipes and his memories of landing was just the horrific scenes of carnage.
Fifty years after D-Day he recounted his recollections of the landing: "There was spasmodic shelling on the beach as we arrived. Many bodies lay sprawled all over the beach, as young men of the East Yorkshire Regiment who had been in the first wave of the landing, now lay mutilated or dying".
No. 3 Commando landed and marched inland to join up with Lovat's beloved No. 4 Commando. Before they had even spotted Lovat and his men, they could hear the bagpipes playing in front of them. Airy has pleasant memories of hearing 'Millin's cheerful playing' in the middle of the invasion.
Our next task was to meet up with the 6th Airbourne Division who were holding the bridgehead over the River Orme. By 2 p.m. with Lord Lovatt at our head, his piper playing a cheerful tune, we then crossed the bridge under heavy sniper fire.
Across the bridges, Airy volunteered for a stretcher party to move the wounded back down the line for safety. He came across a German patrol and was surrounded by Germans in a wood. Captured, Airy was transported across Germany into Poland, Stalag VIIIA. As a commando, the young private was interrogated and put into solitary confinement. He was then marched further across Poland, in ˜near artic conditions" and put to work in a Polish sugar factory for 12 hours a day. He laboured at the work camp for over a year and he received a ladle of soup and 1/5th of a loaf of bread per day.
In February 1945, the Russians freed the POWs and Airy made his way to the River Ebve where he was finally rescued by the Americans.
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Pte. William Howard Royal Hampshire Regiment My Dad, William Howard enlisted on 8th of September 1939, in the Hampshire Regiment. He was posted to Nantes, France on the 1st of November 1939. Later he was transferred to 22nd Anti Tank Regiment, Royal Artillery then No. 3 Commando and was in 4 Troop.
Dad mentioned very little about his service. It would be nice if any readers could add to his involvement.
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Pte Charles Thomas Vernon HQ Signals Platoon. No.3 Commando (d.6th June 1944) Chas Vernon was on LCI (s)501 (293) we believe and fell near Sword Beach.
He had a short military career after running away to join South Staffs at 16 yrs old. He was a signaller. We believe in No 3 Commando HQ Troop.
He went from Queens RR as a Gunner to South Staffs then was sent to Achnacarry to trial to be a Commando. He got his Green Beret and then was very quickly sent down south to Southampton to await the first D Day Amphibious wave of attack. He was on his way to Sword, Queen Red.
He fell in a field just past Sword. He is buried at Hermanville with his comrades.
He was into every sport and boxed and played football: his young brother (that he would never get to know) went on to play for Arsenal. My Uncle known as Joe to family, after a boxer of that time, is missed and respected dearly.
His brother, Billy Vernon, was in the Navy and was in a ship bombing the coast line further up the coast. HMS Erebus (monitor) War ship with 2 x 15 inch guns.
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Mjr. George Alwyne Fyson MID. Royal East Kent Regiment My father, George Fyson, was in the Buffs and no. 3 Commando. He was in the Lofoton Islands raid on the Vaagso raid as a Corporal. He was Mentioned in Despatches. He was not at Dieppe as he had been sent for officer training, which my mother said saved his life as his platoon was wiped out. He finished the war as a Major.
I also have a number of regimental photos which are not titled, often with my father front and centre as the officer. He was shot in the leg during house to house fighting; unfortunately I don't know where or when, and was saved by his batman. He appears in a photo I have seen several times online of soldiers returning from the Vaagso raid on HMS Leopold. Whilst training in Scotland he lay on barbed wire for men to cross over him, and acted as ski instructor as he was the only person who had skied before the war. The officer asked 'Anyone skied before?' My father said he had. 'Right, you are the instructor' said the officer! These are the very few things that I learnt from him before he died at the age of 59 in 1977. Two brothers died in WW2: PO Jack Fyson in RAF and Lieutenant Don Fyson RNVR.
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Sgt. Thomas Henry Atkinson King's Own Yorkshire Light Infantry  Thomas Atkinson signed up in 1939, aged 17 years. He decided to join the 3 Commando Brigade in 1940 and took part in the Normandy Landings. He took out a MG42 nest by rolling a grenade over the top of the sand bags. The next day he took part in an assault on Jersey which failed miserably. Sgt Atkinson had no choice but to swim back across the channel as the landing craft had been destroyed by MG fire.
Following the murder of his sisters (who were in the Queen Alexandria's Nursing Corps) by the Nazis, he went back to Europe with 12 Commando. He fought his way through France and Belgium to the Bulge and held the lines with "some yanks" as he always said.
After working his way through to Germany, it was time to call it a day and return home. Whilst back in England, his unit was preparing to go to the Pacific, but Sgt Atkinson, being a bit of a lad, decided to go to the local pub, when, as he stepped outside, he slipped on the curb and was hit by a passing trolley bus. He woke up some six weeks later in hospital and was told that his war was over.
He spent his well earned peace days as a security guard at Loughborough University and was a very keen gardener. Unfortunately, he did not speak of his actions that make the world a safer place, until just before his death in 2005.
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Capt. John Smale No. 3. Commando Captain Smale served with No. 3 Commando and was taken captive at Dieppe in 1942.
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Frank Lawrence No.3 Commando Frank Lawrence and Bert Hall of No. 3 Commandos were billeted with my parents in Largs, Ayrshire, taken prisoners after the Dieppe raid and sent to Stalag 8b. I'm looking for any information.
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Bert Hall No.3 Commando Bert Hall and Frank Lawrence, No. 3 Commandos were billeted with my parents in Largs, Ayrshire, they were both taken prisoners after the Dieppe raid and sent to Stalag 8b. I'm looking for any information
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Recomended Reading.Available at discounted prices.
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Fighting with the CommandosNeil Barber & Stan Scott
the recollections of Stan Scott, No. 3 Commando
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