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Capt. Fulvio Cameli . Italian Army My father was commandant of the English and Australian POW camp in Tobruk in 1941. He was responsible for the transfer of the same POWs to Italy via Triploi on 8th March 1941.
He had such good relations with the POWs that they presented him with a Leika camera on their arrival in Naples. He was arrested and imprisoned for three months pending investigation for his alleged "association with the enemy". He helped them build a chapel, organised football matches, distributed double rations of cigarettes and tea (which was prohibited), and much more)
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LAC. Joseph Andrea Camera . Royal Air Force 34 Service Flying Training School from London My grandfather, Joseph Camera, was originally in a reserved occupation being a skilled craftsman making eye glasses. I'm unsure of his full history but do know he ended up at 34 SFTS as an airman - whether this was by volunteering or by a change in the draft rules I know not.
During his time at Medicine Hat he met the woman who would become my grandmother, Olive Nesbit whose family were local horse ranchers (I believe). They went on to marry while my grandfather was still stationed in Medicine Hat.
Family history has it that my grandfather was being held in a transit camp prior to a posting overseas. He was confined to camp because they were expected to move at any moment, but my grandad and his pal broke out of camp to go to the pub, only to find that on return their draft had been sent overseas.
By all accounts this caused some embarasement all around as a head count was taken at the time and numbers were counted as correct.
Another draft in the same camp that was sent out later that same day had two people on sick call when the time came so my grandad and his pal were switched into this one to avoid any awkward questions.
By good fortune the second draft was going to Canada and my grandfather's original draft was sent to Burma! So the story goes - if he hadn't been such a lush our whole family history would have been completely different.
I do remember his stories of being placed on burial detail as a punishment for some infringement and being told he would not be allowed off until an entire row of 20 was full. He tried to argue that he couldn't be on the firing detail as he was left handed but the Air Force being far too smart for that told him he would carry the wreaths instead. He did say that a full row of 20 was never filled in his time at Medicine Hat.
Another story (backed up by photo evidence) was that his hut used to keep a live rattlesnake tethered to a post by rope outside their barrack block.
I am unsure of his full history in the Air Force but do know that at some point he was posted to Northern Ireland as a guard in a German POW camp.
He also told a story of being at RAF Middle Wallop in the middle of an air raid. He and a pilot ran into a bunker type area to shelter and shared a smoke while the raid was on. When the all clear sounded they walked out of their shelter to find they had been seeking refuge in a petrol dump!
My grandmother eventually moved back to wartime London, travelling by one of the first convoys that had Canadian wives moving to the UK. My grandmother told us as children about being in the middle of the convoy and watching other ships in the convoy being torpedoed at night.
My grandfather was eventually demobbed only to be re-enlisted straight away into the Army joining the South Stafffordshire Regiment. He told us that they went into one room and where released from the RAF and as they walked out of the door at the other end they were then re-enlisted into the Army.
His request to be put into a Southern or London Regiment in typical Army fashion saw him into the South Staffs.
He told me that one of the conditions of his enlistment into the Army was that he was allowed to keep his LAC salary as an enlisted man which meant that the Air Force guys who were transferred into the South Staffs were paid more than their Army enlisted men colleagues, a big bone of contention at the time.
As you may have gathered - my grandad was a bit of a rogue and remained so until the day he died.
If anyone knew him or my grandmother then I would be thrilled to hear from them.
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A Cameron . British Army A Cameron served with the 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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A Cameron . British Army A Cameron served with the 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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Sgt. A. H. Cameron . 102 Squadron
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AI Cameron . British Army AI Cameron served with the 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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AK Cameron . British Army Royal Armoured Corps AK Cameron served with the Royal Armoured Corps 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. Alan James Campbell Cameron . British Army Army Air Corps Alan Cameron's daughter Averil knows little about her fathers past other than he was brought up by the Donnelly family at 7, Aberfoyle Terrace, Strand Road, Derry. He went to the family at the age of 6 years old. Mrs. Donnelly, Rosina was a sister of Alan's mother Isabella Mooney. Alan worked as a foreman builder and lived in Ashton-under-Lyne, Lancashire. His wife's name was Joan.
Alan joined the Army Air Corps and as a paratrooper was dropped into German enemy lines. He was captured, having sustained a broken leg. He was held at Stalag X1-B in Fallingbostel and was POW No. 117367.
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Sgt. Albert Francis "Snuffy" Cameron Honorable Mention. Canadian Army Queen's Cameron Highlanders Canada from Ottawa The person lighting the cigarette on the right looks exactly like my grandfather, Albert Cameron who was a sergeant and posted to UK. Is there a way to verify the person in the picture? Any assistance would be greatly appreciated.
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Cpl. Allan Cameron . British Army 2nd Btn. Cameronians (Scottish Rifles) from Glasgow Allan Cameron joined the 6th Btn. Seaforth Highlanders at Fort George in 1943. He was transferred at some point to the 2nd Cameronians.
He served in North Africa, Palestine, Anzio, up through Italy, into Vichy France, then Holland, Belguim and ended his war at Lubeck and was demobbed in 1947. He died in Glasgow on 26th February 2017 aged 92 years. A very fine man.
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Capt. Dan Cameron . United States Army 430th AAA
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Cmdr. Donald Cameron VC.. Royal Navy HMS X6 from Scotland
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F/O. Douglas Alexander Cameron . Royal Australian Air Force 226 Squadron from Victoria, Australia (d.10th May 1940) Flying Officer (Pilot) Douglas Cameron was the Son of Gordon Douglas Cameron and Amelia Emily Jessie Cameron, husband of Jessie Taylor Cameron of Hawthorn, Victoria, Australia.
He was 25 when he died and is buried in the Diekirch Communal Cemetery in Luxembourg.
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EF Cameron . British Army Royal Armoured Corps EF Cameron served with the Royal Armoured Corps 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. Ernest Cameron . British Army 7th Btn. Royal Worcestershire Regiment My Dad, Ernie Cameron, was a friend of Bill Clifton and he took Dad home in Malvern to have a bath before they got sent abroad. Dad recognised himself at once on the above photo, he is third from the left.
 
Dad was captured in May 1940 and taken to Stalag XXA but most of the time he and many others were sent to out to work on the roads and the farms. The work they did was hard and no amenities, not a lot of food not much of anything. He was also on the march in 1945 where he saw some dreadful things, Dysentry, starvation, frost bite, it was about 800 to 900 miles, was'nt it ,up the Baltics and down them. He recalls the Germans being terrified of the Russians finding them, as Dad said the "Russians" had no discipline at all. The air cracked it was so cold, they starved, toes dropped off and many, many, dying along the way.
There are lots of things now Dad tells me, if I ask him but it is only now not when I was younger, it holds too many bad memories for him. He says he can't believe it actually happened, that he actually did it, his family didn't recognise him when he got home, he was that thin, and now he is saying, what was it all for.
I've enclosed the photos in case anyone recognises themselves. Dad knows the faces but not the names. Could anyone help?
Dad enjoyed the site, we printed it off for him so he could read it quietly in his own time. Thank you very much.
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LAC Gregor Harry Cameron . Royal Canadian Air Force 420 Squadron from Montreal, Quebec, Canada My father Gregor Cameron passed away when he was only 43. All I knew about his war experiences was that he lied about his age, like many young men of the time, and enlisted at age 17 in the Royal Canadian Air Force. He enlisted on August 9, 1943 in Lachine, Quebec. He was in the 420 RCAF Snowy Owl Squadron and his rank was LAC, meaning Leading Aircraftsman which I think was a mechanic.
Dad was shipped to England from Halifax on April 4, 1944 disembarking in the UK on April 11. I do not know the name of the ship or where he would have disembarked in the UK. I would love to have more information on this transport to the UK. When his parents complained that he was underage and serving in England, he was shipped back to Canada on September 22, 1944. I have determined that he would have served as ground maintenance crew, in all likelihood, and that he was probably at the base in Tholthorpe, Yorkshire.
Although Dad was only in England for 5 months, I am keen to learn more about what he could possibly have been doing for those 5 months. He stayed on in the RCAF until his discharge on May 9, 1946. Anyone with more info can contact me at my e-mail. Thank you.
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Fus. H. Cameron . British Army 2nd Btn. Royal Scots Fusiliers On 28 January 1944, during World War II, the Orvieto North railway bridge at Allerona, Italy, was the site of the inadvertent bombing by the American 320th Bombardment Group of a train filled with Allied prisoners. Most of the POWs had come from Camp P.G. 54, Fara in Sabina, 35 kilometres to the north of Rome, and had been evacuated in anticipation of the Allied advance. One of the men on the train, Richard Morris of the U.S. Army, wrote that the train was halted on the bridge over the river when the Allied bombs started to fall, and that the German guards fled the train, leaving the prisoners locked inside. Many escaped, Morris included, through holes in the boxcars caused by the bombing, and jumped into the river below. Historian Iris Origo wrote that 450 were killed when the cars ultimately tumbled into the river.
He was captured at Garigliano. He survived the wreck uninjured. He was sent to Stalag 344 Lamsdorf
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Gnr. Hugh Cameron . British Army Royal Artillery from Glasgow My father Hugh Cameron enlisted in the Royal Artillery on 3rd February 1939. He was posted to France with the British forces and was captured at Dunkirk. He was transferred to Poland and ended up in Stalag XXB. I have a number of photographs taken during his time there.
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J Cameron . British Army Lancashire Fusiliers J Cameron served with the Lancashire Fusiliers 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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J Cameron . British Army Royal Armoured Corps J Cameron served with the Royal Armoured Corps 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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Sgt.Maj. James McGarry Cameron . British Army 4th Battalion Black Watch from Montrose Jim Cameron, a native of Montrose Angus, enlisted at Perth on the 19th May 1924 three days after his 17th Birthday. His father Tommy had been in the Highland Cycle Battalion (Black Watch) during the Great War.
Jim was with the regiment for almost 22 years. He had served in India, Palestine, France, Gibraltar and North West Europe. He returned to France with the 51st in June 1944 and remained in Europe until September 1945. He left the Army in January 1946. He was a Sergeant Major.
He married his wife Mary in Kirkintilloch in January 1940 and was on the French/Belgian border a month later. Mary went on to enlist in the WAAF in March 1941 and was released in September 1945.
Jim as well as being an infantry soldier was a bandsman who went on to become Drum Major. He often related a particular story when asked about frightening experiences during his service days. He stated that he was a drummer boy stationed in a Stirlingshire mining village during the miners strike in 1926. The soldiers often played football with the striking miners and feelings were not that strained. However, a situation developed one day which brought the soldiers into some disagreement with one or two of the miner's wives. Jim was berated and denigrated by one of the women and Jim pleaded his case saying that he was just a drummer boy. The woman who Jim described as a big heifer threatened to take his drumsticks and well you could imagine the rest. Jim says that he retreated in good order. It would be fair to say that Jim as a young man developed a healthy respect for mining communities.
Jim was my father and as a youngster I accompanied him to either a 51st or a Black Watch gathering on the North Inch of Perth. He was always at his best in the company of men he had served with. At functions he would approach the drummer in the live band, give him a few bob to go and get a pint and my dad took over and yes he was very good. He often regaled the company with a song the two recruiting sergeants always in the company of his nephew Chic who had been a sergeant major in the Scots Guards. Chic died in 1982 and I never heard the song again.
My father died in 1986. He was survived by his wife, three sons and a daughter.
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James MacCowan Cameron . British Army Black Watch from Glasgow, Lanarkshire, Scotland James MacCowan Cameron was a Dunkirk survivor. He was born in 1918 in Glasgow, Lanakshire, Scotland.
I am currently looking for his regiment/service number, so I can find out more about his service history and surviving Dunkirk. I know he was in the Black watch. I am told only my granddad and an officer survived in his unit.
He was very poorly after his ordeal and passed away in 1971 from cancer.
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Sgt. James Lindsay Cameron . Royal Air Force from Fort William (d.19th January 1945) Jimmy Cameron was a Navigator with the RAF.
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Pte. John Cameron . British Army Royal Engineers from Tillicoultry, Scotland John Cameron was captured within 6 days of the war and was from Scotland. I am trying to find out what regiment he would have been from first and then take it from there. He spent the whole war there also. There are three photos attached, one with a fellow prisoner. I am just looking for a starting point really.
Editors Note: a search on Ancestry shows that John Cameron was in the Royal Engineers and was a craftsman. Stalag XX-A was located in Torun, Poland. The Record Office given for this information is Royal Electrical Mechanical Engineers Record Office, 2A, Tichborne Street, Leicester.
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Sgt. John James "Jock" Cameron . Royal Air Force 136 Squadron from Inverness, Scotland
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W/O Norman Alister "Jock" Cameron MID.. Royal Air Force Air Gunner W/Op 103 Sqd. from Barnard Castle An extract from "Determination" the biography of 755390 W/0 Norman Alister Cameron
(by his daughter, Dani Miles nee Cameron)
Norman was born in 1917 and raised in Aycliffe Village. He knew that he wanted to fly from the age of 6 and he began to work out his dreams by making excellent model aeroplanes from that early age. Apparently he was inspired by the early aviation pioneers, flying circuses and such names as Owen Cathcart Jones and Alan Cobham. His guardian encouraged him in his ambitions. He did a succession of jobs whilst he made attempts to join the RAF. Meanwhile, until he truly earned his wings, he owned Norton and Brough Superior motorbikes on which he could fly up an down the A1 and A66.
On March 1st 1936, after numerous attempts, he was accepted into the Auxiliary Air Force; 608 Squadron RAF Thornaby, where he flew in, amongst others, Westland “Wapitis”, Hawker “Harts”, Hawker “Demons” and Avro “Tutors”. As his subsequent flying career was punctuated by at least nine “near-death” recorded accidents, as well as spending hours under fire in various Bombers, his survival can truly be described by that most abused expression - as attributable to having “Nine Lives”. Soon after he started flying, he used up his first two lives with crashes in which he sustained injuries which could killed him. At Muggleswade, Consett, as a passenger with a pilot practicing aerobatics, his ‘plane crashed with engine failure, in fields full of hay and hit a hay-rick, which caused it to turn over. The occupants were left hanging upside down in their straps, and he fell on his head and cut it open. The scar gave his hair an interesting parting. The smell of petrol and fear of fire remained with him for the rest of his days. On 11th July 1937, flying in formation with his Commanding Officer as pilot, the machine’s engine cut, and the ‘plane crashed at RAF Thornaby. He was knocked out and came round in an ambulance, suffering from concussion. Undeterred he transferred to the Volunteer Reserves on 27 June 1936.
When war broke out he was posted to Newton, Notts., where he joined the famous 103 Squadron of Bomber Command and was involved in many hair-raising operations collecting two mentions in despatches. Most notably he survived a crash landing in the mountains in Wales in January 1941 and a month later, a ditching in the North sea in February, where he floated for three days before being picked up by a Danish ship. Whilst he was missing. A wake was held for him and his crew at Newton.
As the result of frost bite and his injuries he was unift to go back to Bomber Command and he was posted to 276 Sqd Air Sea Rescue where he went on to have more spectacular exploits, being shot at in Walruses whilst rescuing others. The state of some of the bodies they pulled out of the sea, gave him nightmares for the rest of his life.
After the war he baled out of a burning Wellington that had been struck by lightening, over Pocklington on 5th November 1949. He was now a member of the Caterpillar Club as well as the Goldfish Club. About this time he gained a PPL at Middleton St. George where he gave his daughter her first flight, aged 2, in an Auster. He went on to serve in Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) where he bought his own Tiger moth. He survived a crash in an Anson in the Bush. On his return to England in 1955 he was posted to Watton, Norfolk with 192 Sqn, Central Signals Establishment on Radar Counter-Measures, flying in Lincolns. Its main role was to listen–in and record Warsaw Pact electronic activity.
Eventually his various war injuries caught up with him and he was "grounded" and so opted to leave the RAF in 1959. He spent many months in Roehampton and other hospitals, in great pain for the rest of his life. He became increasingly disabled and was nursed by his devoted wife, Anne, until his death aged 64.
Max Hastings articulates that which my father felt keenly, a considerable degree of bitterness and a perception of an ungrateful nation: “It is one of life’s unfairnesses that the public to this day cherishes the RAF’s war time Fighter Pilots, the defenders, with an uncomplicated enthusiasm that does not extend to the bomber crews, who showed equal courage and suffered far heavier losses. …the boys who were risking everything to frustrate Hitler’s demented ambition.” (Telegraph May 11 2003) “It is understandable that Bomber Command veterans harbour a sense of hurt and injustice. Over half their number, some 55,000 men in their teens and early twenties were killed. It’s a staggering statistic yet it rarely gets a mention. Just taking off with tons of high explosive weapons and fuel on board took incredible bravery, then to cope with memories of the screams of crew members injured or dying, of bodies so shattered they had to be hosed out of turrets, of hours of boredom, cramp and excruciating cold followed by 20 minutes of terror over the target – was superhuman.” (William Ivory, Radio Times Feb 2002).
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WO. Norman Alister "Jock" Cameron . Royal Air Force 103 Squadron WO Jock Cameron flew with my late uncle, Ralph William Crich, DFM who was the pilot of the Lancaster bomber during nearly all of World War 2.
According to his daughter Danni, Jock would not fly with anyone else. Their exploits are in a book called The Black Swan. Bill was a superb skilled pilot. Bill died tragically at Basra just after the war in a sand storm, ditching the BOAC plane deliberately in a way all the passengers were saved although killing the crew. He is buried in Basra. He has one surviving son, Ron, who lives in the UK.
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Flt.Sgt. Peter Talmage Cameron . Royal Australian Air Force 115 Squadron from Round Hill, Tasmania, Australia (d.22nd May 1944)
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W/O R. Cameron . Royal Canadian Air Force 419 Sqd.
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P/O. Robert Cameron . Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve Pilot 10 Squadron from Lindsay Drive, Glasgow (d.3rd Nov 1943) Pilot Officer Robert Cameron was a cousin of my late mother, Christina Hunter Currie (Mrs J. McClure). The family lived in Lindsay Drive, Glasgow. Robert joined the RAFVR in the late 1930's and trained as a pilot. I have no details of his service in the early years of the war but by 1943, he was a pilot flying Halifaxes with Number 10 Squadron at R.A.F. Melbourne.
On 3rd November 1943 at 16.52 he took off in Halifax serial number HX179 on a raid to Dusseldorf. Returning from the raid, the aircraft crashed at 21.16 and was burnt out at Park Farm, 1 mile north of Shipham Airfield in Norfolk. Mr Ernest Bowman, a member of the local Home Guard, dragged one of the crew, Sergeant Winstanley from the wreck. For this act of bravery Mr Bowman was awarded the BEM. Sadly Sergeant Winstanley died from his injuries two days later. The other members of the crew were killed in the crash.
Aboard HX179 were:
- P/O Robert Cameron,
- Sgt. S, Eyre,
- F/S R.A. Tann,
- F/L R. J. Fielder,
- Sgt J Hutton,
- Sgt A.N. Williamson,
- Sgt J Winstanley
Robert was commemorated in New Kilpatrick Cemetery, Bearsden, near the home of his parents, Charles and Christina Hunter (m/s Currie) Cameron in Glasgow. There were two other Halifaxes lost on that operation.
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