When Barrie asked me if I’d like to contribute a piece on the Cameronians Blog about the Home Front for the 75th Anniversary Commemorations, I wondered just where to start and with what relevance to the Regiment?
However, a trawl through the newspaper archive on Find My Past is absolutely addictive, you do quickly end up heading down roads you didn’t plan to go down so self-discipline is vital. But as someone whose Mother was a schoolgirl in Clydebank during the duration of the war, I do have a personal interest in the subject. The questions I wish I could ask now that I didn’t at the time!
I’m fascinated by the build up to hostilities and all the plans and preparations in the local area, I suppose this stems from being a child of the Cold War growing up in Larkhall in the ’70s and ’80s and hearing our air raid siren being sounded regularly to summon our local Fire Brigade into action. It always got your attention!
So reading through the newspapers of the late 1930s and the reporting on how the various schemes and plans were devised has a relevance today with the Covid-19 situation. The Hamilton Barracks would have been the centre point of any planning in terms of available personnel, any air raid in the local area would’ve called upon the full resources of the Regiment at the Depot to assist with rescue and recovery duties, but there was a lot more going on all over Lanarkshire.
The most obvious and still visible signs of the Home Front defences in the local area are of course the remains of the two Anti-Aircraft Gun Emplacements, part of the Clyde Defences. One is up at Limekilnburn alongside the Strathaven Road while the other was situated in the huge camp on the Blantyre Farm Road. The defences in the area were under the command of the 42nd Anti-Aircraft Brigade of the Territorial Army. The 100th Heavy Anti-Aircraft Regiment had it’s Headquarters in Motherwell and was formed in 1939, initially made up of two Batteries, the 304th and 305th. The Emplacements were equipped with four 3.7 inch guns, a Control Bunker with height finding equipment and a Magazine. The sites are still relatively intact to this day, visible on Google Maps and on foot or bicycle in the case of Blantyre Farm. Limekilnburn had also been one of the proposed locations pre-war for a local airfield and fighter station. The remains of another Emplacement are situated near Busby and the White Cart Water.
Three pictures of the Blantyre Farm Road site taken on one of my cycling expeditions in early 2019, with some lovely local artwork added to it.
The most public of the plans were the evacuation and home shelter schemes. Various plans were drawn up for the evacuation of schoolchildren from high threat areas to the countryside, as well as what to do during raid alerts if they were still residing in Hamilton. Even more ominous was the report in 1938 that 350,000 gas masks had been stockpiled in Lanarkshire to be distributed on the eve of war breaking out.
As for public shelters, while many families in Hamilton would be busy building Anderson Shelters in their gardens or preparing their house as shown in the official government booklet, the residents of the newly built houses of the Fairhill Housing Scheme had purpose built, fully equipped basement shelters large enough for four households to take cover in, complete with protection against gas attacks. The official 1938 Home Office issued booklet makes absorbing if grim reading, with step-by-step guides on how to strengthen your house against bomb damage, fire fighting, first aid and most of all preparing your inner “Refuge Room” against the great fear of the time, the use of Mustard Gas. This was vividly portrayed in the 1936 film adaptation of the HG Wells book “Things to Come” with the air raid on “Everytown” that foretold the start of a thirty year long World War beginning on Christmas Day 1940. Combined with the news reports from the Spanish Civil War, the fear of a massive, destructive aerial assault was very real at the time.
As an aside, it’s remarkable to compare the 1938 Home Office booklet with the later Cold War equivalents, the 1960s Civil Defence Handbook #10 and the now legendary Protect and Survive from the late 1970s. The most sobering aspect is how little changed in their content over the decades with the “Refuge Room” becoming the “Fall Out Room” and radioactive fall-out replacing poison gas as the main concern. Even the current “Stay at Home” Covid-19 guidelines have strong echoes of these old civil defence books and the strong stay at home message contained in them.
The Hamilton air raid siren, connected to the National Air Raid Siren Network was situated atop the Burgh Electrical Works. The siren was tested just before the war and again in 1940 when the threat of invasion was very real and before the Luftwaffe came calling to the Clyde in 1941.
The sights and sounds of the war would’ve been highly visible above and around Hamilton, not just because of the huge part the Cameronians played in local life but with so many people in uniform, air raid precautions and the night time Blackout. Post war, so much of it would’ve gathered in Allan Gray’s Garage and Yard down in Braidwood where he did a roaring trade in war surplus lorries, equipment and huts after the War Office sales in Douglas and the decommissioning and dismantling of so many wartime camps. At one auction he was even acting as an agent on behalf of an Argentine concern, buying ex-Army transport to be shipped to South America while for himself he bought a few armoured cars. Even the Duke of Hamilton and his brothers, through the Hamilton Estates, were into war surplus and buying an amphibious DUKW truck at that same auction. They wanted to trial it as a potential ferry service up in the Hebrides.
Over 400 men of The Cameronians (Scottish Rifles) were, at some point, captured and made prisoner by the enemy during the Second World War. Almost 150 of these were men of the 2nd Battalion who were captured during the Battle of France and subsequent retreat from Dunkirk.[1]
German Prisoner of War tag, issued to 14383490 Rifleman Robert Smith, 2nd Cameronians. The tag was issued at Stalag VII/A, Germany’s largest POW camp, and is engraved with Smith’s prisoner of war number, 132263.
The plight and welfare of these men was of immediate concern to the Regiment. A number of initiatives and funds were soon in place to provide prisoners with both practical assistance, in the form of food and comfort packages, and with moral support – by way of letters of encouragement, reassurance, and the promise that they and their families would not be forgotten.
As early as November 1939, Major-General Sir Eric Girdwood, Colonel of the Regiment, outlined his plans for a Prisoner of War fund. The fund would be used to send comfort packages to men of the Regiment who were prisoners of war. A similar scheme had been successfully operated in the First World War, administered by Mrs Evelyn Vandeleur, and run out of the Riding School in Hamilton.[2] Evelyn was the wife of Colonel C. B. Vandeleur D.S.O., a Cameronian officer who had himself been a prisoner in the First World War and would find fame as the first British officer to successfully escape and make his way back to Britain.
The new Fund would be administered by Mrs Irene Grant, wife of Major D. C. Grant, Officer Commanding the Regimental Depot Party at Hamilton Barracks. The prisoners’ relief-parcel service was operated by Mrs Jessie Sandilands, wife of Lieutenant-Colonel V. C. Sandilands D.S.O.
The wartime editions of the regimental magazine, The Covenanter, include regular lists of donors and subscribers to the Prisoners of War fund. Donations poured in from the extended regimental family; veterans of the regiments, widows of soldiers killed in service, families of those currently serving – all contributed money to improve the lot of Cameronians in captivity, and at a time when many people would be experiencing hardships of their own. Donations were forthcoming from friends of the Regiment from as far afield as the United States of America, and from closer to home; the post office in Falkland, birthplace of Richard Cameron after whom the Regiment takes its name, collected £20 in public donations and gifted this to the Prisoner of War Fund.
At a regimental level, various fetes, revues and entertainments were put on by the Regimental Depot and Infantry Training Centre at Hamilton to help boost the Comfort Funds.
Programme for a revue held at Hamilton Town Hall in March 1940, to raise money for the Comforts for the Troops Fund.
In 1941, the Regimental Band from the Depot in Hamilton carried out a highly successful fundraising tour of Lanarkshire, where they managed to raise several hundred pounds.
Letters from Cameronian prisoners of war tell just how greatly the men appreciated the efforts of those at home:
January 8, 1943
Dear Hon. Secretary and Committee: Your parcel sent to me dated 25/9/42 arrived safely 31/12/42. As this is the first clothes parcel I have received since becoming a prisoner of war, no words can adequately express my sincerest thanks for this very welcome gift and my utmost appreciation of the noble work of committee and workers. Yours faithfully, L. Addison, Regt. No. 3247334, Stalag XXB.
The Covenanter May 1943
The families of men who were taken prisoner endured constant worry and concern over the welfare of their loved one. It would often takes many weeks or even months before a soldier would be confirmed as a prisoner of war. In the first instance, men were simply reported as ‘missing’. It was only once their whereabouts in a prison of war camp could be confirmed, usually in collaboration with the Red Cross, that their status would be changed to ‘prisoner of war’.
Pamphlet issued to the wife of Rifleman Robert Smith, taken prisoner in Italy on 19th March 1944.
The parents of Lionel Neighbour were informed that their son had been posted as ‘missing’ on May 31st 1940. Lionel was one of many men of 2nd Cameronians reported missing during the retreat and subsequent evacuation at Dunkirk. It wasn’t until the morning of August 30th, however – three months later – that a letter arrived from Lionel, stating that he was a prisoner of war. During that time, Lionel’s parents had no news concerning his whereabouts and were starting to fear the worst. The relief of a very concerned mother and father is evident in their reply to their son’s letter:
Letter to Lionel Neighbour from ‘Mum & Dad’ on learning that he was alive and a prisoner of war.
Monday 2nd September 1940
Dear Lionel
I hope you will be able to realize that the amount of joy and pleasure your letter gave to us all is almost indescribable. We were officially informed from records that you were reported missing on the 31st May. Every day and every week since then we have been hoping to receive some word to say that you were alive until quite recently when we all began to give up hope. When the wonderful news arrived, we could hardly believe our eyes. We see your letter was written on the 21st June but we only received it on Saturday morning the 30th Aug. I hope this letter will not take as long to reach you. And was everyone at the “Duck-in-the-pond” and elsewhere pleased also. They have all asked us to send you their kind regards & best wishes and we all sincerely hope it will not be so very long before we shall see you again, in the meantime we all wish you as good a time as is possible under the circumstances. We are all very pleased to know that you are keeping well and being treated decently. If they treat you as well as we treat our prisoners of War I know that you will not come to much harm. Well Lionel son, kept smiling, it may be a long lane yet, although I hope not, but an ending to this terrible affair must come sometime, and then I hope we shall all meet together again and have one glorious celebration. Things are much the same as when you saw us last here at Stanmore. I am still with the old firm and have recently obtained a couple of contracts. Mum, Emily, Winnie, little Michael, Pat, Brenda, Joan & Tommy are all keeping very well. Joan has now left school and is trying to get a job near home. We are not anxious for her to commence work, but if she can get one locally it will keep her out of mischief. Phillip, Stanley, Charlie & Jack are all keeping fit and well at the moment. Charlie passes out in a couple of months. Well Lionel son, there’s one item of very bad news to tell you – Poor Clive was killed in action on the 3rd Aug. Jack Neighbour is still busy and he and the family are all keeping well, this also applies to Uncle Ben and Aunt Phylis. Also Grandpa Neighbour is still keeping well, at any rate he was when we saw him last which was about 3 weeks ago. Hope to hear from you again very shortly and if there is anything you require and we are allowed to send it, you can rest assured we shall do so. We all send you our fond love and best wishes.
Yours affectionately
Mum & Dad
On 19th March 1944, around 35 men of ‘B’ Company, 2nd Cameronians, were taken prisoner while engaged with the Axis forces around the Anzio beachhead. Among those taken prisoner were Robert Smith and Reginald (Reg) Poynter. Robert had left a wife and young son back home in Glasgow when he joined The Cameronians (Scottish Rifles). Reg had been married to his beloved Millie for little over a year when he enlisted in January 1943. The two men, along with their comrades who had been taken prisoner, would endure months of hardship as they made the long journey from Rome, through Austria, into Germany, and ultimately to Poland – covering most of the distance on foot through a series of gruelling, forced marches. Robert’s wife was given a map of Europe by the Red Cross, on which were marked the various Italian and German prisoner of war camps. As news trickled in over the weeks and months as to her husband’s current whereabouts, Mrs Smith would write a number next to the name of the camp in which her husband was detained. Given the men’s constant movement and the delays in forwarding letters and parcels to prisoners through the Red Cross, it was almost impossible for these prisoners to correspond with their families back home. The map was Mrs Smith’s only means of keeping in touch with her husband.
Section of the Red Cross map issued to Mrs Smith, who has numbered the camps Stalag 344 and Stalag VIIIB – the last two camps in which her husband was detained.
Reg Poynter somehow managed to keep a diary covering much of his time as a prisoner of war. Through this we get some measure of the stress, loneliness, anxiety and physical hardship that was typical of life as a prisoner of war. Being unable to communicate with Millie back home and reassure her that he was alive was a daily torture for Reg. His diary is filled with little messages to Millie, written in lieu of the letters that he was so seldom able to send, and even then never knowing if she would ever receive them.
Mon. 27 (March) – Still in this dirty camp waiting to be moved and we had everything taken from us. I could [do] with some of Millie’s home cooking and a smoke.
Tue. 28 Well Millie, food is very bad, we are starving, all looking very weak, one loaf of Black Bread between five a day.
Wed. 29 Oh Millie, how I miss you, and worried wondering how things will turn out, wish this war would end.
Thur. 30 Shall be pleased to move from this camp, the food is the same and the fleas are eating us away.
In this extract Reg has been a prisoner for three months. Here he describes the march north towards Germany.
Fri. 16 (June) I’ve said to Millie sometimes not to waste crusts, but Millie would always see I had the best, now I am in need of them, the old saying ‘waste not want not’.
Sat. 17 We moved out of here, walked 18kg [km] through the night and slept on a football field in Florence, then when daylight came we walked –
Sun. 18 – all the way back to the same camp as we could not get through for bombing. I am very tired, stiff and hungry.
Memo. When we marched through Florence, some of the boys tried to escape. Jerry just shot them and left them in the road for trucks to run over – what a terrible sight.
After almost six months of being a prisoner of war, Reg arrived in Poland where he would remain until his liberation by the Russians on 16th March 1945.
Fri. 8 (September) Parcel day so had a good feed, the weather is very warm like midsummer, there’s been a cricket match today and football tomorrow.
Sat. 9 I am not too bad, only worried about my next move which I think is tomorrow. I am very fed up of this life & wonder how I stick it.
Sun. 10 Moving to a new camp in Poland, it looks like the mines – just fancy, after all I’ve been through, now come to this.
Memo. Yes, its the mines alright, in Poland in a new camp, which is OK. food not so good and no parcels.
Both Robert Smith and Reg Poynter would make it home once again and be reunited with the loved ones they had been separated from for so long. Their final prison camp in Poland, where they had been forced to labour in local coal mines, was liberated by the advancing Russian Army. After another series of gruelling marches ahead of the Russians, the men finally made it to the Allied lines, malnourished and suffering from the hardships of prison life, but alive.
The 1st Cameronians spent the duration of the Second World War in India and Burma, fighting the Japanese. A number of 1st Battalion men would ultimately become prisoners of war of the Japanese, and endure terrible hardship and cruelty at the hands of their captors. Many of these men would spend the duration of their imprisonment in the notorious Rangoon Gaol, such as Rifleman Leslie Spoors, who wrote a memoir of his time as a prisoner of war under the Japanese:
“I was captured on the 19th April having been wounded in the arm with shrapnel the day before. We were all wounded – that’s why we were taken so easily, we couldn’t make a run for it. We were taken to a group of Burmese huts where our boots were removed, and the laces used to tie our hands behind our backs. More and more men were brought in during the night until eventually we were cramped together on the floor. It was a Sunday when we were put into the huts and we were there four days and four nights. We had nothing to eat all that time and nothing to drink although we made feeble attempts to drink our own urine. All our body wastes just collected beneath us in the huts. I thought we might never see the light of day again. But we did, for after four days we were freed from the indescribable stench. Captain Bradford-Martin had been brought into the hut during the first night, along with his batman. On the third day, we heard rain on the roof, a Mango shower as we called it, and Bradford-Martin decided to try and break through the thatched straw. Whether he intended to escape or just get a drink I never knew, but his batman followed him. They had both got through the hole they had made when two shots were heard. The batman fell back through the hole – Bradford-Martin was never seen or heard of again. It wasn’t long before the Japs came in and if the batman wasn’t already dead, they soon made sure that he was.”[3]
The rather grainy photograph, above, comes from The Covenanter, and shows liberated prisoners from the 1st Battalion at a tea party held in their honour by General Sir O’Connor (who himself had been a prisoner of war in Italy). Five of the men shown are former prisoners (judging by the thinness of their arms presumably they are the two men seated left, the man seated right, and the two men seated at the front). Their names are given in the article as: Sergeant McKenna, Rifleman Sherwin, Rifleman Spoors, Rifleman Leggatte, and Rifleman Martin.
Life as a prisoner of the Japanese was particularly brutal – the death rate among allied prisoners under the Japanese being almost seven times higher than those under Germany and Italy. Men of Lanarkshire’s local TA unit, the 155th (Lanarkshire Yeomanry) Field Regiment Royal Artillery, suffered particularly at the hands of the Japanese following the fall of Singapore in February 1942 – 90 of their number would die as prisoners of war.
There were some amazing instances where Cameronian prisoners of war were able to escape. An Evening Times article from May 1st 1944, quoted in The Covenanter , recounts one such story:
The remarkable escape of a Blantyre soldier from a Japanese prisoner of war camp in Burma was fully described to a ‘Times’ correspondent on his unexpected return last week to his sister’s home at 5 Watson Street, Blantyre, Lanarkshire.
He is Rifleman John Cook, The Cameronians (Scottish Rifles), and has been on service in India for five years. About a year ago, Rifleman Cook, with a number of his companions, was taken prisoner, but after six months in captivity he managed to escape.
Their prison camp was in a clearing in the heart of the jungle, which was guarded day and night, and the food supplied to the men was a disgrace. The men had little opportunity of conversing with each other, but freedom was naturally uppermost in their minds.
One night the opportunity did present itself, and Cook and six of his companions decided to make a bold bid for freedom. In the darkness they made their way past the guard but their escape was detected and in the hue and cry which followed, Cook was the only one to gain his freedom, but he does not know what happened to his companions.
After wandering through the jungle for days and living solely on water melons and what fruits he could find, he ultimately reached a Ghurka camp.
As a result of his sufferings he was very ill for some time and completely lost his voice. Afterwards, British officers arrived and had him medically attended to.
Rifleman Cook is home on 28 days’ leave and expects that he will soon be back to his former health.
The most famous regimental escape story must belong to Lieutenant-General (later General Sir) Richard O’Connor, who had been a regimental officer with The Cameronians and would ultimately serve as Colonel of the Regiment. O’Connor had been captured by the Italians in North Africa in April 1941. O’Connor and a number of other senior officers would escape from their Italian prison camp in late 1943, and make their way back to Britain. O’Connor would go on to command VIII Corps during the invasion of Normandy in the summer of 1944.[4]
No account of Cameronian prisoners of war would be complete without mention of Lieutenant Colonel (later Major General) J. D. Frost, who was famously captured leading the 2nd Parachute Battalion at Arnhem during Operation Market Garden. Frost would be immortalised on screen, played by Anthony Hopkins, in the blockbuster movie “A Bridge Too Far”.[5]
John Frost, of Arnhem fame, as a newly joined 2nd Lieutenant with The Cameronians (Scottish Rifles), 1933.
An article in the January 1945 edition of The Covenanter relayed the news of Frost’s fate after Arnhem:
Missing – Now P.O.W.
In our last issue, reported that Lieutenant-Colonel. J. D. Frost, D.S.O., Parachute Regiment, had been reported missing at Arnhem. We now learn from Colonel Frost’s sister, Mrs. Elizabeth Frogley … that he is a prisoner of war in Germany. From information received, it appears that Colonel Frost was hit in both legs by splinters from a trench mortar bomb and was taken into a house with the rest of the wounded. The house caught fire that night and a truce was made with the Germans, who took all the wounded to their hospital at Arnhem. Next day they were removed into Germany. Colonel Frost was later operated on by a French surgeon, and is now walking again. His many friends will be pleased to learn that he is safe and well and that their fears for his safety have been unfounded.
[1] These figures are based on the work of Mr Adrian Smith, who has been kind enough to share his research with me on numerous occasions.
[2] During the First World War the Riding School was still part of the Duke of Hamilton’s estate. It is now home to The Cameronians regimental museum displays as part of Low Parks Museum.
[3] Extract from “Rangoon Gaol”, privately published account of Rifleman Leslie Spoors.
[4] For a full account of O’Connor’s military service, capture and escape, see The Forgotten Victor by John Baynes.
[5] See Frost’s autobiographies; Nearly There (for his service with The Cameronians) and A Drop Too Many (for his wartime exploits with The Parachute Regiment).
