The Scottish Military Research Group - Commemorations Project

john burnett · Joined: 29 Jan 2007 Posts: 790 Location: Fife

Thanks to Mr & Mrs Goldsmith for photos and conquering brass to get names!
UKNIWM 44120.
Memorial located within Ceres Parish Church.

DelBoy · Posted: Fri Aug 12, 2011 12:10 am Post subject: Memorial Transcription

James Forrest Horne, Sergeant, Black Watch
Mary Lindsay, Private, A.T.S.
James Donals MacGregor, Gunner, Royal Artillery
Robert Grieve Peebles, Engineer, Merchant Navy
Harold Cameron Seymour, Flight Sergeant, R.A.F.
Robert Henderson Shepherd, Private, Black Watch
Robert Anderson Stewart, Sergeant, Scots Guards
William James Waldie, Lieut. Glasgow Highdrs.

Lindsay · Joined: 29 Sep 2012 Posts: 108

FIFE OFFICER WHO ESCAPED FROM NAZIS
Killed In Normandy
Mr and Mrs A. W. Waldie, North Callange, near Cupar, have been informed that their son, Lieut. W. A. Waldie, one of a party of British officers who escaped from an Italian prison camp in 1943 and accomplished a 150-mile trek to join the 8th Army, has been killed in the Normandy fighting.

When the Germans were in charge of the Chiti officers' camp in which Lieut. Waldie was prisoner, he along with some other men hid for two days in an underground tunnel they had prepared. On the second night after it was dark they came up, and scaled the camp wall under the noses of the Germans.

From wireless information they knew the whereabouts of the Eighth Army, and their plans were to make for the British lines. Lieutenant Waldie's trek took him 10 days. Fifteen men came away in the prison camp break-out and 10 reached safety.

Lieutenant Waldie was taken prisoner on June 5 near Tobruk. Two cousins were also taken prisoner in the same week.

Before the war Lieutenant Waldie was on the Glasgow staff of Messrs Dobie, tobacco manufacturers, Paisley. He married Miss Joan Pamela Cowell, eldest daughter of Mr and Mrs P. Cowell, Braddon, Cameron Bridge January this year.

His father is prominent farmer and churchman, and a county councillor.
Evening Telegraph 18 July 1944

WALDIE, WILLIAM JAMES
Rank: Lieutenant
Service No: 138557
Date of Death: 26/06/1944
Age: 28
Regiment/Service: Highland Light Infantry (City of Glasgow Regiment) 2nd Bn.
Grave Reference VI. A. 15.
Cemetery ST. MANVIEU WAR CEMETERY, CHEUX

Additional Information: Son of Adam and Marion D. Waldie, of Callange, Fife; husband of Pamela Joan Waldie, of Watford, Hertfordshire.