Messages posted by: MBrockway

Also the subject of a recent film loosely based on their exploits: Two Men Went To War.

The script takes a few liberties: King, who was reportedly 27 in 1942, is portrayed as a grizzled WW1 veteran, wounded at Passchendaele while changing the tyre on a staff car; and they become involved by coincidence in a Parachute Regiment raid on a Nazi radar station, loosely based on the Bruneval Raid.

Quite a good fun film nonetheless.
Cheers,
Mark

Thanks for the tip Pete.

Here's a link to Part One in case people don't find them quickly:
http://www.commandoveterans.org/cdoForum/posts/list/913.page

I echo Pete's thanks to Nick :D

Cheers,
Mark

MBrockway wrote:Incidentally it was Major David Evans I tried to correspond with a few years back. That coincided with a lot of their recent moves though, so it may well have never reached him

Pete,
I have just read on the Liverpool Scottish Regimental Museum website that Major Evans passed away in 2002.

Cheers,
Mark

Pete wrote:
Tom had severe facial and other injuries again described in [Dorrian's] and other books in great detail which is not necessary to repeat here in my opinion. Sorry if you may disagree on that one. Thats why I also haven't posted any of the numerous photos that are about of Tom when injured.

Pete,
On the contrary, we are as one mind in this matter. I am able to reach those photos through my own efforts and I will be acquiring the Dorian book (and the Reeves book) as soon as I can.

There is definitely no need to publish the photos more widely than they regretably already are.

I think it is inappropriate such material is too easily available to the casual surfer.

In fact I am in the middle of a debate on the WW2Talk Forum on this very matter - the German photos of the fallen commandos have been posted there and I am very uncomfortable about that.

The members there clearly have great integrity, but I remain disappointed that photos of the fallen have been posted.

Cheers,
Mark

Stephen Donnison wrote:Anyone know how he was actually wounded in the raid?

From what I've gathered so far, Tom was on the port side of HMS Campbeltown, in Captain Roy's party, aft of the midships gun platform.

They were shielded to a degree by the armour plates welded along the deck for them to crouch behind, but the fire coming from the mole and the shore must have been incredibly intense.

Pete has told me that he had a grenade wound to the face and head and at least two gunshot wounds in the rest of his body.

I don't know how far he got into the docks, or if he even got off the Campbeltown.

A grenade wound would suggest close quarter fighting on land though.

Has anyone seen the War Diary? With so few returning to Blighty and the troops jumbled up to a certain extent across the assault parties, I'm assuming there won't be a lot of detail??

Presumably the lowest unit level that kept a War Diary would be the Commando, not the Troop?

Cheers,
Mark

Pete wrote:Hi Mark I have posted your picture in the sub album for Tom in 5 Troop's album. Here is a bit more information about Tom which I have just uploaded if you haven't got it already, and in the album I have added another photo of him cropped from a troop photo:

http://www.commandoveterans.org/cdoGallery/v/units/2/5+troop/Tom+McCormack/Tom+McCormack.jpg.html

Many thanks Pete - ever grateful!
Cheers,
Mark

Folks,
Thanks to 'englandphil' on the WW2Talk Forum, I have been able to get a picture of Tom McCormack's grave marker in Rennes Eastern Communal Cemetery, which I attach below:

Cheers,
Mark

Pete wrote:... I suggest you contact the Liverpool Scottish Regimental Museum again, but this time speak to Mr. Dennis Reeves, Honorary Curator, on Tel: 0151 645 5717 ... He has written a book [about Liverpool Scottish in the Special Service]

Pete,
Funnily enough I was eying up the very same book in the Museum Shop on their website!

I will contact him.

Incidentally it was Major David Evans I tried to correspond with a few years back. That coincided with a lot of their recent moves though, so it may well have never reached him.

Cheers,
Mark

Folks,
My mother has now seen the photos of Tom McCormack, Bill Hughes and Syd Murdoch.

She is 100% certain that it was Tom who was billeted with them. In fact she thinks our family had the very same photograph of Tom in his kilt leaning on his stick pipe in mouth.

She is going to have a serious hunt through my grandparents' material to see if she can turn it up.

If she does, I will organise a high quality scan for here, as I am sure there are those here who will appreciate having the same :)

She is also confident about Bill Hughes. She remembers him very well.

She is less confident about Syd, but I think he is looking a bit dour in the Dumfries 1941 group photo and not his typical self. Given that Tom and Bill have been definitely identified, we can be confident that it was three men from 5 Troop. Since there was only one Sydney in the Troop, it follows that Syd Murdoch has to be the third man.

She has asked me to pass on her greatest thanks to the Forum here for all this help. In a matter of days we have progressed immeasureably, where ten years had seen us get almost no-where!

She is very grateful indeed.

As regards the photo at Ayr Racecourse, she thinks that is definitely the Seafield Racecourse. She thinks the current Ayr Racecourse at Craigie Park was developed after the war and Seafield was still the active course in 1942. She's going to look into that though.

We'd now like to ...

see if we can trace the descendants of Tom McCormack and his sister Josie

find out more about Bill and Syd after they became POWs

work on Bill and Syd's family history a bit

All suggestions/advice welcome!
Cheers,
Mark

MBrockway wrote:
The current Ayr Racecourse is to the west of the town centre and north of the River Ayr. It's possible that your photo could be at this new racecourse. Alternatively the horse barriers may have still been in place down at Seafield in 1941-42. I'll see if my mother can remember.

Pete,
My mother is confident that there were indeed horse barriers still in place at the old racecourse at Seafield in the early 1940s, so your photo could be at either of the two courses.

The background probably favours the old Seafield racecourse.

I've done some cursory digging on the web to try and ascertain when the new racecourse came into operation but no joy so far.
Cheers,
Mark

Forenames can be tricky, I agree - my own grandfather was William John BROCKWAY but served in WW1 as Cpl John Brockway, 12/KRRC later 16/KRRC and was apparently known as Jack Brockway. Finding any of his records was confusing until it became clear he had not used his name in the way you'd expect.

I've been trying to hunt down some genealogy for Tom McCormack.

His CWGC entry has his parents as Jeremiah and Joanna Ramsay W.W.P. McCORMACK of Allerton, Liverpool.

I have found a Marriage between Jeremiah McCORMACK and Joanna Ramsey (sic) W.W. PATERSON registered in the Apr-May-Jun quarter of 1907 at West Derby, which is the Registration District covering Liverpool and includes Allerton.

I then have Birth Register Indexentries in Wigan for Alicia McCORMACK in Q3 1911 and Thomas McCORMACK in Q4 1916 both with mother's name of PATERSON. This is almost certainly Tom, as both age and mother's maiden name are correct.

Getting Rolls of Honour entries re-visited would be premature though without having sight of the source Birth Register entries to confirm Tom's full names - like my own grandfather, Tom may have gone under his Middle Name.

There is also an earlier Birth Register entry in Wigan for Jeremiah McCORMACK in Q3 1911, [Edit 22 Apr: Apologies, that should read 1909] but this is before the mother's Maiden Name began to be listed in the Index of Register Entries. However it seems probable that this is an elder brother for Tom and Alicia.

It looks like the family had a spell out of Liverpool in Wigan.

I have not so far found a birth entry for Josie McCormack, Tom's sister known to my mother. It is possible Josie is a pet name for Alicia?? I shall explore that with my mother.

I have so far not found any record of Tom's parents in the Liverpool area before the wedding in 1907.

There is a Birth Register entry for a Jeremiah McCORMACK in Q3 1886 in Salford. That birth year would put this man at 21 years old at a wedding in 1907, which is a good fit. This could be Tom's father, but without further research to corroborate, that is mere speculation.

No sign so far of Joanna, Tom's mother, although I have found a Death Register entry for a Joanna M PATERSON, aged 70 years in Q4 1914 in West Derby (=Liverpool). The 1911 Gore's Directory for Liverpool lists a Mrs Joanna Paterson living at 80, Eversley Street, Liverpool 8 (which is just east of the city centre). Again, one could speculate this is Tom's maternal grandmother.

I had further luck digging in the Directories, because the 1938 Kelly's Directory for Liverpool turned up a Mrs Joanna Ramsay McCORMACK living at 25 Clavell Road, Liverpool 19, which is Allerton. This is almost certainly Tom's mother and possibly Tom's own home.

Since Jeremiah, Tom's father, is not mentioned, it's possible he may have died by 1938. I could find no Death Register entry for him via the FreeBMD database, but these have only been partially transcribed after the mid 1930s. On the other hand, I suspect CWGC would publish the mother's details alone, if the father pre-deceased the serviceman, and Tom's entry has both.

I could find no entries for a Jeremiah McCORMACK in either the residential nor commercial sections of any of the directories to which I have access :( No clues to Tom's father's occupation therefore.

So far I've found no record of Tom being married, but that can hardly have been unusual for a commando!

Clavell Road is not listed as a street in the 1911 Gore's Directory, so I am running with the hypothesis that that area of Allerton was developed between 1907 and 1938 while the family appears to be based in Wigan. The relevance of this is that Clavell Road will not be in the 1911 Census.

I've drawn a blank so far on both of Tom's parents in the 1901 and 1891 Censuses :(

There is a tantalising mention of a Joanna Paterson on an Inbound ship passenger list, but I do not have access to that without spending £££, so I'm holding that in reserve for now! One scenario is that Tom's parents were ex-pat Scots returning from some time in the Empire, again pure speculation at this stage though!

I still have some leads to chase up using the freely available tools on the web, but I'm building a pretty good picture ahead of a trip to the Records Office in Liverpool to look up the original source documents.

As I have said up above, my mother very much wants to establish contact with the families of the three men.

Is it likely that the CVA may hold info on Tom, Bill and Syd's dependents/descendants?

Thanks again everyone for all the fantastic help and the very warm welcome you have given me here. I've long been interested in the St Nazaire Raid but never suspected such a close connection until now. In future, 28th March will now have new meaning for me.

Cheers,
Mark

Talking of possible slips of the pen, the Roll of Honour on the St Nazaire Society website (http://www.stnazairesociety.org/Pages/index.html) lists Private J McCormack - 2 Commando rather than T McCormack.

I assume this is a mistake?
Cheers,
Mark

Pete wrote: ... The men I have mentioned are not in the picture at Ayr racecourse but they were all Liverpool Scots who went to 5 Troop No.2 Commando..one of whomwas killed at Salerno. I mentioned it purely because of your original comment regarding the location where your mother lived being near the racecourse

Pete,
The little bit of background visible in the photo of the three at the racecourse is certainly consistent with the Old Racecourse at Seafield, but I only know it from the late 1960's by which time it was a completely open field with no signs of racecourse "furniture" as far as I remember.

The current Ayr Racecourse is to the west of the town centre and north of the River Ayr. It's possible that your photo could be at this new racecourse. Alternatively the horse barriers may have still been in place down at Seafield in 1941-42. I'll see if my mother can remember.

Cheers,
Mark

NIC wrote:Just a quick observation, you both talk of William (Bill) Chudley as a Lance Sergeant but the CWGC has him as a Lance Bombardier - don't know if that has any significance to Mark's research...

http://www.cwgc.org/search/casualty_details.aspx?casualty=2145562

nick

Nick,
Good point. However Bill Chudley looks a less likely candidate than Bill Hughes since ...

he is from Devon, not Liverpool nor Scotland

he was in the RA, not the Liverpool Scottish/QOCH

he may not have been in 5 Troop and it is probable all three men were from the same troop

I've sent my mother links to the pictures here of Bill Hughes, Syd Murdoch and Tom McCormack, but she won't be back home at Taynuilt till Monday as she's breaking her journey in Glasgow.

She has described Bill as being a cheery jovial fellow, full of fun and very happy to spend time playing with my mother and her elder sister, both of whom were under 10 years old! That certainly fits the impression of the character of Bill Hughes such as you can tell from the photos Pete has put in the Gallery!

We'll see what she says once she's looked at the photos.

Cheers,
Mark

Pete wrote:I am assuming you have seen the No 2 Commando Gallery and the ... photo I posted of 5 Troop taken in Dumfries prior to St Nazaire.

If you wish to contact me by email I will gladly speak to [the Liverpool Scottish member of 5 Troop] and to the curator of the Liverpool Scots Museum to see if I can find out any further information.

I also have a notebook with billet addresses for 5 troop in Ayr but this was after St Nazaire. There is also a picture in that album of 3 members of 5 Troop taken I believe at the old Ayr Racecourse you mentioned.

Pete,
Thanks for such a speedy and helpful response!

I had indeed seen the 5 Troop photos you mention and had earmarked Bill Hughes and Syd Murdoch as possibles.

I'll be speaking to my mother tomorrow and she will probably be able to confirm from the pictures of Tom and Bill. She's making her way back north to Taynuilt at the moment after visiting my sister in Norwich so has no e-mail access till she's back home again.

We'd be very interested in the billet addresses in the Notebook, even though it is after St Nazaire. I'll get the exact address in Carwinshoch View from her when I speak to her.

Also the photo at the old racecourse - there's a good chance the same men may be present there.

This is the approx location:
http://www.multimap.com/maps/?qs=&countryCode=GB#map=55.44489,-4.65000|15|4&dp=os&loc=GB:55.44582:-4.64517:17

The old racecourse is the large open area 1/4 mile due east. HQ in Wellington Square is a pleasant flat walk one mile away to the north.

My mother thinks one of soldiers was killed in Norway - she is not 100% certain of this by any means, but I have identified a possible candidate for this in Lance Serjeant Bill CHUDLEY who failed to return from the Glomfjord Operation in 1942.

Bill Chudley was an NCO, but was a gunner, not in the Liverpool Scottish, so the L/Cpl Bill Blythe you mention is perhaps the more likely option. Chudley also appears to have been from Devon and my mother remembers all the men being fellow Scots - at least by heritage!

By all accounts none of these men were back safe in Blighty by the end of 1942. :-(

I will send you a PM with my contact details as you suggest. When we contacted the Liverpool Scottish Regimental Museum ourselves, we only had the men's christian names, so it's not surprising we did not get very far then. I think they were also in the middle of a difficult re-location.

Once again many thanks for all the help!
Cheers,
Mark