TO SEAMAN JOHN NEIL CAMPBELL (MISSING)
(In appreciation)

I’m told that you are missing, John. Your Boat’s long overdue.
Anxiety has left your Kin with nerves all drawn and tense,
Fell circumstances has bred the phrase, “If we but only knew”.
And each day seems a year to those bowed down beneath suspense.

They conjure up your jolly smile – that mirror of the heart
Reflecting youthful eagerness undaunted by the fray-
And, in their poignant agony, how dismal is their part
In waiting for the news to come and dreading each new day.

But for the like of you, my Lad, no tribute is too great.
If you have made the ‘Sacrifice’, it was not made in vain,
Your brave and useful services were vital to the State
And loyalty demands such things although they cause much pain.

Yea! Should you have, alas! Now reached your full allotted span.
And passed out from our presence while you still graced Life’s First Page.
Departing in the bloom of youth you will have died a Man,
Un-spoilt by disillusionment so common to old age.

But if our hopes and prayers prevail reunion yet will come
And clouds that hang above the Shielings on the Harris shore
Will be dispersed by gladness, and the hearts that now seem numb
Will be restored in thankfulness and open out once more,

And in the hope that better news may shed a brighter ray,
Our sympathies are with those Souls whose hearts with anguish burn,
And may the present sorrow, like a nightmare pass away,
Eclipsed and quite forgotten in the joy of your return.

 

H. Campbell, 16, Harcourt Avenue, Southend-on-Sea 18.6.42. (Poem appeared in the Stornoway Gazette on 31.7.42). Campbell may have been a relation of J.N.Campbell.

 

Merchant seaman John Neil Campbell was one of six brothers and cousins from the small hamlet of Plockropool, Isle of Harris, Western Isles, who were serving at sea in WW2, five in the Merchant Navy and one in the Royal Navy.His ship was reported missing in 1942 and nothing more was heard about him and he was given up as lost at sea. Out of the blue, without anyone knowing, he arrived home from a Japanese prison camp in 1945 – he may have been in a camp in Japan.

Campbell never got over the bad conditions in the prison camp and he died at home, still a young man, a few years after the war was over. He never spoke about his experience. I have been unable to ascertain the name of his ship but I suspect it was one of these three: SS Wellpark, SS Willesden or SS Kirkpool.

 

At the time his ship went missing another cousin of his was awarded the O.B.E. for bravery on convoys to Malta. At the time he was the Captain of SS Clan Macaulay. In 1944, a Maltese newspaper at the time noted, “We’ve had some wonderful captains in many of the merchant ships here. One of the Clan ship captains-Angus Campbell by name, six feet two, and built like an ox, took one of the Lewis guns off it’s mountings during the ‘Illustrious’ blitz and used it as a Tommy gun. He loosed off 10,000 rounds, all he had, during the engagement and said he never had a day’s shooting like it in his life before”. Capt. Campbell was later Commended for bravery during the Normandy landings whilst Master of the SS Clan Lamont. The Clan Lamont, with around 6000 Canadians on board, was one of the first ships into Normandy. Before they disembarked Captain Campbell ordered that all the soldiers be given a hearty breakfast. They are reputed to have been the best fed troops that landed at Normandy. Capt. Campbell was a real character – he always had a piper on board his ship. When they arrived in a seaport the piper had to play, ‘The Campbell’s are Coming’ and when they left port he played, ‘The Road To The Isles’