Military Medal holder is PoW

A Fintry soldier – said to have “inflicted great slaughter on the enemy with a Lewis gun” – was discovered to be a prisoner-of-war.

Pte J Cameron, Black Watch, sent a postcard from Germany, where he was being held, to his parents, Mr and Mrs Duncan Cameron, Culcreuch Cottage, Fintry .

The 21-year-old joined the Army in July, 1915, and in April, 1916, went down with trench fever while serving in France.

After a “long and serious illness”, he returned to the Front in December of that year and in October his bravery, both before and after he was wounded, earned him a Military Medal.

A letter from an officer to Pte Cameron’s family told how during an enemy attack he “inflicted great slaughter’’ with a light machine gun.

And although wounded in the leg, he managed to carry away his gun when his position could no longer be held and established a new position from which he continued his assault on enemy troops.

The private was posted missing on March 21, 1918, and, said the Observer, the intimation that he was well, although a prisoner, was joyfully received by his parents and friends.