Commando Veterans Forum

I am looking for information on/pictures of Captain Robin Campbell DSO (d 1985), who took part in Operation Flipper in 1941 (my mother's second cousin). Any help would be appreciated.

This message was edited 5 times. Last update was at 19/02/2012 19:18:20

Hi Graham

I am not certain how much your or the family know but The Black Hackle account of 11 Commando has detailed quotes from Captain Campbell about Operation Flipper (scroll down until you see the header). However earlier in the article he is named as Captain Robert Campbell of No 8 Commando. It states he was attached to 11 Commando for Flipper after the Litani River losses

http://www.combinedops.com/Black%20Hackle.htm

We have a newspaper cutting in our gallery that refers to the Operation, but sadly we have no picture of Captain Campbell. Does the family have any of him?:

http://www.commandoveterans.org/cdoGallery/v/documents/11Commando+Raid+1.jpg.html

I found a site where there is some personal information. You are probably aware of these:

http://www.tim.ukpub.net/pl_tree/ps52/ps52_229.html

and

http://www.thepeerage.com/p4607.htm#i46069

Regards

Pete

Many thanks for that. I saw the reference to Robert Campbell but I think this is a mistake. At:

http://www.thewarillustrated.info/247/the-daring-raid-on-rommels-hq.asp

which is a 1946 article, he is referred to as Robin Campbell.

The only near relative whose address I know is his nephew, Francis Egerton, the Duke of Sutherland. I will write to him.

Many thanks again.

Graham

Elizabeth Keyes, sister of Lt Col Geoffrey Keyes VC, makes several references to Capt. Robin Campbell, DSO in her excellent biography "Geoffrey Keyes VC of The Rommel Raid".
In fact she credits Robin Campbell with providing most of the account of The Rommel Raid section of her book. She also states that she passed the same information to Hilary St George Saunders for his book "The Green Beret".

Nick

Many thanks for that. If I manage to obtain a photo I will pass it on.

Graham

I cannot claim any TRUE (family) connection to (as I knew him) 'ROB' Campbell. . . other than the fact that as a 6 year old girl, my parents and I were visiting Scotland, and had the distinct honor and pleasure to meet him and his family. It was in 1955. . . my father was with the US Army Corp of Engineers (civilian), and we had just transferred from Keflavik Air Base in Rekjavick, Iceland to Heidelberg, Germany. We were on Holiday in England and Scotland......stopped for directions; and just by chance we asked a man who turned out to be ROB Campbell. By the end of our first conversation, we (bloody Yanks) ended up being invited to the Campbell's home to meet his family, and have dinner. It ended in a wonderful friendship beween his family, and my parents for many years, mostly, unfortunately through correspondence. At one point in time shortly after our meeting, my parents almost bought land in Scotland, near to where the Campbells lived. Many years have passed, my parents are dead, and I can no longer remember WHERE in Scotland this took place. I would love to be able to find out where Mr. Campbell and his family lived back then, so I can retrace the steps! I have since found out that I am (through Ancestry.com) related to Robert the Bruce--so I would love to reconnect with my Scottish ancestry, and my connection with 'THE' ROB CAMPBELL !!
LAROC2011

Fascinating! Many thanks for providing that story.

I just found this article, printed in TIME MAGAZINE dating back to 1944-quoting ROB CAMPBELL:

World: A Prisoner Looks Back
Monday, June 05, 1944
"On the whole, I would say that captivity had a beneficial effect upon all but the most unteachable."
So, after two years in a German prison camp, a young British officer summed up the days behind the wire that many soldiers regard as completely wasted.
Commando Captain Robin Campbell, D.S.O., sociable, absent-minded son of one of Britain's top-flight diplomats (Sir Ronald Hugh Campbell, now Ambassador to Portugal), was wounded and captured in the brilliant but unsuccessful 1941 raid on Field Marshal Rommel's headquarters in North Africa. Exchanged (because he had lost a leg), he summed up his prison-camp experience in an article for London's literary review Horizon, reprinted in Boston's June Atlantic Monthly.
Prison life, wrote Captain Campbell, is perfect for reading and writing, leads men to review the bases of their lives, overhaul their values. Said he: "I fancy that many people would benefit by a year of enforced inactivity and freedom from small anxieties and distractions" to examine their own and others' conduct.
Racket at Home. Many prisoners agreed that "politics were a dirty racket and all politicians? hypocrites. . . . Many prisoners are passionately curious about postwar planning and a copy of the Beveridge Report was a best-seller in the Camp."
The trouble is that imprisonment goes on too long, "breeds a dreadful staleness" while "an exclusively male community seems to lack emotional drive and spontaneity." Prisoners are always hungry: there is never enough to eat, although light diet makes for fitness, up to a point. Red Cross parcels are lifesavers but monotonous. The total lack of privacy makes a man develop "a kind of reptilian insensitiveness?like crocodiles in their tank at the Zoo, which walk over each other without either appearing to notice the other."
Innocent Arrogance. The British "have one enormous advantage over prisoners of other nationalities?they expect to be well treated ... are genuinely astonished and indignant if they are not cared for as honored guests." Wrote Campbell:
"Their standards of food, sanitation and comfort are so high and their astonishment and disgust when expected to put up with lower standards so unfeigned and unrancorous that the Germans, unwilling to admit that their own standards are lower, are shamed into making improvements.
"It is quite impossible for the Germans to put across any Herrenvolk stuff in the face of the innocent arrogance of British soldiers, who are impenetrable to the idea of German superiority and simply think it uproariously funny. This baffles the Germans."
Read more: http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,778164,00.html#ixzz1TWgox1SE

I hope this is of some interest to those wanting to find out more about Rob Campbell !!

TA, Graham ... I'm glad you enjoyed it. LAROC2011 (Jan)

Hello,

My name is Thomas Robin Jocelyn Campbell and I am Captain Robin Campbell's grandson. I found this page by google searching his name and I thought I'd mention that after his death we gained access to his diaries (which have been quoted in the post above) and I can get more information about his wartime experience if anybody wants it.

Hi Tom

Welcome to the CVA. More information on your Grandfather's wartime experiences would be most welcome. I would also like to add to our gallery a photograph of him, and any of his Commando comrades, from his Army Commando days should you have any, and wish to see them included. Can you contact me on my email address to discuss this in more detail.
spitfirepete1@hotmail.com

Regards

Pete Rogers