Royal Army Ordnance Corps uniform, Sam Brown belt & swagger stick. (Named)

**Adrian Stevenson** · 11-06-2009, 11:28 AM

Hi Guys, here is a uniform group from my collection. This one is rather special to me as I knew the Officer concerned from my childhood.

His name was Major "Jock" Campbell. As you can gather, he was a Scotsman. He was a career soldier and lied about his age so could enlist and fight in the Great War. He stayed in the Army and fought in North Africa and later in Normandy in 1944. I recall him telling me that he lost a lot of younger men after D-Day to German booby traps: such as a grenade wired to a toilet flush, etc.

Also see this Luftwaffe dagger which he liberated:

https://www.warrelics.eu/forum/dagge...-history-6540/

He saw service again in Egypt after the war. I also have a large brass tray he bought in a bazaar there.

At the end of his career he served at the large Chillwell Ordnance Depot in Nottinghamshire.

After he passed away, his wife presented his Sam Brown belt, complete with nice makers label to "Peal & Co, 482 Oxford Street, London W1", leather swagger stick and his service dress uniform to me. The tunic although not marked at all, is fully lined with silk and can be dated to the period of 1949 to 1953 going by the pattern of RAOC buttons and collar dogs used. Therein lies a story, as she cut off the buttons and medal ribbons to retain as a keep sake. A few days later she gave me the large buttons having realised she perhaps should not have done that. I need to restore the medal ribbons, but these will have to be an educated guess. Sadly Mrs Campbell passed away a few years ago. She was quite a character and rather glamourous. I was very fond of her. She told me many stories of service life, such as crossing the desert on a camel and loosing vehicles to the local Arabs who stole them and buried them in the sand to hide the evidence!

Cheers, Ade.