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This story was submitted to the People’s War site by Vijiha Bashir, at ´óÏó´«Ã½ Scotland on behalf of Jimmy Lowrie from Glasgow and has been added to the site with the permission of Johnstone History Society. The author fully understands the site’s terms and conditions.

Jimmy was born in Glasgow on 5th May 1915 and together with two brothers and a sister was brought up in Abercrombie Street. On the outbreak of war he enlisted in the Army and in 1942, transferred to the Parachute Regiment where he served in the signals as a Wireless Operator. His regiment took part in the Liberation of North Africa and the Sicily Landings before returning to the UK to prepare for the D-Day landings and finally taking part in the attack on the bridge at Arnhem.

He was captured in Arnhem and was a P.O.W for 9 months until the end of the war. He was in P.O.W Camp — Stalag 1Vb near Limburg in Eastern Germany and here he was employed repairing the railway lines after allied bombing raids. The bitter winter of 1944 was particularly severe on prisoners such as Airmen and Paratroopers who had been subjected to harsh treatment and they all suffered.

After the war Jimmy returned Crosslee where four generation of his family now lived and he took a job in the Ordinance factory in Bishopton where he worked until his retirement in 1980 and died in May 2004 at the grand age of 89.

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