Sergeant Thomas A Laughland

Thomas Anderson Laughland of Glasgow enlisted into The Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders and served as a Physical Trainer until he volunteered for airborne forces after answering the call for volunteers at the formation of the 1st Parachute Brigade in 1941.

He was posted to 9 Platoon, C Company, 2nd Parachute Battalion, and qualified as a military parachutist after attending course No 1 for brigade personnel, which ran at RAF Ringway from 3 to 15 November 1941.  C Company had a lot of Scots and so became known as 'Jock' Company.

Pte Laughland took part in the Bruneval Raid (Operation Biting) in February 1942, as a sten gun carrier in Nelson section.

Whilst on short leave he married in July 1942.

Later that year he deployed to North Africa on Operation Torch.  Cpl Laughland was captured and held as a prisoner of war (PoW) just outside Tunis. His wife received a dispatch at that time saying he was Missing in Action believed killed.

He was transported by boat to Italy and interned in a PoW camp in Fermo. There he met up with fellow Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders who were captured at Tobruk, and Robert Sterling and Peter Buchannan, both of C Company 2nd Para Bn. Cpl Laughland later escaped with Robert Sterling from that camp.

He dropped in to Arnhem, where he was captured again and held as a POW, initially at Stalag XIIA  Limburg Germany, until his camp was liberated in the spring of 1945. 

After the war he finished a bricklaying apprenticeship and moved to Johannesburg until 1949 before returning to Scotland. He then went to live in New York before again returning home to Scotland.

Finally in 1957 he went to Chicago, Illinois, where he lived today his wife. In the summer of 2012 they celebrated 70 years of marriage. 

On 23 February 2014 after a short illness Thomas passed away aged 93 years. The last remaining Bruneval veteran Thomas Hill died shortly after on 10 March 2014.