Roy Campbell - A Critical Biography
Peter Alexander
Oxford University Press, USA (1982)
In Collection
#1282
0*
Biography
Hardcover 0192117505
Product Details
Nationality British
Pub Place Oxford
Dust Jacket dj
Cover Price $34.00
No. of Pages 292
Height x Width 9.1  inch
First Edition Yes
Personal Details
Read It Yes
Links Amazon US
Amazon UK
Amazon Canada
User Defined
Conflict Spanish Civil War
Notes
Uk 1st




Campbell was angered by the generally pro-Republic attitudes in Britain, and on January 29, 1937, the family set sail to Lisbon on a German boat, the Niasa.[19] In June, Campbell left Portugal for Spain, going to Salamanca and then to Toledo. He began to write propaganda for Franco's Nationalists, travelling around on a journalist's pass issued by Merry del Val, the head of the Nationalist Press Service. Leaving Toledo on June 30, 1937, Campbell was driven to Talavera where had a serious fall, twisting his left hip painfully. The following day, the special car travelled southwards from the front, ending its lightning tour in Seville. This flying visit appears to have been Campbell's only frontline experience of the war. However, that would not keep him from later suggesting that he had seen far more action than he had.[20]

At the outbreak of the Second World War, Campbell denounced Nazi Germany and returned to Britain. He did duty as an Air Raid Precautions warden in London. During this period he met and befriended Dylan Thomas, a fellow alcoholic, with whom he once ate a vase of daffodils in celebration of St. David's Day. Although he was over draft age and in bad physical shape due to his alcoholism, as well as having a bad hip, Campbell finally managed to get enlisted in the British Army: he was accepted by the Army Intelligence Corps because of his knowledge of languages and began training as a private with the Royal Welsh Fusiliers on April 1, 1942.[24] Having completed his basic training, he was transferred in July to the Intelligence Corps Depot near Winchester, where he was trained on motorcycles.[25] In February 1943 he was promoted to sergeant, and in March he was posted to East Africa. On May 5, he arrived in Nairobi in Kenya and was attached to the King's African Rifles, serving in a camp two miles outside Nairobi. After having worked as a military censor he was transferred in June to the 12th Observation Unit of the commando force being trained for jungle warfare against the Japanese.[26] However, any hope of seeing real action in the Far East was thwarted when Campbell during training in late July suffered a new injury to his damaged hip in a fall from a motorcycle. He was sent back to hospital in Nairobi, where the doctors examined an X-ray of his hips and declared him unfit for active service. He was then, between September 1943 and April 1944, employed as a coast-watcher, looking out for enemy submarines on the Kenyan coast north of Mombasa. During this period, he spent several sojourns in hospital due to attacks of malaria.[27] On April 2, 1944, he was discharged from the army as unfit owing to chronic osteoarthritis in his left hip.