| Person Name | Cameron-Smith; Hamish |
| Surname | Cameron-Smith |
| Forenames | Hamish |
| DatesAndPlaces | Cameron-Smith was a Scottish architect. He joined the London Scottish Territorial Army in 1939, then joined the Royal Engineers. He was seconded to the Indian Army Engineers and posted to the Bombay Sappers in Pune, Maharashtra, where he spent between 6 and 9 months training the Indian Sappers. He was then taken to Singapore on the Devonshire troop ship.
The fall of Singapore and a series of other campaigns by the Japanese forces resulted in a large number of Allied service personnel being taken prisoner. In order to accommodate them, the Changi Gaol was established on 17 February 1942 as the Prisoner-of-War Headquarters for Singapore. Up to that time it had been a British army barracks. Cameron-Smith was a prisoner there for 3 1/2 years. With the assistance of Lieutenant Hugh Simon-Thwaites (Fr Hugh Thwaites SJ), and a band of volunteer labourers, he designed and built a Roman Catholic chapel there to Our Lady of Christians. After the war the chapel was saved and after being in storage for 40 years was reconstructed in Duntroon, Australia, close to the ANZAC Memorial Chapel, where it is the National Prisoner of War Memorial. |
| Code | DS/UK/118 |
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