One of the fresh faced young recruits to the army just after his 18^th birthday Cyril trained and eventually served with the 2^nd Battalion, Northamptonshire Regt.  When he joined, Cyril would have been among the thousands of raw recruits being trained up to replace the losses suffered not only in the earlier Dunkirk campaign but also in the Africa campaign which was at its peak in 1942.  By the time Cyril was sent out to Africa in early 1943 the worst of this campaign was over, but a new battle was about to start.

          Since the Italian Fascist regime spearheaded by Mussolini had joined Hitler’s Nazis in 1940, the Allies found themselves in a potentially fatal position with two major European countries siding against them.  The El-Alamein desert campaign in Africa in 1942 had proved that the Allies weren’t going to go down without a fight, and after their victory over Rommel’s Afrika Korps they felt ready to attempt a foothold back into Nazi-occupied mainland Europe.  The final aim of the 1943 campaign for the Allies was to invade Italy, the weaker of the two Axis powers and depose Mussolini.  To do this however they had to first take the island of Sicily to use as a staging post between the northern African coastline and the mainland of Italy.

          It was here that the Allies landed on the 11^th July 1943, storming the beaches with troops that had come across on troop transports.  Their initial engagements were met with heavy resistance from Italians but they gradually gained ground over the proceeding weeks.  Unfortunately it was here that Cyril met his death, as his battalion was one of the first to land on the beaches and therefore met the strongest opposition.  His comrades laid him to rest in Syracuse War Cemetery just a short way from his place of death.

          Cyril was not the first member of his family to fall, as his brother William had died eighteen months previously leaving his parents, Edmond and Nellie Cammish who lived at 2, Cliffords Terrace in mourning for a second son.