Nationality:

British (1801-present, Kingdom)

Service number 131991.

Campbell Muirhead was born in South Africa and was educated at Portobello Secondary School and George Herriot’s in Edinburgh. He joined the Royal Air Force soon after the outbreak of war, first serving as a ground gunner. During his training and then during his active service in Lancasters with 12 Squadron he recorded the events, day-by-day, in a diary which he was later to publish. Muirhead traveled by steamer across the Atlantic and by train to Falcon Field, Mesa, Arizona, arriving there March 15th,1942, training to become a pilot. He describes it as an attractive place and made all the more interesting by the arrival of a 20th Century Fox film crew to shoot the movie ‘Thunderbirds’. He failed the course in Arizona but determined to become aircrew, he then trained as a bomb aimer in Canada. His first diary entry of Friday 20th February,
1942 at Moncton, New Brunswick in Canada states:"First of all, I would say what struck me most on arriving was the absence of any blackout: The main street here was – to my eyes – simply blazing with light and the fact that the windows of the houses shone forth, brought back memories of peace-time nights in Scotland."
The Bomb aimer course suited him much more and he was retained as instructor. On August 4th, 1943, he returned to the UK
As a Flying Officer he was posted to No. 12 Squadron, at Wickenby, Lincolnshire, in May 1944.
He completed a tour of duty comprising 30 combat operations.

Promotions:
October 9th, 1942: Pilot Officer (probation/emergency)
April 9th, 1943: Flying Officer probation/war sub)
October 9th, 1944: Flying Officer (war sub)
August 5th, 1948: appointment to commission as Flying Officer

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