Dugald Swanwick Bannatyne was in the Blucher from 1932. He went up to Pembroke, and became an accountant with Barton Mayhew & Co.
With the outbreak of World War Two, he enlisted in the local Herts & Beds Regiment, before gaining a commission in the Camerons in 1940. He went to the Desert with the Camerons and the Regiment was captured at Tobruk. A Royal Artillery officer was witness to the arrival of 2nd Camerons to the POW cage:
“We heard, although we could scarcely believe it, the skirl of pipes. There, in the brilliant sunshine, marching down the centre of the road from the escarpment, came a long column of men. The Jerry traffic was brought to a standstill or forced on to the verges. A strange awed murmur went up from the cage: “The Camerons!”
In columns of threes they marched with a swing to the tune of their pipers – ‘The March of The Cameron Men’ – each company led by its company commander, just as though they were on parade. It was a supremely moving sight, although some of us could only see it hazily through our tears.
Even the Jerry sentries sprang to attention as the battalion neared the gates. There, the Camerons halted. Their Colonel reported to the Brigadier, saluted, and dismissed his men, who had held out for twenty-four hours after the surrender order had been issued.”
Bannatyne ended up at P/W Camp No 35 in Italy before being moved on to Oflag VIII and then Oflag 79. Communications were not impossible however, as the Yearbooks for 1942 and 1944 record Speech Day telegrams from Camp 35 and Oflag VIII from Bannatyne and other OWs wishing everyone at College “Speech Day Greetings”, the latter telegram being cosigned by fellow future Lodge member Henry Sherbrooke and 16 fellow OW PoWs in the same camp.
After liberation in 1945, he completed the war under the cap badge of the Royal Signals, and was prompted Captain. With peace, he rejoined his old firm, becoming an ACA, and later joining Knapp Drewett & Sons Ltd in Surrey. He also spent time working in the USA and in Continental Europe.
He was initiated into the Lodge after the War in 1947, and became Master in 1954.
He is buried at The Chapel, Westhope in Shropshire.