Camp Lejeune

Between the 1950s and the 1980s, hundreds of UK personnel and civilians were posted or spent time at Camp Lejeune military base in North Carolina, where they were exposed to cancer-causing chemicals from a polluted water supply.

For decades, chemicals had been leaking into the water supplies at Camp Lejeune in North Carolina, increasing the risk of some cancers.

Two years later, Joe spotted a notice in a veterans’ newsletter from a legal firm pursuing Camp Lejeune compensation claims.

Research by File on 4 suggests those put at risk included more than 1,000 British military personnel and civilians who went to Camp Lejeune in this period.

Joe was posted at Camp Lejeune in 1982 with Carol and their one-year-old son, Paul, as part of an officers’ exchange programme run by the Royal and US Marines.