Bruce Shand Major Bruce Middleton Hope Shand , MC and bar , DL , ( 22 January 1917 – 11 June 2006 ) was an officer in the British Army . He is best known as the father of Camilla , Duchess of Cornwall , the second wife of Charles , Prince of Wales . Early life . Shand was born in London , the son of Philip Morton Shand ( 1888 – 1960 ) , an architectural writer and critic who was a close friend of Walter Gropius and Le Corbusier and whose company , " Finmar " , imported furniture by Alvar Aalto into the United Kingdom . His mother was Edith Marguerite Harrington ( 1893 – 1981 ) , later Mrs . Charles Tippett . Bruce Shand ' s parents divorced when he was three years old . His father went on to remarry three times , but he did not see his father again until he was 18 . One of his two half - sisters is Baroness Howe of Idlicote , wife of Geoffrey Howe . His mother remarried to Herbert Charles Tippet , a golf course designer . Contrary to some newspaper reports , young Bruce was not abandoned by his mother and stepfather but taken to live with them in Westbury , Long Island , New York in 1921 , a passage of his life that he omitted from his autobiography , giving the erroneous impression of having been abandoned . After visiting the UK in June 1923 , Bruce and his mother returned to the US in September 1923 with the stated intent ( according to US immigration records ) of residing permanently in the United States and taking US citizenship . When he returned to the UK it was to begin his education , organised and paid for by his grandparents . His mother and stepfather returned to the UK in 1927 and moved to Ireland in the 1930s . His stepfather died in Rye in 1947 and his mother died in Cooden Beach , Sussex in 1981 . Shand was educated at Rugby and Sandhurst Military Academy , and was commissioned in the 12th Lancers as a second lieutenant in 1937 . He became a troop leader in " A " Squadron . His interests included fox hunting and polo . Second world war . In the Second World War , he served in France as part of the British Expeditionary Force . The 12th Lancers were equipped with lightly armed Morris armoured cars in a reconnaissance role . The regiment spent six months at Foncquevillers during the Phoney War , then advanced to the River Dyle and retreated in the face of the German blitzkrieg . Shand won his first MC in 1940 , covering the withdrawal to Dunkirk , from where he was evacuated back to England , arriving back in Margate on 31 May 1940 . After a period with the regiment in Poole and in Reigate , and an interlude training the North Irish Horse in Northern Ireland , Shand was sent with the regiment to North Africa in September 1941 as part of the 7th Armoured Division , where he was promoted to Captain . He won his second MC in January 1942 , covering the withdrawal of armoured cars of the 6th Rajputana Rifles in the face of a strong counterattack by the Afrika Corps . He met Winston Churchill shortly before the Second Battle of El Alamein . On 6 November 1942 , on a probe towards Marsa Matruh , his vehicle was surrounded and destroyed . Shand ' s two crewmen were killed , and he was wounded . He was captured and taken to Germany as a prisoner of war . After treatment in Athens , he was held at Oflag IX A in Spangenberg Castle , near Spangenberg , for the duration of the war . Later life and death . Shand returned to England in 1945 , declining an opportunity to continue service in the Army . On 2 January 1946 , he married the Hon Rosalind Maud Cubitt , daughter of the 3rd Baron Ashcombe and the former Sonia Keppel . They had two daughters , Camilla and Annabel , and a son , Mark . He had many business interests , but was most notably a partner in " Block , Grey and Block " , a firm of wine merchant s in South Audley Street , Mayfair , later joining " Ellis , Son and Vidler " of Hastings and London . He kept a house in Kensington and a second in Plumpton in Sussex , but later moved to Dorset . Shand was a Deputy Lieutenant of Sussex , and Vice - Lieutenant of East Sussex from 1974 until 1992 . He remained passionate about fox hunting , and was Master of Southdown Fox Hounds from 1956 to 1975 . He was Exon and later Adjutant and Clerk of the Cheque of the Queen ' s Body Guard of the Yeomen of the Guard . He wrote a memoir of his war entitled " Previous Engagements " , and was a reviewer of military books for " Country Life " . Shand maintained a public silence throughout his daughter ' s relationship with the Prince of Wales , particularly after the relationship became public knowledge . His wife , the Hon Rosalind Shand , died 14 July 1994 aged 72 , having long suffered from osteoporosis . He died from cancer in 2006 , aged 89 at his home in Stourpaine , Dorset , with his family at his bedside . After a funeral service at the Holy Trinity Church in Stourpaine on 16 June , Shand ' s body was cremated .