大象传媒

Part one of an edited oral history interview with Mr. Herbert J. Luscombe conducted by Jenny Ford on behalf of Bedford Museum.

鈥淲hen the war started I was 20, my birthday was 19th August, so I was just 20. I was born in a little village called Blackhawton in Devon, just a little way from Dartmouth. My family were farmers but I lost my parents when I was quite young actually, both of them. Two of the uncles were Guardians of myself and my sister and I went to live with one uncle and my sister went to live with another. They were both farmers and my sister she had a cousin there and I had a cousin where I went. My aunt and uncle lived in a slightly different area, this was Kingsbridge, Devon. And that鈥檚 where I went to school, Kingsbridge for two years and then I went to Totnes, I went away to school for three years.

I鈥檇 done three and a half years as a motor mechanic in the town because I鈥檇 left the farm, which I didn鈥檛 care for and went as a motor mechanic for three and a half years. We had all sorts of cars, lorries and things. Yes, I enjoyed that. It wasn鈥檛 that that drove me into the Navy it wasn鈥檛 that at all. It was the fact that I didn鈥檛 like farming and of course when I lived at home I was expected to work on the farm when I came home from work and in the morning before I went which drove me a bit mad.

It鈥檚 hard to say what affect the war had locally. But before the war farming was very, very bad. My uncle he rented his farm from his father and he had quite a problem to make enough money to pay the rent and live. I remember we used to keep chickens and all that sort of thing and we used to take thirty dozen eggs maybe to the market each week. And you wouldn鈥檛 get more than about 6d a dozen for them and butter we used to take a lot of butter as well because she used to make her own butter then and sell it. There was very little money made out of it and they were struggling for years and then of course once the war started everything changed. I don鈥檛 know if this is of any interest as far as wartime is concerned but when the Americans came to train - they evacuated the farms 鈥� then they made money because were compensated for it. I mean my uncle was lucky he had a little farm, he managed to get a little farm quite close to where he was. It wasn鈥檛 as big as the one he left but he carried on farming. He was able to take his stock with him or most of it anyway. Because I was away most of the time then, I was away all during that time.

I joined the Royal Navy in April 5th 1939 when I was 19. It was strange because my sister was friendly with an E.R.A. herself and we were very close as you can imagine because we were orphans but we were living OK, we were fine, it wasn鈥檛 like the old story of orphans. She said, 鈥榃ell, why don鈥檛 you join the Navy?鈥� So one day we talked about it. I didn鈥檛 tell my aunt and uncle before I went, actually I think we decided we鈥檇 go and see so we got on the motor bike and went to Plymouth. I took my sister with me and I went to the recruiting office and that was it. Of course I didn鈥檛 sign on until I鈥檇 finished all my training, passed the trade tests and that sort of thing and then after that you sign on for 12 years.

We trained in Plymouth, Devonport Barracks, HMS Drake. In those days you trained in the Barracks, that was all the square bashing and that sort of thing, rifles - the usual training of Navy, Army and everybody. You had to do eight weeks of that. And then we moved into the Barracks until the end of July 1939 when I got Drafted to the Repulse.

We could go on the upper deck but we had a special area for exercising. The Chief P.O.s and P.O.s had their own deck where they used to go and walk. What amazed me when I went in the Navy, in the Barracks all these chaps used to walk up and down. They didn鈥檛 go for a walk around the Barracks they walked up and down and that鈥檚 what you had to do on the ship to get exercise. It was strange when I went in first to see them doing it but we all did it.

There was an announcement on the 3rd of September, that war was declared but we were already up there, we were already at sea in the Skagerrak then. We just kept working it was just a job really. I suppose we must have reacted in some way but really I don鈥檛 remember it. I don鈥檛 really know it鈥檚 difficult you know. We were only kids really a lot of us. I mean there was quite a lot of us young ones on there because we all went in a big draft from Devonport when we started in July. There were only two of us from outside, there was only Frank and I and the rest were ex-Boys and they knew the Navy routine. I mean it was strange because then of course the first night there we had to find somewhere to put our hammocks to sleep. We sailed from Plymouth and sailed up The Channel and up the North Sea to where we were going, first time at sea, yes. It was good weather but I was still bad. We went down to one of the dynamo generator rooms and it was very, very hot down there and we weren鈥檛 used to being hot like that and we鈥檇 had herrings in tomato sauce for breakfast and it didn鈥檛 go down very well, I was never ill again. I was very lucky, a lot of people never got over it. I used to get a headache sometimes, particularly in the small boats, but apart from that I was never really sick again.

The Mess Decks were - I mean all portholes were above the water level, quite a bit above the water level but most of the Messes were at that level. It was a long, long ship of course you can understand but we used to sleep all over the place. Some used to sleep in the Workshops because they had big workshops and that sort of thing. I slept just outside the Mess in the passageways, slung my hammock. We鈥檇 already been sleeping in hammocks in Training Division. They showed us how to do it and you had to have the right number of turns on the hammock you couldn鈥檛 have three turns or four it had to be I forget now I think it was seven turns. You did them up like that because all your bedding was in there and you had to learn how to put the strings on them for a start, they had to be strung properly. That was an experience getting in the hammock for the first time. But in the ship they were a Godsend because it swung with the ship. I mean when you had a bunk 鈥� which we got in the end 鈥� you could fall out of it if you didn鈥檛 watch it. Of course there are no hammocks now apparently.

We had a good set of Chiefs on the Repulse and the Engineers were quite OK. The Commander E, we had a Commander E and a Lieutenant Commander who was the Senior Engineer they called him and then there was 鈥� I don鈥檛 know how many of them but there were quite a few engineers, they were Watch Keeping the same as we were. There were a lot of Officers on there, I don鈥檛 know how many. You had a Full Captain on ours obviously. But he wasn鈥檛 the senior one in the Fleet, of course we had an Admiral, Admiral Tovey was the Commander-in-Charge of the Home Fleet then.

Well, when the war started it wasn鈥檛 an Exercise it was the real thing. We were doing Northern Patrol. When the war started we were up there ready for the German Fleet in case they came out that鈥檚 what the Home Fleet was there for. Then of course later on when they didn鈥檛 come out and things like that we went on to the Iceland 鈥� New Foundland Patrol and ships went to different place, different jobs. We鈥檇 go back in to Scapa Flow and oil the ship and that. I mean we used to use an awful lot of oil, we used to carry 4,000 tons. If we were doing full speed we could only stay out about five days but of course we didn鈥檛 do that very often. The top speed of the Repulse was reckoned to be about 29 or 30 knots which is more that a Battleship. She was a fast one there were only three of those in the Service. There was Hood that was the famous one that got sunk, then the Repulse and the Renown. But we were the one that hadn鈥檛 been modernised so all our boilers 鈥� we had so many boilers that鈥檚 why - because the Renown she had been modernised and she could pass us. When we were going somewhere to get there quickly everybody went full speed and pulled away from each other and it was quite evident that this urged each other on you know. A very interesting thing was out of all the time we were at sea we had a Destroyer escort. They were the Destroyers that were escorts but they were fast ones, they could do more than we could do at speed. Some of the Destroyers were new, some were very old. They were always with us, they were our submarine screen. Of course we always had a Cruiser and an Aircraft Carrier, with us some of the time, I think it was the Eagle. There were always two or three of us and a Battleship as well. One of the Battleships got torpedoed when we were up North of Iceland area one time. She didn鈥檛 get sunk she had a big list. We left from that area then and went full speed home and left her with all the Destroyers. We went up to full speed or fairly well up on speed and we got away on our own, the subs couldn鈥檛 catch us then. The submarines were around obviously but we were lucky we didn鈥檛 get touched at all, it was only the one, I think her name was Barham but I鈥檓 not quite sure.

We used to do about a 10 days patrol up there. I was on her until as I say 1941. We came back to Plymouth a couple of times for different things to be done to the ship, the Germans brought out what they called magnetic mines. So what they did they put wires all around the ship because all ships were the same North/South Poles magnetic poles and they put these wires round the ship to equalise the pull so they wouldn鈥檛 set the mines off. If you went close to one and you were a different Pole it just blew up. There was one got washed up on the South coast somewhere and they found out what it was and of course immediately all the big ships had these wires put round them. I know we went into Plymouth and they put all these wires round the ship on the upper deck, on the guard rails, it was only a temporary job. Then they had to put the wires down inside in the end, all round the ship.

There were five classes of E.R.A., the fifth class was the lowest rank as an E.R.A. but people who did the same trade tests as me as a fifth class could have been an acting fourth class because once they were over 21 they were acting fourth class. So if you went in a bit later on, when you were a bit older you picked up your P.O.s (Petty Officer) rank right away, we went in as fifth class, we used to wear one hook on our arm (one anchor). When you were made P.O. you had double anchors and a crown that鈥檚 how they knew the difference. Of course you weren鈥檛 allowed to have brass buttons as a fifth class, when you became an acting fourth you got brass buttons and of course the cap badges were different. We used to have a red cap badge and when you became a P.O. you got a gold ring one, a better one.

A lot of the E.R.A.s, particularly in peacetime, they never became Chiefs. They became Chief Petty Officers which meant they were a higher grade than a P.O., they were a Chief P.O. but a lot of them never got to Chief E.R.A. because as I say they made a lot of us Chiefs because of the wartime. There were so many small ships and they needed a Chief for nearly all of them, they had a Chief E.R.A. So after the war of course we were all still in the Navy and a lot, like me, were full time so there was no room for anymore in the ship. Numbers went down and down and years later they let people go out. So that鈥檚 the progression, fifth, acting fourth and then fourth and then as you got further on and you got proficient in running an engine room of a small ship by yourself, in charge. Then you got to be a Chief P.O., you wore three buttons instead of the hooks and that was the way you finished as far as uniforms were concerned but not your rates. You could progress right up through the third and second and first class but you didn鈥檛 pass exams for those, you just progressed. The next exam was the Charge ticket to be in charge of a ship or to be in charge of an engine room. Then as a Chief E.R.A. you became in charge of the whole Engine Room Department on a small ship. That鈥檚 where I finished up, very early in life. I got made, at the end of 1945 so that was only six years from when I鈥檇 joined which was very unusual. I was just lucky. Well, it was the wartime, there were a lot of people like that, pushed on. They needed the people and that was it.鈥�

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