大象传媒

This story was submitted to the People's War site by a volunteer on behalf of Kenneth Coombs and has been added to the site with his permission. He fully understands the site's terms and conditions.

At the outbreak of WW2, I was an evacuee, having been sent to Petersfield with my school (Emmanuel School, Wandsworth). I was billeted with Mrs X, whose husband was a regular in the Royal Navy, then serving on HMS Warspite as Admirals Coxon in the Mediterranean. This was probably the thing that influenced me to join the Navy as there was no history of that in my family, (my father and all my Uncles had served in the army in WW1).
After leaving school I volunteered for the Navy in 1942 and actually joined on 13 April 1943, five days after my 18th birthday. My initial training was at HMS Collingwood, Fareham, followed by a gun layers course at HMS Excellent, Portsmouth. During my time at Collingwood I contracted mumps and had 3 weeks in hospital. On discharge from hospital, I was recommended for 2 weeks with leave, but on arrival back at Collingwood I was told I was only entitled to 1 weeks leave! Also discharged from hospital was another seaman from Collingwood, but he was given 2 weeks leave. He therefore returned from leave a week after me and was put into a hut in another part of the camp. One night a couple of weeks later a stray German bomber flew over the camp and dropped a bomb which hit his hut and killed all in it. I realised then that if I had been given the 2 weeks leave originally promised I would not be here today.
After finishing my course at Whale Island (HMS Excellent) I was posted to a brand new corvette - HMS Bamborough Castle - then being completed in Aberdeen. After running up trials at Tobermory, we saw service escorting one convoy to Gibraltar, carrying out one cruise in the channel, not long after D/Day and escorting 6 convoys to Russia. On 9 December 1944 on one convoy to Russia, north of the Arctic circle, our radar picked up a U Boat, which then crash dived. It was immediately located by Asdie and attacked with Squid and depth charges. This was all in the dark. In February 1945 we learned that we had been credited with sinking a U Boat (U387). Another day I was below when action stations sounded. On reaching the deck I was surprised to see a couple of German aircraft flying close to the ship. I think that in the mist they were as surprised to see us as we were to see them. One dropped something but it exploded on hitting the water. On another convoy, the convoy was attacked on the way into Kola Inlet, and HMS Denbigh Castle was sunk. On leaving Kola, the convoy was attacked again and both HMS Lark and HMS Bluebell wre lost,(the latter with only 1 survivior).We picked up 96 survivors from HMS Lark and they took passage with us back to the UK. A most crowded couple of weeks as our ships company was only 108!
After VE Day, I was posted to SE Asia Command and joined the destroyer HMS Petard. The war with Japan ended immediately and the next 9 months was spent around the Indian Ocean and Indonesia visiting Colombo, Trincomalee, Singapore, Java, Sumatra, Calcutta, Bombay and Karachi. One day we made 3 landings on the NW coast of Sumatra for discussions between our Captain, an officer from the Free Indonesia Army and the local rebels to stop them interfering with lighthouses. This must have been in the area of the recent tsunami.
In the middle of 1946 I returned to UK and was discharged from the Navy in July 1946.

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