大象传媒

My name is Peggy Leatherbarrow, I am 87 years of age, and when World War Two broke out I was still living at home, in Gosport, at my grandparents house.
Two of my uncles were in the Royal Navy and I was Fire watching every night.
Living near the Solent I saw the Canadians who were intending to make a landing at Dieppe, sadly word of their mission had leaked out to the enemy and they were driven back to Portsmouth harbour, bombed and machine gunned every step of the way.
In 1940 my uncle Chief Petty Officer Ernest Stent was back and forth on food convoys and I remember the look of joy and the tears on my Grandmothers face each time he got home safely. In that dreadful year the men of the Royal Navy and the Merchant Navy saved us all from starvation.
News came over the radio that HMS Hood had been sunk and that it was feared all hands were lost, we knew that Ern was on that ship last time he was in port.The shock of this news robbed his elder brother Edward of his sanity and sadly he never did regain his reason.
We later discovered that Ernest had been transferred from the Hood to another duty, searching for the U-Boats that were sinking our ships.
In that same year my younger brother Richard Vick, who had been on the training ship HMS St Vincent from the age of 15 and was now 20 and serving on the battle ships, called to take me for a night out before he sailed. We spent a happy evening together and later he sent me a photograph of himself from Bone, North Africa.
I loved my little brother dearly and constantly feared for his safety.
Uncle Maurice, our other sailor, had been invalided out of the Navy and was now working on munitions in Manchester. He knew I had been trained to operate a capstan lathe and sent for me to work on a job of the utmost importance. In Manchester I was put to work making a precision component called the inner race, this was part of the Gimball giroscope which held the ball bearing for the nose of torpedoes.
At last I felt I was really helping our men on the high seas.
When I returned home from work one night, to the house in Withington, where I stayed with my Uncle and Aunt, there was a black edged letter waiting for me. I was told to go up to my room to read the contents.
Something inside me died that night when I read that my brothers ship, the HMS Holcombe, had been sunk off the coast of North Africa.
Until recently I didn't have much information about the circumstances of his death, but friends have surfed the internet for me and I now have an information folder which tells me that Richard was one of 10 ratings and 1 officer who died of their wounds in the military hospital at Bone.He now lies in the Bone War Memorial cemetery, Annaba, Algeria.
I now know that both the Holcombe and its sister ship the Tynedale were both topedoed and sunk within hours of each other on the 12th December 1943.HMS Anenome and HMS Rousay along with USS Niblack and Australian aircraft support went in persuit of the U-Boat and finally after a 30 hour search they managed to sink it. My uncle CPO Ernest Stent was on one of the persuit ships.
I also have in my folder a copy of the Times newspaper, dated 8th February 1944, where my brothers name RCF Vick appears on the Admiralty roll of honour. There is also a photo of Dicks ship taken on the 4th December 1943 by an Australian pilot officer and one of my brothers last resting place in the Bone War Cemetery.
I am truly grateful to the kind people who sent me those and it is my intention to hand them down to my grand children and great grand children, so that the bravery that runs in their blood will be honoured and remembered for all time.
The youth of this country must never be allowed to forget what our brave men and women did in the service of their country.
I trust that God will guide and protect them always.

Peggy Leatherbarrow

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