Lee-on-Solent – They have no grave but the sea

History and the stories that have informed and formed our modern city have always inspired me to write. Finding out an interesting fact about a place I thought I knew well, or solving the mystery of a building, woodland, or strange stone not only satisfies my curiosity, but is also something I enjoy sharing with others who find these things interesting. The inspiration for my ‘big writing project’ was a gift from Commando. The gift was an Ancestry.co.uk membership. Through it I verified many things I already knew, but I also uncovered new facts and new mysteries.

Some of these facts and mysteries set my imagination racing, others suggested characters and personalities. Some of the stories were full of hope. A few were sad enough to bring me to tears, even though I had never met these distant relatives. The story of Leonard Thomas Haley is one of the latter. He was my first cousin once removed, born in Plymouth on 6 May 1917, and he shared his fate with three hundred and seven other unfortunate men.

Leonard was the eldest son of Hariph and Martha Haley, my grandfather’s younger brother and his wife who lived in Plymouth. Martha was an actress and Hariph was a mechanical minded man, a bicycle builder and then a motorcycle mechanic, who spent the Great War aboard HMS Constance, as armorer’s crew, keeping the guns working. Leonard obviously followed in his father’s footsteps. When war looked to be inevitable his younger brother and his Southampton cousins joined the Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve. Leonard went his own way. He joined the Fleet Air Arm, leaving behind his wife and baby daughter. Leonard’s mechanical aptitude was quickly recognised and he became a Leading Air Fitter. He was stationed on HMS Hermes.

HMS Hermes was the world’s first ship to be designed as an aircraft carrier. Her construction had begun during the Great War but she was not commissioned until 1924. When World War II began she was assigned to the Home Fleet, conducting anti-submarine patrols in the Western Approaches. In October 1939 she was transferred to Dakar to hunt down German ships with the French Navy. After the fall of France in 1940 she blockaded Dakar, had a refit in South Africa (after a bit of a mishap with a British merchant cruiser) and acted as support during the East African Campaign, in the Persian Gulf and the Indian Ocean. From the deck of the ship, Leonard spent his early twenties seeing the world and patching up planes.

After another refit in late 1941, early 1942, Hermes joined the Eastern Fleet near Ceylon. By this time the Japanese had bombed Pearl Harbour and the Americans had joined the war. The Indian Ocean was not a good place to be. On 8 April 1942, she was berthed in Trincomalee with HMAS Vampire preparing for the British invasion of Madagascar, when news came through of a Japanese raid. Hermes and Vampire sailed for the Maldives. They avoided the bombing of the port, but, early on 9 April, a scout plane from the Japanese battleship Haruna spotted them and soon they were surrounded by dozens of Aichi D3A dive bombers, near Batticaloa.

Forty five bombers attacked Hermes and she sustained forty hits. She sank within twenty minutes with the loss of three hundred and seven men, including 24 year old Leonard. Vampire was also attacked by sixteen planes. She broke in half and sank within ten minutes with the loss of her commanding officer and eighty sailors. The survivors from both ships were picked up by hospital ship Vita.

It’s hard to imagine how those young men must have felt, their fear, their suffering, their final thoughts of the loved ones at home. On 6 August 2020, with this new knowledge fresh in my mind, Commando and I took a drive to Lee-on-Solent to look for the Fleet Air Arm Memorial. The memorial was built near the large Naval Air Station HMS Daedelus and unveiled on 20 May 1953. Sadly, Leonard’s parents, Hariph and Martha did not live long enough to see it. Perhaps his young wife, Iris, and daughter, Pamela, made the journey? Whether they did or not, I doubt that the memorial, beautiful as it is, or the medals they would have been sent, were much consolation. I never met Leonard. I don’t even have a photograph of him, but I will admit to shedding a tear when I found his name on the memorial.

The memorial contains the names of over 1,900 servicemen and one woman, who have no known grave. Each was someone’s son, or daughter. Their families would all have received the dreaded telegram informing them that their loved ones were lost at sea. The words, ‘They have no grave but the sea’ are inscribed on the memorial and the view from it is of the sea. Somehow, this seems very fitting.

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