A Journey of Discovery

First In Last Out

A journey of discovery about the WW2 service of Able Seaman John Couch JX363389

Part 1

''It was a lovely service but why wasn't his war record mentioned?'' Uncle Joe asked us. We had just come out of the crematorium chapel after my dad's committal and Joe, his brother, had beckoned us towards him. ''We all did our bit but he was at the sharp end!''. My sister Ruth, a few years older than me, my brother John (always Jack to his family), a few years older again, and I glanced at each other and confessed that we knew little about it, save that he had served in the navy. He had never really said much to any of us. I did feel a pang of guilt though. A couple of hours earlier, our Uncle John, dad's younger brother-in-law, had passed me a sheet of paper. On it he had penned a tribute to my dad headed 'Our Jack'.

Our Jack began with two words; ''Why worry?'' Uncle John had identified these words as dad's stock reply to anyone who seemed anxious about things which he thought, in the grand scheme of things, weren't worth worrying about. Later in the piece, Uncle John alluded to the fact that dad had been a Royal Navy Commando who had landed on the Italian beaches yet never had a retrospective boast or a moan. If there was a tale to be told, he wrote, it would be of some escapade, like meeting up with his brother... I was inexperienced when it came to funerals so merely passed the paper around to let people read it quietly and then slipped it back in my pocket. How I wish I had asked Uncle John, an educated man, great public speaker and himself a sailor in the latter stages of the war, to read it out at the service. The fact is I didn't and it has bothered me ever since.

As an aside, I did type out 'Our Jack', credited Uncle John as the author and had it printed on some fine paper. I then framed it and presented it to my mum. Ruth recently sent me a copy of it.

The dad I knew liked to make people laugh. When I look back I could say he didn't have much. He would have disagreed. He would probably say he had everything he needed or wanted. Together with my mum Ruth, he lived the last 25 years or so of his life back in the Rhondda Valley in South Wales, only a few miles from his birth place. He got his enjoyment from putting 10p each way on the horses (or was it two bob?) down at the bookies and from enjoying a game of bingo and a pint at the club with mum and their friends. He had enough, so why would he want more?

Now let's fast forward 25 years or so.

Ruth and I were reminiscing on the phone when she mentioned all the old family photos and documents she had, including dad's navy service record. She asked me if I would like some copies of them. Absolutely I would. As soon as I received them I pored over them to glean what I could of his service days. There was a long list of ships but no Ark Royal or Hood, or indeed any other ship I knew the name of. One odd name that did stand out was Copra. What kind of a name for a ship is that? Enter my good friend Mister Google.

Imagine my surprise when, as I went down the list, I found that not one of them was a ship. They were all shore bases. Indeed, the bulk of them were training bases, mostly concerning landing craft. When I got down the list to HMS Copra, I stumbled on the Combined Operations website. What a find. It didn't take much reading before I realised I was on to something that could prove exciting. HMS Copra was a shore base in Scotland which maintained records for Royal Navy personnel attached to Combined Operations. The more I read, the more I understood about Combined Ops and that as a commando, the list of establishments on my dad's records made perfect sense. But where did he go and what did he do when he was under HMS Copra?

To be continued...

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 15/04/2021 16:36:23

Part 2

First it was time to pay tribute to dad and, it has to be said, make amends for not mentioning his naval service at his funeral. I emailed combinedops.com and asked if my dad could be mentioned in the 'They Also Served' pages. The mention on his docs of being assigned to HMS Copra was sufficient evidence to qualify for this but I now had the bit between my teeth and wanted to dig a bit deeper. Time to apply for his service records from the Royal Navy... and wait... patiently.

It took several months to get dad's records and at first I was a bit underwhelmed. The good thing was that there was a record of his medals; the 1939-45 Star, Italy Star and 1939-45 War Medal. Things were shaping up. Landing craft training, HMS Copra plus the Italy Star was backing up what we felt we already knew. But what else is there? There was a printed copy of his service record which had been extracted from Payment and Victual Ledgers (me neither) and was now showing something extra. For a period of just over two years from the end of his whole year of training, where it had just said Copra on his original docs it was now also showing N2 B.C. What on earth does that mean? On the covering letter it said that 'on the pay and victual trace it states N2 B.C. or sometimes No 2 B.C.' They also said that they did not know what it referred to. Abbreviations are difficult to specify, they said. I did some Googling and emailed the Combined Operations site but could not get to the bottom of N2 B.C. I thought I had reached the end of the road and to be honest felt quite deflated. Now what?

Emails were flying back and forth between Jack, Ruth and I about what we could remember of dad's navy days. We spoke on the phone and racked our brains to remember any snippet of information. What had he said here and there that might give us some clues? What did we ask him and what did he answer? What did other people say? We recalled things that we thought we knew but most memories were from many years ago, in some instances over sixty years ago. Was our memory playing tricks sometimes? Nevertheless we had a picture. But where did all these things fit together?

To be contnued...

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 15/04/2021 17:07:29

Part 3

Here is a list of all the snippets of information we came up with. I've numbered them to make it easier to refer back to.

1. I contacted Uncle John, now in his nineties and as young as he ever was. Also, according to a young female family member, still a bit of a dish. John told me, ''He was a Royal Navy Commando and landed at Anzio. That's all I know.'' Ok, that's a start.

2. ''What happened to his medals?'' I asked my brother. ''And his bayonet.'' Jack replied. I said he couldn't have had a bayonet as he had told me he had a Tommy Gun and a Colt 45. I thought that was a cowboy gun so I may have mis-heard. I didn't think a bayonet would fit on a tommy gun. We agreed it must have been a knife or a dagger. Research on Jack's part found pictures of the Fairbairn-Sykes Fighting Knife. This looked like what he thought was in his very distant memory. Jack also mentioned dad had a long leather sleeveless jerkin.

3. When my dad met a friend of mine from a small Yorkshire town he said that his friend from his navy days came from the same town. I've never forgotten the name. Desmond Gilbert.

4. Whilst doing a crossword I asked my dad if there was a place called Palermo. I had never heard of it and pronounced it Paler Mo. He laughed and pronounced it correctly saying he had been to Sicily. He may even have said to Palermo but I don't recall.

5. He once told me he had driven many miles across the desert to sell socks to the locals (two thousand pairs?). Would he really say that? That's what's in my deep memory.

6. After I had visited Israel from a holiday in Cyprus dad told me he had been in Haifa. He had also mentioned Palestine on occasions.

7. Jack said he'd overheard dad telling someone he'd found a boot with a foot inside it. He seems to remember this was at Salerno, but again these are distant memories. Sorry that's a bit gruesome but we tried to recall everything.

8. Dad told me he watched as someone went 'bomb happy'. We would more appropriately call it PTSD now. This poor chap apparently started stabbing viciously in the ground looking for land mines.

9. Ruth told me she bumped into our cousin whilst out for a walk recently. He told her that his dad, our Uncle Joe, had told him that our dad had landed behind enemy lines. How can that happen when you land on a beach, I wonder.

10. We also wondered how dad had come to meet my mum. Dad was from South Wales and mum was from Irvine in Scotland.

To be continued...

Part 4

So, back to N2 B.C. I couldn't stop thinking about it. Whilst on a walk I thought, Beach! He surely landed on beaches if he had been a commando on landing craft. Was that the letter B? Later the same day Jack phoned and told me to search Beach Clearance. He was on the same lines as me. He thought of Number 2 Beach Clearance but could find no reference to such a unit. I googled it and found deck chair sales. Oh well, more reading and researching then.

Then it came to me in a blinding flash. Navy commandos were called Beachhead Commandos or Beach Commandos. Could this be the B.C? Was there a No.2 unit? Well, no there wasn't. The Beach Commando units had letters (and names beginning with their letter) not numbers. I discovered there was a unit N(Nan) which was divided into three sub-units, N1, N2 and N3. So there I had it. N2 B.C could be a sub unit of Royal Naval Beach Commando N(Nan). N2 Beach Commando.

I quickly skimmed through what I could find about Commando Nan but could find no mention of my dad. There are names and lists but no actual official definitive roll of all who served.

To be continued...

Part 5

Commando Nan were formed at HMS Armadillo in late January 1943. My dad joined Armadillo on 8 Feb 43 so could have been a late entrant to the unit. Without being able to directly link his name to Commando Nan I had to search for other clues. Let's go back to the list above then and add what I have since discovered.

1. RN Beach Commando Nan did indeed go on to land at Anzio.

2. On completion of their training, Commando Nan were presented with their Green Beret and Fairbairn-Sykes Dagger. I also read of RN Commandos who said they carried a Tommy Gun and a Smith and Wesson .45 hand gun. Not so far out from the Colt 45 in my memory. I'm also informed that RN Commandos would almost certainly have been issued with the 'Battle Jerkin'.

3. An Able Seaman Gilbert served in N2 Commando and was wounded in Sicily. He later returned to his unit prior to the Anzio landings.

4. Commando Nan landed in Sicily on their 'D-Day' and spent two weeks on the island prior to some rest and recuperation in Algeria. They then returned to Sicily for the assault on the Italian mainland.

5. Nan then shipped to HMS Saunders (Combined Training Centre Middle East) near Suez. They were surrounded mainly by desert so this could be where he had his travelling sock salesman adventure.

6. There are accounts of RN personnel making trips to Jerusalem and Haifa whilst based at HMS Saunders.

7. I read that Commando Nan practiced for the Anzio landings at Salerno. This was some time after the initial assault here so a gruesome discovery there would have been a possibility.

8. After landing at Anzio the commandos of N(Nan) used their Fairbairn-Sykes Daggers to probe for wood-encased mines which could not be otherwise detected.

9. When Commando Nan landed at Anzio they were of course on the Axis side of the Gustav Line so were in fact behind enemy lines right from the landing.

10. Commando Nan were disbanded at Dundonald in November 1945. Mum and dad got married five months later in Irvine... which is approximately five miles from Dundonald.

To be continued...

This message was edited 4 times. Last update was at 15/04/2021 17:14:35

Part 6

I could not find my dad's name linked to Royal Naval Commando N(Nan) anywhere. Thanks to the evidence provided from Royal Navy Pay and Victual Ledger I'm pleased to say his updated profile now appears on the Combined Operations website in the They Also Served section. His details also appear on the Commando Veterans Archive website, both on the RN Beach Cdo Nominal Roll and in The Gallery. For all these entries I am extremely grateful.

I found one final clue. There is a group photo of Commando Nan on the relaysystem website, easily found by searching for Commando Nan. Right at the top in the centre of the group (in the dark doorway) a man stands above the rest. To the left of him as we view the photo is a chap who I think is my dad. It's a bit grainy and there's some shadowing that gives his chin a narrower appearance but as soon as I saw him I saw myself staring back at me from a mirror in my much younger days. We have a photo of my dad with two of his navy pals, all dressed in what looks like khaki dress. The photo now appears in the RN Beach Commando Gallery on the Commando Veterans Archive website. He has his hand on the shoulder of one of his mates. This chap has a similarly shaped long face to the chap who is standing next to who I think may be my dad in the group photo (on his left as we view it). I wonder if this is his old pal, Desmond Gilbert.

I can now update this recount of our quest to find out about my dad's service during WW2 to say I have found details of his name linking him to Commando Nan. On the relaysystem.co.uk website under the heading 'Royal Naval Beach Commandos Nan to William', in the 'Beach Commando Nan' section, there is a link to an account of RN Commando 'N' by Lt Cdr M V Redshaw, dad's old commanding officer. The link is 'Lt Maurice Vernon Redshaw RNVR'. There on Page 11 in a diary, it states that on 15 October 1943, 'A.B. Couch transferred to GLENGYLE to carry out 14 days No. 11'. Then on 19 October 1943 it states, 'A.B. Couch rejoins'.

I'm told that there is/was a Royal Navy Punishment of No.11 which was, 'Extra work and drill for a period not exceeding fourteen days'. Seems he was released after four days in any case so the 'crime' couldn't have been that bad. I also see that his mate, A.B. Gilbert, was 'in cells' on October 25th so had they both been up to no good? Ruth spotted that this all occurred whilst in the Suez area. I don't know for sure but I like to think that this is all linked to the 2000 (or was it more likely 200?) pairs of socks escapade I referred to in No.5 above.

Whatever his misdemeanour, thankfully it provided the last piece of the jigsaw that was hiding on the carpet... Or was there another piece hiding?

Late edit... I have now found some photos of dad 'in action' in the relaysystem 'Commando Nan' article by following the very last link at the bottom of said article (just above RNBC Oboe). He's on the right in both photos on Page 4 but only mentioned in the bottom photo's caption. We also think he is on the photo on Page 2 sitting behind the officer who is front right in the landing craft.

In Primo Exulto. If I could talk to my dad now I would tell him I knew he was First In Last Out. I can just imagine his reply. ''Aye... of the bookies.''

April 2021

Bob

The end.

Thank you so much for sharing that with us - it's such a heartfelt tribute to your father and made me cry.

Don't beat yourself up about not having those words read out at your dad's funeral - we're all so much wiser with hindsight. You have done your dad proud by finding out so much about him and your love and admiration for him shines brightly.

My dad's oft-used saying was 'Such is life'. I learned quite a lot about his time with No.4 and No.2 (volunteered for Sicily and Salerno) when I was young and am so grateful to my parents for telling me. Little did they, or I, know that I would meet people they'd told me about - or their families.

I will return to this page and read it again ... probably many times. Thank you.

Thank you for that, Eileen.