User:Draikens/Leslie Coombes OBE

Leslie Coombes OBE was born in Newport Gwent in 1906. He left school at 14 and gained his marine engineering certificate at night school. During WW2 he was chief engineer of the SS Willesden and took part in numerous atlantic convoys. Torpedoed three times by U-boats and despite a desperate defence against the German battleship,Regensberg, he was taken prisoner and handed over to the Japanese Navy. He spent the remainder of the war in Kawasaki prison camp in Japan, and as with many others suffered great hardship. His wife, Joan Coombes, was a staff sergeant in the army and followed the allied forces from D-Day onwards as they pushed towards Berlin.