john ling
08-10-2007, 13:26
Can anyone shed light on the activities of HMS Colombo in the period 1933 to 1935 please.
We have been given a photo album with the title "HMS Colomba 1933-35" that were taken , we think, by RN seaman Eric Barnes. The album has 120 b&w photos. Most are of scenes in and around ports east of Suez but there are also pics of the ceremony of "Crossing the Line". two other pages include naval excercises such as firing and recovering a torpedo, gun practice, depth charging and making smoke before the album concludes with a photo of Captain C E B Simeon.
We have a photo dated 1933 of Eric in Jerusalem in naval rating's uniform with a shipmate. The ships' name isn't discerible from their caps but we would like to find out if they were on HMS Colombo and that the pic was taken during a stop-over before passing through the SZuez Canal.
Ports of call in the album east of Suez include Colombo, Bahrein, Rufiji Delta, Seychelles, Diyatalawa (including a photo of a hfox cut into a hillside with the date 1913) Vizagapatam, Rangoon and Trivandrum.
Eric Barnes was an HMS Ganges boy who joined the Submarine Service in 1936 and died in July 1940 on HMS Phoenix when she was sunk by the Italian shiop Albatross off Sicily.
We would like to verify our belief that he took the photos in his service prior to joining submarines.
Can anyone help, please, with information that will establish that he was part of the crew of HMS Colombo, and that she was in these several places ain the period 1933-35.
John Ling
We have been given a photo album with the title "HMS Colomba 1933-35" that were taken , we think, by RN seaman Eric Barnes. The album has 120 b&w photos. Most are of scenes in and around ports east of Suez but there are also pics of the ceremony of "Crossing the Line". two other pages include naval excercises such as firing and recovering a torpedo, gun practice, depth charging and making smoke before the album concludes with a photo of Captain C E B Simeon.
We have a photo dated 1933 of Eric in Jerusalem in naval rating's uniform with a shipmate. The ships' name isn't discerible from their caps but we would like to find out if they were on HMS Colombo and that the pic was taken during a stop-over before passing through the SZuez Canal.
Ports of call in the album east of Suez include Colombo, Bahrein, Rufiji Delta, Seychelles, Diyatalawa (including a photo of a hfox cut into a hillside with the date 1913) Vizagapatam, Rangoon and Trivandrum.
Eric Barnes was an HMS Ganges boy who joined the Submarine Service in 1936 and died in July 1940 on HMS Phoenix when she was sunk by the Italian shiop Albatross off Sicily.
We would like to verify our belief that he took the photos in his service prior to joining submarines.
Can anyone help, please, with information that will establish that he was part of the crew of HMS Colombo, and that she was in these several places ain the period 1933-35.
John Ling