Help translating naval service record - Stoker Albert Larcombe from Bristol.

[DuncanBro]

Hello,

I've really puzzled with these entries in the naval service record for L.Stoker K.19455 Albert Ernest Larcombe (Lascombe on his Victory Medal). I tried Googling some of the ship names and that confused me even more! They just look like a load of shore bases.  They stretch from 1913 to 1928.  Can someone help me work out what ships they were, or if bases then where they were and what they were for.

Thank you,

Regards,

Duncan.

[JWK]

Here's one from an old thread:

 

 

On 12/07/2005 at 19:09, DirtyDick said:

Vivid II was the RN Barracks at Devonport.

 

 

 

 

And some more info from Wikipedia (so don't take it as gospel)

Quote

HMS Vivid was the Navy barracks at Devonport. It was commissioned in 1890, and operated as a training unit until 1914. The base was renamed HMS Drake in 1934, and as such is still existing, as the name now refers to all of Her Majesty's Naval Base Plymouth. Other, nominal bases, were established for personnel on detached duty and attached to HMS Vivid for accounting purposes also named "Vivid". Vivid I and II were for sections within Devonport, Vivid I being the Seamanship, Signalling and Telegraphy School and Vivid II the Stokers and Engine Room Artificers School, while Vivid III was used for the Royal Naval Division Trawler Section and Vivid IV was used for personnel at Falmouth (Cornwall) and then Queenstown in Southern Ireland from 1922 to 1923. Vivid V was used for Milford Haven (South Wales).

 

 

 

Edited 15 October , 2018 by JWK

[Raymond-dunn]

Ships he served on are the ones in the brackets, usually indicated by "12" in the next column.

 

Ray

[DuncanBro]

Thanks for the info. Am I right in thinking then that if it says 'Leander (Locust)' then that means Leander was the shore base he was attached to but Locust was the actual ship he served on then? 

It odd because the 3rd entry down seems to be 'Vivid II' which is a shore base and he spent Dec 16 to Sept 17 there, that's the best part of the war and at a time when I thought they were desperate for men for France! 

[horatio2]

2 hours ago, DuncanBro said:

that's the best part of the war and at a time when I thought they were desperate for men for France! 

Perhaps it was not intended BUT the implication that a Royal Navy stoker drafted to a shore establishment was somehow skulking from his duty is a bit rich. Had the Admiralty required his services in France he would have been drafted into the Royal Naval Division where he could have been one of that division's 45,000 casualties in the MEF and BEF. I don't think the Royal Navy was remiss in sending its men to die on the battlefields alongside soldiers and one stoker in HMS VIVID for ten months of the war does not diminish that sacrifice.

[seaJane]

 If I recall rightly VIVID II was the Stokers' and Engine Room Artificers' School: he might have been studying for promotion, or temporarily not up to physical standard for sea service. His record goes on post-1925 by the look of Discovery at Kew.

[DuncanBro]

Thanks seaJane, that's really useful. 

[DuncanBro]

2 hours ago, horatio2 said:

Perhaps it was not intended BUT the implication that a Royal Navy stoker drafted to a shore establishment was somehow skulking from his duty is a bit rich. Had the Admiralty required his services in France he would have been drafted into the Royal Naval Division where he could have been one of that division's 45,000 casualties in the MEF and BEF. I don't think the Royal Navy was remiss in sending its men to die on the battlefields alongside soldiers and one stoker in HMS VIVID for ten months of the war does not diminish that sacrifice.

It was a speculation on military bureaucracy not the individual.