Alan was the son of Pelham Stewart Corbould of Shepherd’s Spring, Hardington Mandeville.

Childhood

Alan was born at 4 Frere Road, Kirkee, India, on 23 October 1918.[1] His father was an army Captain and Cantonment magistrate.[2] His mother, Mary, was the daughter of Robert Obbard, the judicial commissioner with the Indian civil service from 1895 to 1900.[3]

In 1919, Alan’s father returned to his position as a Deputy Conservator with the Imperial Forest Service, which he had held before the war.[4] In 1924, Alan’s father retired from the service and returned to England.[5]

Alan attended Stubbington School, Fareham, a preparatory school with strong links to the Royal Navy.[6]

Naval career

In 1932, Alan went to the Royal Navy College, Dartmouth.[7] He passed out as a midshipman on 1 September 1936.[8]

Alan may have joined HMS Tyndale when she was commissioned in December 1940. She was a Hunt class destroyer designed to undertake convoy and escort duties. Initially used around the UK, she participated in the St Nazaire Raid on 27 March 1942. During this raid, she deep-charged U-boat U-593 and forced it to the surface, but it dived again and escaped.[9]

In March 1943, HMS Tyndale transferred to the Mediterranean, where she guarded convoys between Gibraltar and Algeria. She participated in the invasion of Sicily in July 1943, and in October 1943, she helped rescue 218 passengers from the sinking Dutch freighter Felix Jan Van Manix.[10]

Just before dawn on 12 December 1943, HMS Tynedale was carrying out convoy duties off the coast of Algeria when she was hit by a torpedo fired from U-593, the same submarine she had almost destroyed twenty-one months earlier. She broke in two, and nearly half the crew lost their lives. Alan was one of the seven officers killed. The following day, two ships in the convoy hunted down U-593 and forced it to surrender.[11]

In April 1942, the Northumbrian town of Hexham adopted HMS Tynedale as part of “Warships Week,” an initiative to raise money for the war effort and boost morale. In 1993, Hexham Abbey held an anniversary service for survivors of the sinking and their families. One of the attendees was Gerd Kelbling, the Captain of U-593.[12]

Lieutenant Alan Corbould’s memory is honoured and preserved on the Plymouth Naval Memorial.

References

[1] Civil & Military Gazette (Lahore), 30 October 1918, p.1.

[2] Civil & Military Gazette (Lahore), 30 October 1918, p.1.

[3] Cheltenham Chronicle, 7 April 1923, p.2.

[4] The India Office List 1937, p.603.

[5] The India Office List 1937, p.603.

[6] George C B Poulter, The Corbould Genealogy, (1935), p.47.

[7] George C B Poulter, The Corbould Genealogy, (1935), p.47.

[8] UK Navy Lists, 1937, p.121.

[9] Wikipedia article on HMS Tynedale, accessed 23 August 2024.

[10] Wikipedia article on HMS Tynedale, accessed 23 August 2024.

[11] Wikipedia article on HMS Tynedale, accessed 23 August 2024; The War Dead of the British Commonwealth and Empire, Plymouth Naval Memorial, Part II (1951), p.138.

[12] https://museumsnorthumberland.org.uk/our-collections/object-in-focus-home/object-in-focus-no-23/