Royal Navy
Born: 1927
Story
Ralph was the eldest child of James Carroll (1901-1981) and Ivy Plummer (1904-1939) who married in 1926. Ralph later lived in Halton, but described his War-time as follows:
“I was born in Stoney Rock, that little bit of Leeds 9 between Harehills, Burmantofts and Beckett street. My childhood was a happy one. But then my mother died in May 1939 and my younger sister [Sylvia] and I were evacuated to Kippax to our Aunt and Uncle, Ralph Cockerham (1908-1973) and Doris Cockerham (née Plummer, 1907-1988) who lived down Robinson Lane (East View).
I was no stranger to Kippax having spent many happy weekends with my Aunt and Uncle when they lived in a cottage near the cricket field at Moorgate. My uncle took me all over the Kippax area on foot and much further afield on the tandem. He worked for Sydney Barraclough the High Street Butcher, and later for Kippax Co-op.
I was called up for the Royal Navy in 1945 (Kippax was now my permanent home). When my training was over, I was drafted to HMS Formidable an aircraft carrier (pictured below). We went all over the world.
Christmas 1946, we were in Trincomalee, Ceylon (now called Sri Lanka). For New Year we went across to Singapore and then over to Johore Bohru, where I was asleep on my camp bed when I was gently awakened by Keith Bedford, an ex-schoolmate from Station Road, Kippax, who had heard I was aboard Formidable. He was a member of the crew of the minesweeper HMS Flying Fish.
That night we had to run ashore into Singapore and Keith told me he was in Trincomalee over Christmas along with, if my memory serves me right, Frank Hick, Billy Goodall and Jack Mills, all lads from Kippax. Five in all from Kippis at the other side of the world in the same Harbour over Christmas, all in the Royal Navy, a long way from Yorkshire and remember Kippax was a much smaller village than it is now.”
After his period of service, Ralph returned to 45 East View. In 1950, he married Sheila Jackson, and they lived on Hermon Road, Halton.
The Theatre of War Ralph attended in Trincomalee was the scene of a Japanese air attack in 1942, known as the Easter Sunday Raid. After the fall of Singapore in February 1942 the Japanese fleet entered the Bay of Bengal with a massive fleet of aircraft carriers, destroyers and some 150 aircraft. It was thought that they would attempt to capture Ceylon and thus cut off the Allied route to Australia and harass the shipping of oil from the Middle East. The fleet attacked Colombo on Easter Sunday then sailed round the island to attack Trincomalee hoping to effect a second Pearl Harbor. At dawn on 9th April the first bombs started falling, as Japanese planes went up and down the Inner Yard at low level and all the windows of the British office blew in. Every other building in the vicinity was hit. After half an hour they flew away. As survivors came out of the building, they saw dead bodies and wounded lying everywhere. They all thought that the Japanese planes would return, the fleet never returned to the Bay of Bengal. Churchill said afterwards that it was probably the most dangerous moment of the war.
Ralph passed away in June 2022, one month before his 95th birthday.
Below: British Anti-Aircraft guns in Ceylon, 1943.
Kippax Roll of Honour 