A lament for Reggie, youngest 'serviceman' to die in World War Two, aged just 14

Published on Thursday 4 February 2010 21:41

THE excitement of the outbreak of the Second World War led many teenagers to sign up to fight.

• Reginald Earnshaw

Reginald Earnshaw lied about his age so that he could join the Merchant Navy at the age of just 14. "Reggie" was killed just five months later.

Today, it was confirmed that the blond cabin boy from Granton, Edinburgh, was Britain's youngest known service casualty of the war.

Reggie died on 6 July 1941 when German aircraft bombarded the SS North Devon off Norfolk as it was en route from Ipswich to the Tyne.

His former shipmate Alf Tubb finally tracked down his old friend's grave at Comley Bank last year.

Mr Tubb, 86, from Swansea, who found Reggie's body in the ship's engine room, unveiled a granite headstone in July after his four-year search. It is thought Reggie's family was unable to afford a stone at the time and then moved away.

Mr Tubb was unable to trace Reggie's relatives, but Reggie's sister Pauline Harvey, 77, contacted the Commonwealth War Graves Commission with Reggie's birth certificate after her daughter found reports about the Edinburgh ceremony on the internet.

And today, Mrs Harvey, a retired teacher, from Epworth in North Lincolnshire, will lay flowers on her older brother's grave for the first time in decades, on what would have been his birthday.

Mrs Harvey said: "I remember Reggie as bright and lively, quite naughty and mischievous. He was never one for sitting around, he was always one for doing things.

"He didn't tell our mother or me that he was going to join up but came back very proud of himself.

"My mother was a very wise woman and she realised if there was something he really wanted to do, it was best done with her knowledge, if not her blessing. An awful lot of young men lied about their age to join up."

• The SS North Devon

Mrs Harvey was nine when word arrived at the family home in Boswall Parkway that Reggie was dead.

"I have a vivid memory of his coffin being brought to the house and put in the spare bedroom which had been his, with instructions 'coffin not to be opened' because he had been scalded," she said.

Mrs Harvey said the family had marked the grave with flowers after her brother's funeral at St David's Episcopal Church in Granton.

But the difficulties of the war years meant no headstone was acquired before the family left Edinburgh in the mid-1950s and moved to England.

Mrs Harvey will today meet Mrs Catherine Corse, sister of Douglas Crichton, who was killed in the same attack as Reggie, and three members of Reg Mitchell's family, who also died.

Last year, Mr Tubb recalled Reggie telling him on one of their nightwatch conversations on the ship: "I'm only 14 and I've done this one trip and that's enough. I'm going to tell them my real age when we reach land and go home to my mum."

Confirmation of Reggie's birthday by Mrs Harvey allowed the commission to confirm he died aged 14 years and 152 days.

Previously, the youngest known service casualty of the war was recorded as being Raymond Steed, who was killed aged 14 years and 207 days, while also serving in the Merchant Navy.

The simple headstone Mr Tubb unveiled last year is inscribed with the words "E Earnshaw, Boy, SS North Devon, 6th July 1941".

A local church minister will preside over today's service, which will also feature a piper playing a lament and local sea cadets forming a guard of honour.

Mrs Harvey has instructed that the words on her brother's headstone read: "Remembered with pride. Greater love hath no man than this that he would lay down his life."