Captain Hugh Corbett CBE DSO DSC Royal Navy

CAPTAIN HUGH CORBETT

            Almost continuously at sea in destroyers throughout the Second World War, Hugo Corbett took part in many famous actions, being awarded the DSO and DSC for his courage and initiative.

            At the outbreak of war, Corbett was a young lieutenant in the ancient destroyer Brazen which, after a period of flotilla duties in the Dover Straits, took part in the melancholy Norwegian campaign.  She was involved in the sinking of U-boat U49 in April 1940 but her luck ran out when in July near-misses from aircraft bombs broke her back and sank her. Corbett was mentioned in despatches for ‘conspicuous cheerfulness under air attack’.

            After survivor’s leave, Corbett joined the newly-built Hunt class destroyer Tynedale and had about a year of convoy duty in the Channel and Western Approaches.  In January 1942 he was appointed second-in-command of the L-class destroyer Lookout on commissioning from Scotts at Greenock – a powerful ship fitted with the latest equipment.  Lookout was immediately employed on Russian convoy escort, escorting the battleships covering convoy PQ12.  Later in March she escorted a convoy to Freetown and then to Durban where forces were accumulating for the assault on Madagascar.

            It was feared that the Vichy French might not put up much resistance should the seemingly unstoppable advance of the Japanese throughout South East Asia threaten Madagascar, the loss of which would be catastrophic for Allied East African and Mediterranean campaigns. Lookout supported the new garrison’s landings and briskly bombarded Diego Suarez.  After a sweep to Colombo and back, Lookout returned to Gibraltar and in August was part of the escort for the critical and costly Malta convoy known as Operation Pedestal.

            During Pedestal, Lookout escorted the carrier Furious with Spitfires for Malta, had several inconclusive anti-submarine actions and helped in the rescue of 927 survivors of the carrier Eagle, sunk by U-boat.

            In November 1942 Lookout took part in the Allied invasion of North Africa, bombarding Algiers and subsequently blockading German forces trying to escape to Europe, sinking supply ships and making captures. With others, Corbett was awarded the DSC for ‘unbroken vigilance when preventing the escape of Axis forces from Tunisia’ She then bombarded Pantellaria prior to the invasion of Sicily.

            The Italian garrison on the island of Lampedusa was clearly keen to surrender, and history recounts how on June 11, 1943, a Lieutenant Corbett of the Lookout  approached in a motor launch and accepted the surrender, backed by 95 men of the Coldstream Guards.  Lookout thereafter supported with bombardments the landings at Messina and Salerno until damaged by a near-miss bomb and retiring to Taranto for repairs          

            At this point Corbett was given his own command, the Hunt class destroyer Wheatland which in August 1944 took part in Operation Dragoon, the landings between Cannes and Toulon. In November, with the destroyer Avonvale under command, Wheatland sank the ex-Italian destroyer Audace and two corvettes in a well-conducted and aggressive night action off the Dalmatian coast without sustaining casualties themselves.  Corbett was awarded the DSO.

            Hugh Corbett’s father, a clergyman and Rector of St George’s in the East, London, died of the influenza at the end of the First World War when he was three years old.  He was educated at St Edmund’s School, Canterbury, as a clergy orphan and joined the navy in 1933, going straight to sea in the training cruiser Frobisher. He served in the battleships Ramillies and Valiant. On  promotion to lieutenant in 1937, he was appointed to the destroyer Impulsive, then building at Cowes, for two years in the Mediterranean until the outbreak of war.

            After the war, Corbett attended the Naval Staff Course, followed by the Army Staff Course and a tour in Whitehall as a planner.  He then served in the carrier Illustrious as First Lieutenant on the Home station until being given another staff job in Malta. His qualities were at last recognised by promotion to commander in December 1950 and a series of further destroyer commands, notably the Charity  and Cockade  in the Far East, taking part in the naval operations on the west coast of the peninsula during the Korean War. After promotion to captain in 1958 he served in the Admiralty naval planning staff and was a student at the Imperial Defence College (IDC), Belgrave Square.

            In 1961 he returned to the Far East for two years in command of HMS Caesar and the 8^th destroyer squadron which in those days was permanently based at Hong Kong. Back home, he was appointed to the prestigious post of chief staff officer to the Chief of Defence Staff, Admiral Lord Louis Mountbatten where he acted as gate-keeper and sounding board, miserly with his boss’s time, selectively allowing access during a significant epoch of Mountbatten-inspired changes to the higher management of defence and of momentous decisions about the nuclear deterrent.

            He was subsequently the first captain of the amphibious assault ship Fearless which embodied new design concepts, being able to float out loaded landing craft from the hull, and which he took on a demonstrative world tour as far as Japan, Corbett remembering the Fearless commission as perhaps his happiest.  (Later, Fearless and sister ship Intrepid were fundamentally important to the success of the 1982 Falklands conflict) His previous posts as a graduate of the Army staff college and the IDC coupled to an enthusiasm for combined operations made him particularly suited to this command. His final tour was back at the Ministry as head of the Naval Manpower Future Policy Division until his retirement in 1969 after the statutory nine years as a captain.  He was appointed CBE in 1968.

            After leaving the navy, Corbett was Warden of the University Centre, Cambridge until 1983. A man of particularly strong Christian faith, he was for some years vice chairman of the Churches Fellowship for Psychic and Spiritual Studies and contributed articles to both the CFPSS Quarterly Review and to the Christian Parapsychologist.

He is survived by his wife Patricia Spens whom he married in 1945 and their three sons.

Captain Hugh Corbett CBE DSO DSC, wartime destroyer captain,

 was born on June 25, 1916.  He died on April 19 aged 95.