CHARNEY HALL Major Rabbidge
Major Trevor Vigne Rabbidge metamorphosed from the British Army into a master at Charney Hall School in the mid-1950s. It was on the 15th May 1945, at the end of WWII, that he reported to the War Office Casualty Branch in London which signified the end of his service as an infantryman in the York and Lancaster Regiment.
The act of military surrender by Germany occurred on the 8th May 1945, just 7 days earlier. The proud Regiment itself would eventually be voluntarily disbanded in 1968 due to reorganisation within the Army.
Born on 29 July 1915 in Ulverston he entered the British Army, perhaps as a career soldier, joining the King’s Own Royal Regiment (Lancaster) and by 1934 at the age of 19 he had attained the rank of Lieutenant. At the commencement of WWII he was transferred to the 2nd Battalion of the York and Lancaster Regiment.
Between 1944-1945 Trevor was promoted to Captain and he was subsequently upgraded to Major at the end of the war.
You would assume that tracing an officer’s postings in a world war would be easy. It is not. Despite there being millions of records available, the most informative facts are still restricted, sometimes to family members only. The clues to Trevor Rabbidge’s movements in a multitude of theatres of war around the planet are contained within the records of the regiment and the battalion(s) to which he was posted. Other clues were his very occasional references to his service in India, when he was most at ease, leading us on walks over Hampsfell. The conundrum that remains and cannot be answered without extensive research is how he ended up in a PoW camp in the middle of Germany principally set up to encarcerate American airmen…..
Major Rabbidge was a soldier through and through. The fabric of his suit seemed as close in colour and texture to that of any army uniform. His bark was worse than his bite but nevertheless he gave orders with the staccato and authority of a British officer. His upright gait was that of an infantryman and his beloved beagle Curfew could trot on forever. The Major out-ranked all other masters and we sensed that his ‘lampshade’ moustache which formerly underscored the brim of his peaked officer’s cap, was there as a reminder to both staff and pupils of his military seniority.
I believe that he taught geography which must have come as second nature to him. There was however no evidence that he had previous experience as a teacher and history leaves no record of his performance as such.
Nobody spoke in detail about the war, our parents and masters alike, even less so those who were called to fight for King and Country and whose lives thereafter were directly affected by their horrendous experiences and what they saw.
We gained what information we could from the films screened on Sunday afternoons in the Memorial Hall. The Cruel Sea starring amongst others Jack Hawkins, The Enemy Below, The Third Man and many others rapidly conjured up by the British Film Industry towards the end of the war. Whilst the performances could be stilted, somewhat dated and often delivered by the principal actors in ‘officer’s English’. Their familiar faces gave repeat performances in many films of the time, which led us to believe that acting as a profession was in its infancy in the British Isles and was not to be taken too seriously.
The shots taken ‘on location’ were inspiring as most of the hardware was the genuine article. Destroyers, which we saw ploughing through foaming Atlantic swell, were made of riveted, thick steel sheets and they had real guns. Minesweepers had recently swept for mines. Even the mines themselves appeared to have their fuses primed and the detonation of depth charges seeking out submarines beneath the spume was definitely not faked. The celluloid film clips, spliced and projected onto the screen before us, had indeed been captured on a genuine war footing.
For the newbies of Charney Hall in 1953, World War II was portrayed ironically in a centrally heated Memorial Hall, after a decent warm Sunday lunch (soup, main and something spongy with custard), with our prized 7 days-worth of sweets, through the medium of monochrome film. We were insulated by 8 years of peace time since the end of the war which felt like an eternity. For some of those who taught us, life had in reality only just been rebooted after having been put on hold for an uncertain and perilous 6 years.
Trevor’s first experience of being a Prisoner of War was around 21 November 1944 when he was transferred from the town of Bocholt (maybe from the train station) to Dulag Luft Wetzlar. The camp at Wetzlar was a transit camp for German captured members of the allied airforce. Its main purpose was to act as a collection and interrogation centre for newly captured aircrew before being transferred in batches to the permanent camps. The stay at Wetzlar averaged about one week but could last a lot longer….
DULAG LUFT WETZLAR
OFLAG 79 BRAUNSCHWEIG
Trevor was eventually transferred to Oflag 79 (Offizierslage 79 - Officers Camp 79) at Braunschweig, a PoW camp for Allied Officers which was set up in December 1943 for officers transferred from camps in Italy from the Battle of Crete and the North African Campaign*.
After being strafed by British and American aircraft in August 1944, the camp was liberated by the US Ninth Army on 12th April 1945. So it was scarcely a month later that he reported to the War Office Casualty Branch in London on the 17th May 1945.
*This could be an indication where Trevor had fought as both the defence of Heraklion, Crete (1941) and the Breakout from Tobruk, where the regiment suffered heavy casualties, are mentioned in the York and Lancaster, 2nd Battalion’s military engagements. Thereafter in 1942 the battalion was transferred to both India and Burma where it took part in the Second Chindit Campaign and the Arakan Offensive towards the end of WWII.
However there is an inconsistency which exists but cannot be explained : Whilst Trevor fondly reminisced at Charney about India and Burma, he was interred in German camps at Wetzlar and Braunschweig between November 1944-May 1945 (which is not in dispute). It seems illogical that, if he were posted to India/Burma in 1942 and presumably taken prisoner there towards the end of the war, he would be sent to German PoW camps.
Prior to leaving Charney Hall Trevor Rabbidge was married to Nina Elizabeth Lancaster in July 1958 in Carlisle. He was 43 and she 31 years old. He would live for a further 44 years in that city until his death in October 2002 aged 87yrs. Unfortunately his wife died in January 1985 at the comparatively young age of 57 after 28 years of marriage - leaving Trevor to live a further 17 years as a widower? A question that can only be answered by one of his relatives….
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