#7396 2nd Class Air Mechanic Reginald Alfred Hobbs
ROYAL FLYING CORPS
REGGIE HOBBS HAD ONLY TURNED 14 two weeks before the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo that would prove the spark that ignited the Great War. A North London boy, from Edmonton, Reggie’s father was a local butcher and dairyman with a large premises that included a shop and space for livestock. The middle of five children, Reggie kept himself busy with a variety of different interests. He liked his football, especially Spurs. He went to a show, perhaps at the Tottenham Palace or the Edmonton Empire, at least once or twice a week to see shows such as Alias Johnny Valentine,,Queen of the Redskins, or The Monk and the Woman. More devout than his elder brother Stanley, he sang in St Martin’s choir and the Hobbs family loved their seaside holidays, in Hastings, for example.
Members of the Hobbs family pose outside their shop before the war. (Private collection)
Despite having a weakness in his eye that made him unsuitable for office work, Reggie was a bright boy, winning a scholarship to the Latymer School in Haselbury Road. He had always had a keen interest in aviation and noted key events in his diary, including watching Hawker on part of his flight around Great Britain and keeping a lookout in the newspapers for updates when Gustav Hamel disappeared. After giving up work as a clerk, he would, rather predictably given the family line of work, become a butcher’s assistant, although not for his father.
The war was, naturally for a boy of Reggie’s age, exciting and of huge interest. His brother Stanley was a pre-war regular, joining the cavalry in 1912, and the family anxiously waved him off to war in August 1914. Reggie had left school by this point and was a Boy Scout in his spare time. He enquired straight away as to the kind of government work that he could do to help, such as volunteering as a messenger, and worked out of the local police station as a despatch rider in the early days of the war. He walked along the Embankment with his mother, watching the searchlights, and waited for Stanley’s stingy efforts at letters home. Although still 14, by November Reggie was making enquiries about joining the army himself. He enquired about the Territorials, but they said they were full. He was pointed in the direction of the Royal Garrison Artillery, but he was not keen, so Reggie went to see the London Yeomanry. He got as far as a riding test but then was told that, at 5ft 6in, he was an inch too short as the unit had upped its minimum height requirement. After Christmas he went to enquire about the Army Veterinary Corps and the Army Personnel Centre, but his enquiries came to nothing. Perhaps the reason why he could not secure a place in the services was because he was obviously underage.
At New Year the Hobbs family sat at home and drank a toast to Stanley at the front, and Reggie settled for joining the Athletes Volunteer Force for home service at the end of January 1915. A month later he was also working as a special constable. His father followed a month later and they had practice skirmishes at White Hart Lane. When the wounded arrived at The Edmonton Poor Law Infirmary, which had been turned into a military hospital, Reggie and his father would be called out to help with their arrival. When the Zeppelin raids started as 1915 wore on, they were called out for those too, cycling about to maintain order or keeping watch on the roof of the Tottenham Hospital.
Now aged 15, by July Reggie was still bent on military service. His mother was compliant, making at least one visit with him to make enquiries. She would rather know where her son was, and in what capacity, than end up with a runaway on her hands and no clue what he was up to. Reggie went to Whitehall to ask about the requirements for joining the Royal Flying Corps or the Royal Naval Air Service. He knew immediately it was the choice for him. It took several meetings, some of which his mother accompanied him to, but he passed the medical and, claiming to be 19, Reggie enlisted on 4th August 1915 and left for Farnborough the following day.
A wireless learner, it took Reggie only five days to get a trip up in an aeroplane. Shortly afterwards, he was sent back to London to the Polytechnic for Wireless Training in Regent Street. There, the pupils did two hours of sending and receiving in the morning, lectures, drill and parade, before more sending and receiving in the afternoon to get up to speed. At the end of October, young men from Reggie’s course began to leave for the front. Reggie was up to a reasonable speed of sending twenty-five words per minute, but it would be a further seven months, probably on account of his youth, before he found his way to France. By then 16, Reggie Hobbs’ job as a wireless operator for the Royal Flying Corps would see him well to the rear with 3 Squadron. ‘I am many miles from the firing line,’ he reassured his family, ‘but occasionally can hear the guns in the distance.’
As it turned out, Reggie was not one to shy away from danger. At the end of August there was a shortage of wireless men available to work with the Royal Horse Artillery and he volunteered to help in Caterpillar Valley. The commanding officer was fairly comfortable that Reggie was working in a safe place, but on 29th August 1916 he was operating at a set in a shed near the battery as it fired. A violent thunderstorm raged throughout the afternoon. Shells began to crash down nearby as the German artillery attempted to register on the guns, but the 16 year old refused to take any additional cover and carried on working cheerfully. A short time later a large calibre shell came barrelling through the roof and burst inside. A doctor nearby rushed to him, but Reggie was beyond help. Both his legs had been blown off, along with one of his arms. He never regained consciousness.
Reggie Hobbs (left) with his elder brother Stan (right). (Private collection)
Stanley had recovered the details of his brother’s injuries and intended to keep them from the family until he was coaxed to part with them. ‘I think the sad news … must have turned me mad for a bit,’ he admitted. ‘I wrote to Mother and Father as soon as I got Mother’s letter but I don’t know what I put in it.’ Their mother was in pieces, convinced that she was to blame for letting Reggie go to war. ‘If you had stopped him,’ Stanley assured her, ‘he might have run away to the infantry or somewhere, and [you might have] never heard from him, or even of his death, again.’ He was taking a philosophical approach. ‘I quite believe that what is to be – will be – and nobody can stop it.’ Stanley was determined to have his revenge on the enemy as soon as possible. ‘Cheer mother up all you can,’ he told his sister. ‘Nobody is to blame, and I am sure if he heard her say it he would not like it.’
Sixteen-year-old Reggie Hobbs was wrapped in a blanket and laid to rest at Quarry Cemetery, plot V.G.19. Stanley Hobbs would survive the war. In 1917 another member of 3 Squadron had finally got up to put a cross on Reggie’s grave, which was no longer in quite such a perilous spot. He sent Reggie’s mother a photograph, ‘hoping that you will excuse … reopening the wound that his death must have caused’.