Albert Edwin Richard Haymes, Stoker 1st class (P/KX 103071), was born in Woolwich, London on June 20th 1910. He was the eldest child of Albert Edward Haymes, who served in the Royal Navy from 1903 to 1923, and his wife Ellen, née Blake. In 1935, he married Netta Rose Mitchell, and in 1939, the couple were living in Horsham, Sussex, where Albert was employed as foreman in a brick works. The couple had one son.