The Second World War began shortly after dawn on Friday 1 September 1939 when two German Army Groups thrust deep into Poland. Supported by Junkers Ju 87 dive bombers (‘Stukas’), and employing the tactic of Blitzkrieg or ‘Lightning war’, the Wehrmacht raced forward, enveloping and capturing entire Polish armies which were soon overwhelmed, especially when on 17 September the Red Army of Soviet Russia also attacked Poland from the east.
Two days after Hitler’s assault on Poland, the British and French governments – which had guaranteed Poland’s sovereignty that March – declared war on Germany. That same day, Sunday 3 September, Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain brought Winston Churchill into his cabinet as First Lord of the Admiralty, the minister responsible for the Royal Navy.
To the public eye, the next thing that happened was … very little. The ‘Phoney War’ lasted seven months while the Nazis ingested Poland and moved their forces westwards, but there was no fighting on the Western Front. Both the war in Finland and the war at sea were fought aggressively, however, with many sinkings on both sides, including the British aircraft carrier Courageous and the German battleship Graf Spee.
The months of uneasy waiting suddenly ended on 9 April 1940, when Hitler covered his northern flank by successfully invading Denmark and Norway, and forcing the Royal Navy to evacuate British and French forces from the latter country. This humiliation brought down Chamberlain’s government after a tumultuous debate over Norway in the House of Commons, and on 10 May 1940 Winston Churchill became prime minister. In his first appearance in the Commons in this role, on 13 May, he told the British people that they could expect nothing but ‘blood, toil, tears and sweat’, in the first of many sublime morale-boosting speeches of his wartime premiership.
On the very day that Churchill became prime minister, Hitler unleashed his Blitzkrieg on the Low Countries. Neutral Holland and Belgium were invaded, as well as France, and by 20 May General Heinz Guderian’s leading Panzer tank formations had reached the English lines at Abbeville, cutting the Allied line in half. Hopes of an effective counter-attack soon faded, and on the evening of 25 May, the British commander Lord Gort took the decision to retreat to the Channel port of Dunkirk and re-embark as much as he could of his hard-pressed British Expeditionary Force. There started a desperate race to the sea. Through a brilliant naval operation, supported by brave RAF sorties against the Luftwaffe, no fewer than 338,226 soldiers, including 120,000 French troops, were saved by 3 June, from what had at one point looked like inevitable capture. As the writer of one of these letters observes: ‘Imagine carrying 56 pounds of potatoes on your back for five hours and you can imagine how I felt.’
Yet as Churchill told the House of Commons, ‘Wars are not won by evacuations,’ and by 11 June the Germans had crossed the River Marne. The French premier Paul Reynaud resigned soon afterwards, and the Great War hero of Verdun, Marshal Philippe Pétain, filled the gap, becoming leader of the French state. He immediately appealed to Hitler for an armistice, and a peace treaty was signed on 22 June.
Contrary to the cliché, Britain did not ‘stand alone’ against Nazism after the fall of France: the British Empire remained utterly loyal to the motherland, with declarations of war against Germany and the sending of troops from Canada, Australia, South Africa, New Zealand and the West Indies. India provided the largest all-volunteer army in the history of mankind, and in East Africa the native populations enthusiastically joined up and took part in the attacks on the Italian empire there.
Now the undisputed master of the continent, Hitler began to draw up plans to invade and subjugate Great Britain, codenamed Operation Sealion. In order for them to be put into effect he needed command of the skies, so he allowed Hermann Goering to undertake the great aerial struggle that became known as ‘the Battle of Britain’. In July, throughout August and for the first half of September 1940, the Luftwaffe – with 875 bombers, 316 bombers and 929 fighters – contested the air against the RAF, which had around 650 fighters (having already lost nearly 500 in the battle of France).
Through the careful husbanding of resources by Air Chief Marshal Dowding, increased fighter construction under the new Minister of Aircraft Production, Lord Beaverbrook, invaluable early warning information from recently installed radar and observation posts, the slight performance edge of the Hurricane and Spitfire over the Messerschmitt, but above all the superb aggressive spirit of the young pilots of Fighter Command, the RAF won the Battle of Britain, in which Germany lost 1,733 planes by the end of October 1940, to Britain’s 915. On 7 September 1940, after taking heavy losses, Goering decided to switch the main target from the aerodromes and radar stations to the metropolis of London itself, a tacit acknowledgement that Britain had won. The ‘Nazi doctrines’ which one of the authors of these letters, a RAF pilot, refers to, were not about to pollute Britain after all.
The bombing of London and many other British cities – including Coventry, Glasgow, Portsmouth, Bristol and Southampton – in what was called ‘the Blitz’, was to cost the lives of nearly 43,000 British civilians. It brought the war home to ordinary Britons in a way that the Zeppelins had not really achieved during the Great War. In order to protect urban children, millions were evacuated to safety, often to rural parts of the country. If a little more brutal honesty about the horrors of war can be detected in the Second World War letters than the first set in this volume, it might be because the soldiers at the front knew that the Blitz had brought the ghastly realities of death and destruction home to civilians in 1940 in a way that hadn’t really happened before.
Although the RAF’s Bomber Command responded by attacking German cities, and the Royal Navy blockaded Germany and attempted to sink raider battleships and U-boats, for a while after the Battle of Britain there was nowhere for the Allies and the Wehrmacht to clash on land, since the Axis powers controlled the European continent and an attempted invasion there was judged suicidal. In Libya, Egypt, the Sudan, Ethiopia and along the North African coast, however, the British Army under General Wavell was able to score several significant victories over Marshal Graziani’s Italian troops, despite being heavily outnumbered.
This was not to last, however, as in February 1941 Churchill ordered forces to be diverted to protect Greece, just as the brilliant German commander General Erwin Rommel arrived in Tripoli to take command of the German Afrika Korps. On 6 April, Germany, having suborned Romania and Hungary onto its side, invaded Yugoslavia, which fell after only 11 days’ fighting. Soon afterwards, British forces had to be evacuated from Greece to Crete, where they were followed by a daring German airborne landing of over 17,500 troops under General Kurt Student. After eight days’ fighting the British were forced to evacuate Crete.
The war was going badly for the British Commonwealth, but in 1941 Adolf Hitler made two disastrous blunders which truly globalized the war and allowed the British their first genuine glimpses of possible future victory. The first mistake was Operation Barbarossa, Hitler’s invasion of the USSR on 22 June 1941, which inaugurated a life-or-death four-year struggle between him and the Soviet dictator Josef Stalin.
The other mistake came after the surprise attack that Imperial Japan launched against the American Pacific Fleet as it lay at anchor at Pearl Harbor in Hawaii on Sunday 7 December 1941, which succeeded in sinking four battleships, damaging a further five, destroying 164 aircraft and killing 2,403 US servicemen and civilians. What President Franklin D. Roosevelt called ‘a day that would live in infamy’ brought the world’s greatest industrial power into the conflict. Hitler’s near-lunatic decision to declare war against America four days later effectively spelt his doom.
Between 22 and 28 December 1941, Churchill visited Washington and Ottawa with his service chiefs and hammered out with the Americans and Canadians the key stages by which victory was to be achieved. To their great credit, Roosevelt and the US Army chief of staff, General George Marshall, eschewed the obvious response to Pearl Harbor – a massive retaliation against the immediate aggressor, Japan – to concentrate instead on a ‘Germany First’ policy that would destroy the most powerful of the Axis dictatorships first, before then moving on to crush Japan.
‘Germany First’, while making good political and strategic sense, did, however, mean that the Japanese were permitted to make enormous advances throughout the Far East in the early stages of the campaign, advances that were characterised by dreadful cruelty to the peoples they conquered and to the prisoners-of-war they captured. Catastrophe for the Allies followed, along with humiliation at Japanese hands. On 10 December 1941 Japanese aircraft sank HMS Prince of Wales and HMS Repulse, on Christmas Day Hong Kong surrendered and in January 1942 the Japanese invaded the Dutch East Indies and Burma and captured Kuala Lumpur. On 15 February Britain suffered her greatest defeat since the American War of Independence when the great naval base of Singapore surrendered to a much smaller Japanese force. The Americans were also forced out of the Philippines.
Meanwhile, the struggle in North Africa surged back and forth between Tripoli and Tobruk. Wavell was replaced by General Claude Auchinleck, who was himself replaced by Lieutenant General Bernard Montgomery. It was Montgomery who convincingly defeated Rommel in a well-planned battle at El Alamein, Egypt, between 28 October and 4 November 1942. On 8 November, Allied forces under the American commander Lieutenant Colonel Dwight D. Eisenhower landed in French North Africa, and it was not long before the Germans were in full retreat. Tobruk, which had been taken by Rommel in June, was recaptured by the British Army on 13 November 1942.
Between January 1943 and June 1944 the Axis powers were forced to pull back in Russia and the Mediterranean, which they did in a hard-fought rearguard action, contesting every important nodal point, defensive line and communications centre. On occasion, such as at the monastery of Monte Cassino in Italy, their dogged resistance held up the Allied advance for weeks.
At the Casablanca Conference in January 1943, Churchill and Roosevelt agreed that once the Germans were expelled from Africa, the Allies would invade Sicily. After that was undertaken successfully on 10 July, Mussolini fell from power, and the new Italian government began secret negotiations to switch sides. In early September Montgomery crossed the Straits of Messina onto mainland Italy, and the American Lieutenant General Mark Clark landed an amphibious Anglo-American army at Salerno. The fighting up the Italian peninsula, which was relatively easy for the Germans to defend, proved long, hard and costly, yet too early a cross-Channel attack would most likely have been disastrous. Rome did not fall until 4 June 1944.
The very next day the eyes of the world turned to the beaches of Normandy, where – after two night-time airborne landings inland – 4,000 10-ton landing craft took six infantry divisions to five beachheads, codenamed (from west to east) Utah, Omaha, Gold, Juno and Sword. In all, Operation Overlord on 6 June involved 6,800 vessels, 11,500 aircraft and 176,000 men. ‘I hope to God I know what I’m doing,’ Eisenhower said on the eve of the attack. With total air superiority, German confusion, ingenious inventions such as the PLUTO oil pipeline* and artificial ‘Mulberry’ harbours, and the courage of the English-speaking peoples, victory was assured. ‘To us is given the honour of striking a blow for freedom which will live in history,’ Montgomery told his troops, ‘and in the better days that lie ahead men will speak with pride of our doings. We have a great and righteous cause.’ The casualty figures from D-Day are estimated to be around 10,000 servicemen killed and wounded, including men from the USA, UK, Canada, Australia and New Zealand.
Yet the town of Caen held out for a month, the battle of the Falaise Gap was not won until 21 August and Paris was not liberated until 26 August. The ever-present capacity for Nazi punishment of Allied tactical over-extension was proven on 17 September, when a huge Anglo-American airborne operation of glider landings and parachute drops codenamed Operation Market Garden attempted to secure the bridges over the key Dutch rivers and canals ahead of their armies. The Allies took Eindhoven, Grave and Nijmegen, thereby securing access over the Meuse and the Waal rivers, but the British First Airborne Division was dropped to the west of the town of Arnhem, capturing the bridge over the lower Rhine. It proved to be a bridge too far, since by 25 September it was impossible to relieve them and they were ordered to withdraw, with just over 2,000, one-fifth of the total, managing to escape death, wounding or capture.
On 16 December the Germans then launched a major counter-attack, coming once again through the wooded mountains of the Ardennes. Twenty divisions – seven of them armoured – assaulted the American First Army, while to the north SS-Oberstgruppenfuhrer Dietrich’s Sixth Panzer Army struck for the Meuse and General Hasso von Manteuffel Fifth Panzer Army tried to make for Brussels. Seeing the American front effectively being sliced in half, Eisenhower gave Montgomery command of the whole northern sector on 20 December. Montgomery managed to fight ‘the Battle of the Bulge’ successfully until the Germans ran out of petrol by Boxing Day 1944.
In January 1945, Eisenhower and Montgomery adopted a two-pronged strategy for the invasion of Germany, with the British and Canadians pushing through the Reichswald into the Rhineland from the north, while the Americans came up through the south. The land battle was supported by the heroic bombing missions of the RAF and the United States Army Air Force (USAAF), over such cities as Dresden, Hamburg and Berlin, as well as other cities and industrial and military targets. The diaries and memoirs of senior Nazis such as propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels and armaments minister Albert Speer suggest that these were highly effective in breaking German morale and dislocating industry. They came at a terribly high cost though: no fewer than 58,000 men died in Bomber Command during the war.
By mid-March most of the territory west of the Rhine had been cleared, with the German Army suffering 60,000 casualties and 300,000 taken prisoner. On 11 April the American Ninth Army reached the River Elbe at Magdeburg, only 80 miles from Berlin, and joined up with the Red Army. Two weeks later the Russians completed the encirclement of the German capital.
Adolf Hitler committed suicide in his bunker in the Reichschancellery on 30 April 1945, two days after the Italian dictator Benito Mussolini had been shot by partisans in northern Italy. Berlin surrendered on 2 May, and on the 7th, at Eisenhower’s headquarters at Rheims, General Alfred Jodl and Admiral Hans-Georg von Friedeburg signed the document of total unconditional surrender on behalf of Germany, before representatives of the United States, Great Britain, France and Russia. The next day – 8 May – was declared Victory in Europe Day (VE Day).
In the Far East, since their startling victories of late 1941 and early 1942, Japan had become bogged down. It had been fought to a standstill by General Sir William Slim’s Fourteenth Army in Burma, by General Douglas MacArthur in the Philippines and Admiral Paul Nimitz in the Pacific. There were a number of notable Allied victories, including the battles of Midway, Monywa and Iwo Jima and the fall of Mandalay, Kyushu and Okinawa. But they were all at a cost and despite these successes it was estimated by the US chiefs of staff that the invasion of mainland Japan might cost the lives of up to a quarter of a million Allied servicemen. The fanatical, often suicidal, resistance that the Japanese had offered during the island hopping campaign – and as kamikaze pilots against American ships – has convinced scholars and historians that this prediction was probably not exaggerated when extrapolated onto the Japanese home islands.
To some degree then, it was fortunate that by early August 1945 scientific developments were had been and what had been codenamed the ‘Tube Alloys’ and ‘Manhattan’ projects brought forth two different bombs, both of which were capable of using nuclear fission to create explosions of hitherto unimaginable force, and hopefully bring about peace. One was dropped on the Japanese city of Hiroshima on 6 August, killing around 140,000 people. Japan refused to admit defeat, so a second bomb was dropped on Nagasaki three days later, killing a further 73,884 people. Japan finally surrendered on 14 August 1945, bringing to an end a conflict that in total, over six years, is estimated to have cost the lives of over fifty million people.
With the outbreak of the Second World War the professional element of the British Army, including reservists, was once again posted to France. However, following the swift fall of Poland a period of calm descended. Ernest Probst, serving with the Royal Artillery, was able to write several letters to his wife back home in England during this quiet period as he adjusted to life in the military and active service.
Somewhere in France
November 13th, Monday
My dearest Winifred,
I received a letter from you yesterday posted on the 8th so you see I am getting your post quicker than you are getting mine. That, of course, is unavoidable as the officers censor our letters in their spare time – when they get any.
Rumours about leave abound and I do not trouble to believe them. I shall expect to get leave when I open the front door with my latch-key and not before. None the less for that I’m hoping hard and trusting in Cyril’s lucky star because I’ve decided I was not fortunate enough to have been from under so continually a beneficent orb.
Don’t tell me you are lonely, darling, or I’ll probably desert. I certainly cannot get used to being without you and still expect to wake up and find myself working at [P…]. Even that would be heaven or at least a taste thereof.
It is very interesting to note that since I joined up migraines have been conspicuously absent. It’s the open air. Do you fancy the open road and a caravan? Shall we become tramps when I return? Failing that an open air job… I fancy you will have to resign yourself to that because apparently the open air is the cure for it – and having written that I shall probably be attacked tomorrow…
That firing camp I mentioned has been cancelled for some reason unknown to me so digging is once more in full swing. I today am not digging as I have a battery duty but I shall be out again tomorrow. I have just written to mother and told her I am beginning to enjoy it in suitable weather. It’s certainly bringing my muscles up…
We went to the pictures last Friday, I saw Merrily we Live. What a riot, I nearly fell of my bench laughing and it is by far the best film I’ve seen for many months. It is a peculiar thing, though, whilst on the subject of humour, that we are finding that we laugh much more readily these days at things that normally we would consider merely amusing. Maybe our sense of appreciation is becoming less critical…
Do you know that a French private receives but ½f pour jour? Ain’t that bloody awful. We must appear like millionaires to them, although I am personally broke…
Well my dearest, there is no more for now. Hurry up peace! And don’t you, wife, forget you owe me a photograph of yourself.
With all the love in the world,
Forever yours,
Ernie
The lull in the war continued throughout the winter of 1939–40 and Probst was indeed able to enjoy some leave with his wife in mid February before re-joining his unit.
20 February 1940
My darling Winifred,
I don’t know quite what to say but I must leave you a little note.
We have had a wonderful reunion but like all things it has had its ending.
Remember, darling, how much I love you in my perhaps rather undemonstrative way.
I’ll soon be home again so don’t cry about me.
I shall think of you reading this at about 7 tonight (if I have not been already attacked by sea-sickness!).
Darling, I love you,
Ernie
xxxxxxxxxx
Unbeknownst to Ernie Probst he would be making the short journey back across the Channel sooner than he would have expected. In May 1940 Hitler unleashed his Blitzkrieg on the West. Storming through Belgium and the Netherlands in short order, the British Army and their French allies were pushed back to the sea to make a final stand at a small fishing port, Dunkirk. At first it seemed unlikely that the British Army could be saved in the face of the German juggernaut. But then something miraculous occurred and from the ports and estuaries of southern England a flotilla of Royal Navy ships and civilian crafts gathered. Brilliantly coordinated by the Royal Navy, with the aerial support of the RAF, nearly 340,000 Allied servicemen were rescued from the beaches of Dunkirk. Lance Sergeant Ernie Probst was amongst those who survived the crossing despite the best efforts of the Luftwaffe.
4 June 1940
My most darling Winifred,
It doesn’t seem as though I shall get leave as quickly as I, at first, thought.
Apparently we stay here until our divisional reforming area is decided upon after which we are transferred there to refit and then it is not until we have refitted that we can hope for leave.
Anyway, darling, I am in England and absolutely safe in mind and limb with every prospect of seeing you within a fortnight.
This is a delightful place, which would be appreciated more under different circumstances. We are all getting very tired of doing nothing as we are confined to camp owing to the possibility of transfer orders arriving at any moment.
There are thirty 92nd men here including Howard Walls. I am afraid that we left Cyril somewhere in Belgium, during a retirement and I really don’t know where he is. I can only hope he is safe with some other unit.
John did not return to the unit from leave as by the time his leave was up we were moving about all over the place and so I don’t know what has happened to him either.
I am very glad that Howard is here with me as we are now pretty nearly inseparable.
We had a very narrow squeak at Dunkirk as just as we reached the boats moored to the ¼ mile long jetty five German bombers came over. Howard and I jumped on board and crossed to the outside boat of three which were moored together. The Germans dropped some bombs but we were not hit and our boat, a torpedo boat, left first and dashed hell for leather across the channel.
Howard and I solemnly shook hands when England hove in sight.
Well, sweet, looksee after yourself, more news when I see you and may it be soon.
All my love,
Yours everlasting,
Ernie
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Drop a line to M & Dad saying I’m safe. E
Some soldiers were not as fortunate as Ernie Probst and the evacuation was fraught with danger. A French liaison officer, Lieutenant Le Maitre, serving alongside 3 Corps of the Royal Signals, vividly described his experiences in a letter to his fellow officer J.W. Thraves, an extract of which is below. Thraves himself was on the beach at the time and witnessed the burning of the boat as well as the death of many fellow Royal Signallers.
On Wednesday, May 29th (1940), after escaping heavy bombing in the harbour and along the pier of Dunkerque, I sailed aboard the Crested Eagle at about 5.30pm with my liaison agent, Bassett. Two miles beyond the pier our boat was attacked by German diving bombers who dropped some big incendiary bombs. I was then standing in the inside deck on the left of the staircase; a bomb fell on the right of the staircase and I fainted for a few minutes. When I recovered myself I expected the sinking of the boat and I saw that my hands and my face were terribly burned by the fire of the bomb. All around, some wounded soldiers were shouting and roaring: I saw a small window through which I dropped myself head first and I fell on a small outside deck two yards below; there I recovered better with fresh air and was happy to find again Bassett, who was suffering from the shock but was uninjured.
In the meantime the steamer was set on fire and was beached at about 700 yards off the sand, towards which it was possible to swim quickly, but we were afraid to be made prisoners the next morning. So we decided to reach farther a British destroyer. Bassett took off my field-boots and we jumped into the sea. I saw then that it would be impossible to swim quickly enough with my uniform breeches; unhappily my hands were so badly burned that the skin was going off with the nails, like gloves… Nevertheless, I succeeded to undo all the breeches buttons, including the leg buttons, and keeping only my short pants. I swam half-an-hour before being picked up near the destroyer. Then I fainted again and when I recovered I was in a small room inside the destroyer, rolled up in a blanket: a sailor was putting some oil and bandages on my hands.
The next morning we reached Great Britain and I was carried to a First Casualty Station and afterwards to hospital. There the surgeons anaesthetised me to clean my hands and my face, and sprayed tannic acid on my hands. After further sprayings of this product my hands were covered with a kind of brown artificial skin. The flesh ought to grow again inside that sort of glove. My looking was horrible, face and ears were black and full of crusts, with enormous nose and dried lips.
The grand devotion of doctors and nurses saved my life. On June 7th sudden haemorrhages of both hands: I am getting weaker every day. Nightmares, even by day. On June 12th a Catholic priest is called to give me the last sacraments. I offer up my life for my dear France, but it is very sad to think that I shall never more see my poor wife, my boy and all the dear ones who are far from me. On June 13th my right arm is swelling, getting blur and very painful; the next morning, the surgeon opens it and an enormous quantity of pus goes off during several days. I am saved and from now I shall slowly recover.
From about June 20th I was given hand-baths; the artificial skin started to come off by pieces, uncovering a new skin on the palm and some flesh on the back of my hands; in the meantime, I was given medicines to cure my face. My ears were very painful and prevented me to sleep on the side. I was six weeks without leaving my bed, both hands confined in bandages, fed by the nurses as a baby. The back of the hands is the part needing the longest time to be healed because there the skin must be extensible and the sores of my right hand are only healed now, 29th August, three months after I have been wounded…
Another soldier to experience the desperate retreat to the sea was Major Peter Hill, a fellow reservist, who was called up to serve with the Royal Artillery Ordnance Corps. His letter, despite its cheerful optimism and faith in the British fighting spirit, certainly sheds some light on the perilous days of May 1940 when soldier and civilian alike was seemingly at the mercy of the Luftwaffe.
Major P.R. Hill
‘F’ Corps Section
2nd Ond. Fld. Park
B.E.F.
25 May 1940
My Darling Wife,
When this letter will reach you if at all I don’t know but like good British troops we always hope for the best.
The last few days Betty have not been pleasant and my dear it is no use my pretending otherwise. This continued fine weather favours the blasted German air force whilst ours is attacking his lines of communication or sitting at home kept there by windy politicians. Tell John Sully we want fighters and yet more fighters. If they appear the Germans simply can’t stand up to them. I saw two yesterday go into about six bombers bringing them down like chaff. But our pilots can’t fly 24hrs of the day. Try to impress on your friends the words of the King that we are fighting for our very existence in the world at all and that our downfall, if such a thing could be thought of, would be final and everlasting.
Every conceivable form of foulness is used by the Germans. The farmer on whose farm I am now has a son who was taken prisoner by Germans in Dutch uniforms. If any of our conscientious objectors don’t like to fight the German people but only the Nazis let them do the sort of job we had to do yesterday when the few men I have who know anything about first-aid and I had to attend to dying and injured refugees after they had been bombed. My first dead was a child of five and her grandfather. I don’t want to try and be horrific Betty and soldiers expect terrible things in war but when we see the pitiful plight of innocent people we have only one idea – carry the same total warfare into Germany and smash them in pieces for ever. The spirit of the soldiers I came across will blow things to pieces if ever a Gast tries to restore Germany as a power.
I have slept in my clothes for several days now and was up at 4am – this mainly to find a new place and hope I have chosen a nice quiet farm… The other day an officer of ours arrived with a truck full of provisions of wines and spirits. Then I picnicked in an orchard the other day on bully beef, tinned potatoes & champagne…
The weather continues to be perfect and I long for some of those gloriously happy days we have had quite alone and look forward to raising a family with you in a better world God willing. I feel sure you will take the necessary steps in this direction, it would be very encouraging if you did. If you have time dearest look around for the ideal little house you would like after the war in Barnstead, Chipstead, Epsom Downs districts, nicely in the country don’t you think. Of course it is also very nice up the river in some places. It would be better than a flat and a cottage, but what do you think?
This afternoon I think the weather is going to break. It is like thunder and will keep les avions away…
Well my darling I often look at your photo and gain courage from you. I must say that in these days a firm belief in the Christian faith goes a long way also.
Goodbye for the present dear, don’t worry, we always get away with it.
As ever
Your loving husband,
Peter
P.S. The BEF was never more alive & kicking than now.
Lionel Baylis kept a diary throughout the retreat to Dunkirk and referred to this when he wrote to his brother to tell him about the tumultuous weeks that had preceded the evacuation of the British Expeditionary Force. Baylis was at this stage serving as a signalman in the 48th Divisional Signals.
No 2528408 Signm Baylis L.G.
‘F’ Section, No 2 Company
48th Divisional Signals
Hampton Park Buckwater
Hereford
Tuesday 25th June ’40.
Dear Cliff and May,
Well this letter has been a long time coming, but still, better late than never. I hope you’re both going on alright, and not being as pessimistic as the majority. I hear you had an air-raid last night. Did you hear any eggs come down or did you sleep it through? I don’t think an air-raid would fetch me out of bed unless things got extremely warm.
I don’t know whether you are still sufficiently interested to hear an account of my travels. If you’re not, swear for five minutes for me, for wasting time and paper. I will try to make it as interesting as possible and promise not to exaggerate in any way. Some of the things you will already know, but I’ve got to mention them to keep things clear…
Tuesday 10th [May 1940]. 0400hrs we were wakened by all the air-raid alarms in the district going. A.A. fire was continuous and planes droned continuously overhead. Needless to say we all tumbled out of bed and stood watching our first air-raid in pyjamas and shirt as the case may be. We didn’t see any planes brought down, but several made off with smoke pouring out of them. Well we knew or guessed something was up and at seven we heard on the news that Holland, Belgium and Luxembourg had been invaded. Bang went my leave and we prepared for an immediate move…
Thursday 16th. Ordered to move at 0330, but was cancelled. 0730 subjected to our first dive-bombing attack by German fighters. Very few casualties in our regiment though an infantry battalion marching past suffered badly. 0830 moved to our position 2 miles south of Waterloo. 48th Div supposed to act as reserve for 1st and 2nd Div, the three comprising 1st Army Corps. It didn’t turn out this way ‘but the idea was good’. Throughout the day German planes went over in groups of 50. No British planes seen and A.A. fire not too hot. Our positions were bombed again with very few casualties. Late tonight our first ‘Tactical Withdrawal’ was made…
Friday 17th. Battalion in action all day. Bombing attacks continuous. From bits of information passing over wires etc, we were beginning to appreciate that things weren’t as easy as we had thought they would be…
Saturday 18th. Reached our destination at 0430 but our stay was short lived. At 0630 the main body began what looked to me like a general retreat. I had to stay behind with our officers to destroy two wagons which had been ditched. When we had finished at 0830, rifle and machine gun fire could be heard less than half a mile away. We were moved right back to a place called Houtain and by this time were half way back into France, nor were we to get any peace here. We moved yet another 5 miles back, the Btys [batteries] opened fire and during the night we seemed to be in the middle of a circle of fire. It appears that the order to advance should have been cancelled as by the time we moved the German motorised columns had already penetrated beyond the given point…
Anyway by this time the whole British Army was on the retreat. It was simply a case of get back as fast as was possible. We travelled back to Tournai. All available transport was used to pick up the infantry. Half the blokes got separated from their units and fought the rest of the time with others. It seemed a ghastly tangle. Well the orders were to hold the canal round Tournai at all cost. We heard the news on the wireless that the battle round Sedan wasn’t going too well. Despite this and the retreat from Belgium, we didn’t have any pessimistic feelings…
On Wednesday night we were ordered to move back. Now understand this – at no point had the Germans crossed the canal but the situation elsewhere compelled us to withdraw unless we wanted to be trapped… On Monday 27th refreshed by the last 2 days we moved back to slightly west of Ypres. By this time we knew we were trapped in the north of France and Belgium. Fighting seemed to be all around us and was bitter. Artillery fire turned the sky red at night while bombing & shell fire blackened the countryside by day. Even so the worst blow was yet to fall. Early on Tuesday 28th we heard of the capitulation of Leopold.* I admit at this time none of we common soldiers appreciated the dangers. Those in command did and we set about destroying all extra kit, wireless sets, exchanges, telephones and every other bit of equipment. I should think we burnt £5,000 worth of technical stores that afternoon… Well we began to move back to the coast late at night. The journey took all night and was a nightmare. Villages and towns were bombed and machine gunned as we passed through. The roads were jammed with vehicles. Well to cut a long story short we got to within 12 miles of the coast about 0430 Wednesday 29th. I immediately fell asleep over the wheel. At midday we had orders to destroy our wagons as best we could. We daren’t fire them for fear of attracting enemy bombers which were like hornets in the sky. At 1300 hours we began our march and reached Lapanne just inside Belgium, a few miles north of Dunkirk, at 1800 hours. I was absolutely dead beat. Imagine carrying about 56lbs of potatoes on your back for 5 hours and you can guess how I felt.
Well we slept that night on the beach and with luck still with us, the morning of Thursday 30th was very cloudy. I eventually got into a boat, soaked from head to foot, at 1100hrs and was rowed out to a drifter, which left the place soon after. By this time the Germans were shelling the beach and the boats as they left. Apparently half an hour after we had left, German places machine gunned that very beach and killed and wounded 700 men. In addition they bombed and sunk a destroyer a little lower down. Well we got to England (Dover) at 2030hrs, wet and in a sorry state. A cup of tea tasted like champagne, while the railway carriage was like a feather bed…
Well I’ve tried not to let what I’ve learnt since getting back have anything to do with my tale… I will say this much, that Dame fortune followed our section. We brought every man back and only one, who lost a finger, needed medical attention. As a contrast one other section in our div signals brought 4 back out of 32…
In conclusion I’m not one of those who is eager to get back, I never want to go through another 16 days like those. I think the army is a shower of ——, badly organised and generally wants a thorough clean out. If this war goes on much longer I know I shall turn socialist and a most progressive conservative which is the same thing.
Cheers for now & all the best,
Lionel
I suppose the news of the last few days shook you a bit. It did me. Perhaps we finally realise what the German Army etc is like. Thank God we’ve got a navy and pray that the French fleet stays on our side.
Harry Calvert served in No. 149 Field Ambulance, Royal Army Medical Corps (RAMC). In June 1940 he too described the danger from German bombing as the troops desperately awaited evacuation from the beaches at Dunkirk.
RAMC
Beaminster
Dorset
28.6.40
Dear P. and A.,
Many thanks for your letter which arrived this morning. You will be relieved to hear that we got through all right except for a few minor wounds. I am glad to say I am OK now.
Eddie Ritchie and young Teddy Crooks are here – the unit was very lucky at times over there and we just managed to scrape through by the skin of our teeth.
I’ve had a few of the boys killed and also a few are missing. We went through quite a lot of action in Belgium and Northern France in quite a short while and this is not an idle boast – but the British soldiers beat the Jerries every time and must have killed a half million of them on Vimy Ridge and took about two thousand prisoners.
But the French let us down badly by letting him break through and then the Belgians packed in and there we were, hemmed in on three sides with Dunkirk the only way out, so that is where we made for and was it hot I’ll say, he seemed to fill the sky with his bombers and they just played merry hell on the beach.
Well, that is where Eddie and I lost young Teddy – you see somehow or other the three of us were lost from the unit the day before by our lorry breaking down and when we got it away again the rest of the unit were miles away. So we made our own way to Dunkirk. Well we are about two miles away from there when all the excitement started – one of the Jerry bombers came flying very low along the road and he dropped a pill just about 6 feet in front of us. It just lifted that wagon as if it was a balloon and we thought our end had come and young Teddy got a nasty knock on the arm so he fell.
We managed somehow to get him off the wagon and dived into a ditch and lay there till the planes cleared off – most uncomfortable I can assure you with the machine gun bullets splattering on the road.
But never mind, we managed to fix young Teddy’s arm and we made our way to the beach. It was like jumping out of the frying pan and into the fire. The beach was like Blackpool on a Bank Holiday – it was black with soldiers. Well, we made our way to the port and got young Teddy seen to – and Eddie and I were detailed to carry the wounded on the boats.
We saw young Teddy aboard one ship – it left the port and it wouldn’t be a mile out when the bombs started to drop again. That ship was hit 5 times and I said good-bye to Teddy to myself because I thought there would have been an awful lot killed on board her – but young Teddy will tell you all about that himself when he writes. That was about the longest day I’ve ever spent in the army – we thought that night would never come. Our shoulders were aching with the wounded and about 12.30pm the officers decided to evacuate the Aid Post as there were some fresher men come to relieve us.
Well, we worked like devils in the few hours of darkness that we had but not enough time for at 4.30 just as we were making for the boats over came the Jerries to start it all over again.
I don’t think I’ve ever said my prayers as many times in one day as I did then but the Jerries got more than they bargained for this time when a dozen Spitfires came out of the blue and did they make short work of them Germans and did the lads give them a cheer – it’s a wonder you didn’t hear it over on this side.
Well, it was all over in about half and hour and Eddie and I managed to get on board a destroyer and it wasn’t long before we were making for England. Except for a few shells from the shore and two more Jerry planes it was like a pleasure cruise – thanks to the Navy – they were great – they treated us like lords coming over.
But we were pleased to see those White Cliffs – well, I ask you, were we pleased?…
Throughout the Dunkirk evacuation the RAF had only played a limited role due to the limitations of the range of the aircraft at their disposal as well as the urgent need to protect the home front. Nevertheless, their contribution played a large part in the success of the operation, their valour being officially recognised by Churchill in a speech. In total the RAF lost over 100 aircraft during the evacuation. But throughout the months of July and August the RAF would be at the very forefront of the defence of the British Isles.
Many soldiers, sailors and airmen were confronted with their own mortality on an almost daily basis. Some chose to compose a final letter home to be delivered to their loved ones if they were killed in action. Pilot Officer Michael A. Scott wrote the following to his parents in August 1940.
Torquay
21/8/40
Dear Daddy,
As this letter will only be read after my death, it may seem a somewhat macabre document, but I do not want you to look on it in that way. I have always had a feeling that our stay on earth, that thing we call ‘Life’, is but a transitory stage in our development and that the dreaded monosyllable ‘Death’ ought not to indicate anything to be feared. I have had my fling and must now pass on to the next stage, the consummation of all earthly experience. So don’t worry about me; I shall be all right.
I would like to pay tribute to the courage which you and mother have shown, and will continue to show in these tragic times. It is easy to meet an enemy face to face, and to laugh him to scorn, but the unseen enemies Hardship, Anxiety and Despair are very different problems. You have held the family together as few could have done, and I take off my hat to you.
Now for a bit about myself. You know how I hated the idea of War, and that hate will remain with me for ever. What has kept me going is the spiritual force to be derived from Music, its reflection of my own feelings, and the power it has to uplift the soul above earthly things. Mark has the same experiences as I have in this though his medium of encouragement is Poetry. Now I am off to the source of Music, and can fulfil the vague longings of my soul in becoming part of the fountain whence all good comes. I have no belief in a personal God, but I do believe most strongly in a spiritual force which has the source of our being, and which will be our ultimate goal. If there is anything worth fighting for, it is the right to follow our own paths to this goal and to prevent our children from having their souls sterilised by Nazi doctrines. The most horrible aspect of Nazism is its system of education, of driving instead of leading out, and of putting State above all things spiritual. And so I have been fighting.
All I can do now is to voice my faith that this war will end in Victory, and that you will have many years before you in which to resume normal civil life. Good luck to you!
Mick
Scott survived his initial training and deployment in 1940 and so the letter was never delivered. In 1941 he chose to draft a new version.
Royal Air Force Station
Wattisham
Bildeston 261. Suffolk
7/5/41
Dear Mother and Daddy,
You now know that you will not be seeing me any more, and perhaps the knowledge is better than the months of uncertainty which you have been through. There are one or two things which I should like you to know, and which I have been too shy to let you know in person.
Firstly let me say how splendid you both have been during this terrible war. Neither of you have shown how hard things must have been, and when peace comes this will serve to knit the family together as it should always have been knit. As a family we are terribly afraid of showing our feelings, but war has uncovered unsuspected layers of affection beneath the crust of gentlemanly reserve.
Secondly I would like to thank you both for what you have done for me personally. Nothing has been too much trouble, and I have appreciated this to the full, even if I have been unable to show my appreciation.
Finally as a word of comfort. You both know how I have hated war, and dreaded the thought of it all my life. It has, however, done this for me. It has shown me the realms where man is free from earthly restrictions and conventions; where he can be himself playing hide and seek with the clouds, or watching a strangely silent world beneath, rolling quietly on, touched only by vague unsubstantial shadows moving placidly but unrelenting across its surface. So please don’t pity me for the price I have had to pay for this experience. This price is incalculable, but it may just as well be incalculably small as incalculably large, so why worry?
There is only one thing to add. Good luck to you all!
Mick
Tragically this letter was delivered following Michael Scott’s death on 24 May 1941 while serving with No. 110 Squadron, Bomber Command. He was one of seven children, four sisters and three brothers. His brother Mark, who is mentioned in the earlier letter, was also killed during the war when he was lost at sea in 1942.
With the success of the German Blitzkrieg and the occupation of much of mainland Europe by 1941 the Phoney War seemed a distant memory. Although the Battle of Britain had thwarted any tentative German plans for an invasion of the British Isles there had been few other successful Allied actions and with the continuous bombing of the Blitz the war was fought as much on the home front as it was on the front lines. Many British soldiers were desperate to do their part to help to turn the tide and Ernie Probst of the Royal Artillery was no exception.
My own sweet Winifred,
Sunday afternoon and I am writing this in the sitting room down-stairs listening to Leslie Sarony on the radio.
These last two days have been horrible, raining all the time. It has made everything very miserable but I guess it is nowhere near so miserable as it must be in London.
I heard that the last few days have seen the Jerry over London very early and I have been rather worried about you not being home before they started. I pray every night that you may be kept safe and unharmed because I cannot bear to think of you hurt.
Things seem to be stirring up in this war business and the sooner we can have a good crack at Hitler the better I shall be pleased, so that we can be over with it all as soon as possible.
Sometimes I think that all this war makes life only the more worth living. The future holds forth such hopes of peace and security that it almost becomes an honour to have participated in the great struggle. I hope I live to see the end of it all and I’m not being miserable in bringing that into it.
I get impatient waiting for the time we can set up house together again and the very prospect of it almost justifies the war.
Well, I’ve been philosophising long enough… I love you, so looksee after yourself.
Yours forever & ever & ever,
Ernie
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Probst’s wishes were only partially fulfilled. He continued to serve with the Royal Artillery and rose to the rank of captain until the landings at Salerno in 1943 as the Allies launched their first amphibious assault on mainland Europe. The operation was a success but tragically Ernie Probst was killed and he did not live to see its successful outcome.
A key defensive position within the Mediterranean prior to the invasion of Italy was the island of Malta. With Axis and Allied armies battling for control of North Africa, British control of the island ensured that Axis supplies from Europe to North Africa could be attacked en route. The German High Command was quick to realise Malta’s strategic significance and from 1940 until 1942 the island came under sustained aerial attack. Flying Officer Geoff Stillingfleet was a British pilot based on the island as part of the defence contingent. In a detailed letter home to his parents written over a two-day period he described the virtually daily attacks to which the small island was subjected.
26/6/41
148 Squadron
RAF, H.Q., M.E
Dear Mum and Dad,
In addition to the numerous letters, cards and airgraphs I write, I usually send you a long letter once a fortnight. They, unfortunately, will take considerably longer to reach their destination, but nevertheless, I know, be very welcome.
I am going to start this letter with a few words about Malta. It is no secret that Malta has been very heavily bombed and it is about this that I am going to talk. I am told that the tiny island of Malta has received more air-raids than any other place in the war, this I can quite believe, indeed, we had an average of four a day. Before leaving England, my attitude, as you know, was one of reckless contempt towards all air-raids. However, after a few days in Malta contempt changed to respect. After six weeks there I have been an exceptionally fast runner, indeed I believe I could have rivalled even the Italians. I was capable of descending the air-raid shelters with an amazing speed and agility if not exactly with dignity (that came later with practice).
Jerry had a very unpleasant habit of, without warning, sending over sixty or seventy ‘Stuka’ dive-bombers, complete with a very large and very necessary fighter escort. Those fearful aircraft would then proceed to hurl their screaming missiles earthwards, causing considerable smoke, noise and dust, the former chiefly coming from the remains of burning German dive bombers. These attacks were annoying. Firstly, they scared us badly, exceedingly badly I might add; secondly they were always followed by a particularly long ‘alert’ caused by Jerry seaplanes searching for survivors round the coast of Malta, and finally bomb craters on the aerodrome had to be filled in and shrapnel removed from the runways.
My first experience of dive bombing was a very unpleasant one. I was caught in the open, the only available ‘funk hole’ being a sand-bagged machine gun post. Out of the sun there came formation after formation of bombers. I saw the first one enter its dive, saw its air brakes come on, and then saw the bombs leave the aircraft. I didn’t wait for more, but ran. It is impossible to describe the next twenty minutes adequately. The sky above us was filled with white puffs of hundreds of exploding shells. Nothing you thought could fly through it, but down they came one after the other, unloading the deadly bombs. Many came down but never pulled out, hitting the deck with a load crash (one narrowly missed us), another I saw exploded in mid-air showering wreckage and flak over a large area. Would they never stop, everywhere there was flying and falling shrapnel, whizzing stones and the whirr of machine gun bullets, and above all this whistling, screaming, shrieking above all noise of our gunfire the never-ending, ear-splitting explosion of heavy bombs. Suddenly the gun-fire eased off, no longer could we hear the screech of diving aircraft or the higher pitched scream of falling bombs, the last aircraft had dropped its load and to our amazement we were still in one piece. In our proximity the only casualty was a gunner with a shrapnel wound in the shoulder. German losses we learnt later were twenty-three aircraft.
27/06/41
… During the moon periods Jerry and sometimes even the Italians honoured us with frequent visits. Our hospitality was such that he often came to stay. No, Jerry definitely didn’t like Malta and he was only too pleased to jettison his bombs as soon as he possibly could…
I had a friend in Malta, a kind hearted, contented orange grower, a man with ill-feelings towards no one, yet a low flying Messerschmitt thought otherwise, he dived on him, as he was working and machine gunned him. A few days later he showed me the holes in the wall and a bullet; fortunately the pilot’s aim was bad. The following day I saw the charred, mangled remains of a German pilot; the awful sight did not make me sick. I had very little pity towards him, the unmerciful. Sorry to have kept to one subject, but there are plenty more letters following.
Your loving son
Geoff Stillingfleet’s squadron was evacuated from the island in 1941 after suffering high losses, although in his opinion his subsequent posting to North Africa was no easier with the trials of desert warfare. But it was to prove a brief sojourn and he was soon back on Malta. In April 1942 King George VI awarded the George Cross to the island ‘to bear witness to the heroism and devotion of its people’ in the face of the sustained assaults by the Axis forces. The siege itself would not be over until May 1943.
148 Squadron
RAF, H.Q., M.E
19/8/41
Dear Mum and Dad,
A friend of mine will very shortly be returning to England so I am writing this special letter for him to take with him. I say ‘special letter’ because as this will not be censored I shall be able to give you a good deal of information which otherwise I could not write.
In a letter written previously (it’s enclosed with this) I have described the Malta air raids. Well these air-raids eventually drove us from the island; our squadron suffered more from air-raids than probably any other squadron in the war. It has been estimated that over 600 tons of high explosive was dropped on our tiny aerodrome. Anyway, March 26th saw us embarking on HMS Bonaventure bound for Alexandria, incidentally this was the last voyage she completed before being sunk.
We had six or seven days in which to settle down at Kahit which was to be our main base shared by 10 Squadron. On April 5th a squadron detachment was sent out to form an advanced base in Libya. Eight lorry loads were sent out on the 100-mile journey; we followed several days later by air. I soon discovered that desert life was no picnic, drinking distilled seawater, which was hot and salty; it didn’t quench our thirst but just kept us alive. There was nothing we could get that would quench our thirst, in fact we had a perpetual thirst which at nights almost drove us crazy. Thirst is a terrible thing, but the imagination is the worst; we would lay awake at nights thinking of milkshakes, lemonades, cider and ice cold water from mountain streams. In the day time we were nearly driven crazy by the terrific heat and thousands of flies. At night the lice, bugs and cockroaches tormented us and the sandstorms arose covering our mouths, noses and hair with fine sand… Our worst experience was when we force landed at El-Adim. El-Adim was an Italian aerodrome situated in a no-mans-land somewhere between an advancing enemy and retreating British forces. Actually most of the fighting was going on further north, but nevertheless there were plenty of Jerry patrols active. The situation wouldn’t have been so serious but for the fact that we had smashed the tail wheel on landing. We stayed there two days, and a night, before we were able to get our kite in the air… We spent the time doing as much destruction as possible, shooting at the mess crockery with Italian rifles, and spraying the windows with machine gun bullets. We also painted rude pictures of Hitler and Mussolini on the wall.
After a week’s rest we again went on detachment but this time back to Malta. We first flew to Alexandria where we spent the night. The following afternoon we flew via Crete and Sicily to Malta. We spent a very enjoyable fortnight in Malta, during which time we were raiding Tripoli. Tripoli was an interesting target inasmuch as it had as much A.A. fire as any place in Germany. A great deal of it was tracer; there was so much of it that one marvelled that anyone could fly through it and not get hit. On our first visit we bombed too low and we came back more in the nature of a flying pepper pot.
On May 8th we started and are still doing what must be the longest operations in the war; the operations I refer to were those on Benghazi, they were over four hours longer than the famous trips to Venice, Milan and Turin. These Benghazi trips took twelve hours flying broken by a brief halt at an advanced base for re-fuelling.
Just before the invasion of Crete we did a number of long operations to concentrations of enemy aircraft in Greece. These trips were ten hours and another two hours returning from the advance base. During the Crete invasion we were particularly busy, each night would see twenty heavy bombers over there. We had a terrible mission, to bomb then machine gun the enemy positions and also to drop medical supplies and ammunition to our troops. Of course these were not our only targets, we have raided Searparto, Rhodes Island, Derna, Gazala, Benino, Bardia, Bairut [sic], Allepo. Since leaving England I have flown over fourteen countries.
I am in a new crew at present, and it’s one of the best crews in the squadron. Our captain has done 40 raids and has a DFC for a low level attack on the Kiel Canal. His speciality is dive-bombing. Slowly flying over a target is not so much a thrill as a strain, you just sit, make yourself as small as possible and watch the ‘flak’ coming up at you. Dive-bombing, however, is not such a strain but is just one minute of intense action and excitement. After dropping the flares, we approach the target at say 10,000 feet; the pilot suddenly shoves the stick forward and we hurtle earthwards at between 300 and 400mph. We pull-out of the dive at about 2,000 feet, sometimes much lower, and of course its then that we meet the trouble, every gun in creation seems to be firing at us. In a bright moon they can see us [at] the bottom of the dive so we gunners retaliate by firing at these ground defences and if they are Italian gunners they immediately stop firing and dive for shelter…
Operations are like many other things, when going out or over the target, I feel a little uneasy and I make up my mind that I hate it, and that I will give up the whole game as soon as I can, and yet on the return trip and when on the ground I decide I want to continue doing ‘ops’ as long as possible. Actually they must have a certain hold on me, they act rather like a stimulant or drug for when-ever I am on the ground for a few days, I start getting irritable, depressed and discontented…
Just a few final words, don’t worry, it’s not half as dangerous as it sounds. On the Corinth Raid, which was considered an exceptionally dangerous one, there were forty aircraft operating, thirty-two were dropping bombs and making low-level attacks to draw the fire away from the mine-laying aircraft. Total casualties, two people slightly injured by shrapnel. Remember also, if we ever should get hit, I can bale out in twenty seconds. Another thing, should I be reported missing the chances are I shall be a prisoner of war, or at any rate safe.
Well I don’t think there is anything more to say. I hope you are all as well and happy as I am.
Your loving son
Ever since his arrival in North Africa in February 1941, Erwin Rommel, later known as the ‘Desert Fox’, had sought to go on the offensive against the British and Commonwealth forces. At the end of March 1941 he made his move. The Afrika Korps drove the British back and isolated and surrounded the Libyan port of Tobruk, starting what was to be an eight-month siege. Captain Gordon Clover served with the 149th Anti-Tank Regiment, Royal Artillery, and recorded life under siege in a detailed letter to a friend.
Lieutenant William Leefe Robinson VC, famed for shooting down a Zeppelin over London during the First World War. © IWM (Documents 200)
Company Sergeant Major Milne, 1/5th Battalion, Seaforth Highlanders, who fought in the Second Battle of the Marne in July 1918. © IWM (Documents 1635)
Corporal Laurie Rowlands, 15th Battalion, Durham Light Infantry, experienced his ‘baptism of fire’ on the Ypres Salient. © IWM (Documents 2329)
Sergeant Francis Herbert Gautier, who wrote a heart-rendering letter to his daughter, Marie, after he’d been wounded. He sent similar letters to other family members. Courtesy of the family of F. Gautier.
Reverend Canon Cyril Lomax, a Church of England Army chaplain, served with the Durham Light Infantry in France from July 1916–April 1917. He illustrated his letters from the front line, providing his family with an insight into the first tank attack (top) and the arrival of post in a billet (bottom). © IWM (Documents 1289)
Men and horses from the Cavalry Division, British Expeditionary Force, retreat from Mons, August 1918. © IWM (Q 60695)
Front line trenches during the First World War. © IWM (Q 4649)
A Company, 11th Battalion, Cheshire Regiment, occupy a captured German trench at Ovillers-la-Boisselle on the Somme in July 1916. One soldier is on sentry duty, using an improvised fire step cut into the slope of the trench. The more established fire step facing the other way was used by the Germans before the trench was turned. © IWM (Q 3990)
The trench system was often very confusing due to the sheer number of trench lines and the ziz-zagged pattern they followed. As a result, the different trenches often gained their own names, as seen here. © IWM (Q 4180)
This letter, written in the shape of a kiss, was sent by George Hayman, a private in the Lancashire Fusiliers, to his wife in June 1916 before he was sent to France. He died two months later. © IWM (Documents 1647)
Captain Samuel Gordon served with the British Army as a doctor during D-Day on an American Landing Ship Tank (LST) which was later used to evacuate casualties. © IWM (Documents 774)
Bob Connolly, an NCO with 8th Battalion, Rifle Brigade, on his wedding day. Connolly landed on Juno Beach on 13 June 1944 and took part in a number of battles around Caen. © IWM (Documents 13168)
Lance Corporal John A. Wyatt, 2nd Battalion, East Surrey Regiment. He fought to contain the Japanese invasion of Malaya in 1941. © IWM (Documents 8531)
Lieutenant Brin L. Francis, 8th (Belfast) Heavy Anti Aircraft Regiment, Royal Artillery, served in the Far East, while his brother, David, was involved in fighting around Caen in 1944. © IWM (Documents 8240)
‘The Withdrawal from Dunkirk, June 1940’ by Charles Ernest Cundall. The troop-filled beaches, evacuation attempts by the Royal Navy and bombing by the Luftwaffe are all clear to see. © IWM (ART LD 305)
In a posed propaganda photograph British pilots are seen ‘scrambling’ to their aircraft during the height of the Battle of Britain. © IWM (HU 49253)
The Blitz: a Heinkel He 111 bomber flies over London on 7 September 1940. © IWM (C 5422)
Captain Christopher Cross of 2nd Battalion, Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry, is shown here relaxing and writing. He took part in the glider landings across Normandy in June 1944. © IWM (Documents 771)
The 5th Cameron Highlanders prepare Christmas puddings in the Western Desert, December 1942, illustrating the fact that there were sometimes periods of light relief. © IWM (E 20598)
Pilot Officer Michael A. Scott photographed here wearing his RAF wings. Like many pilots and servicemen during the war, Scott wrote a final letter home, to be delivered if he was killed in action. © IWM (Documents 431)
Reverend Don Siddons, Staff Chaplain at Eighth Army HQ, conducting a communion service in the desert during the Second World War. © IWM (Documents 9143)
Defence of Tobruk: the Royal Artillery utilise their guns to repel the Germans in the desert, 1941. © IWM (E2887)
In a posed photograph, British infantry are shown rushing an enemy strong-point through the dust and smoke of enemy shell fire at El Alamein. © IWM (E 18513)
El Alamein, 1942. A mine explodes close to a British truck as the infantry move through an enemy minefield to new front lines. © IWM (E 18542)
Support troops of the 3rd British Infantry Division assemble on Sword Beach, 6 June 1944. The soldiers pictured here include engineers and, in the background, medical orderlies preparing to move wounded men off the beach. © IWM (B 5114)
Field Marshal Sir Alan Brooke, Winston Churchill, Field Marshal Sir Bernard Montgomery and Lieutenant-General William Simpson walk across a Bailey bridge over the Rhine on 26 March 1945, marking the success of the Allied sweep across Europe. © IWM (EA 56602)
Men of the 1st Battalion, Dorsetshire Regiment, with South Korean soldiers during the hand-over of the ‘Lozenge’ position to the 4th Republic of Korea (ROK) Infantry Division, c.1954. © IWM (CT 1908)
During a lull in the fighting in Korea, British soldiers enjoy a game of football, c.1952. © IWM (BF 10081)
A trooper of the 8th Battalion, King’s Royal Irish Hussars writes a letter home while serving in Korea. © IWM (BF 522)
Lieutenant Robert Gill, photographed with Doreen, his then girlfriend. He wrote letters to her from Korea, detailing his movements. © IWM (Documents 13204)
A Bren gunner pictured here in a concealed ambush position while on patrol during the Malayan Emergency. © IWM (MAL 171)
British troops from 1st Battalion, King’s Own Yorkshire Light Infantry, are shown here on patrol through a Malayan jungle, c.1952. © IWM (BF 10387)
HMS Sheffield on fire after being hit by an Exocet missile fired from an Argentinian aircraft. © IWM (FKD 64)
Heavily laden British troops during the land campaign on the Falklands. Here they are waiting to board a helicopter in 1982. © IWM (FKD 2124)
3rd Battalion, Parachute Regiment, pictured here with the battalion flag in Port Stanley after the Argentine surrender on 14 June 1982. © IWM (FLD 364)
A British Army M110 self-propelled gun in action during the First Gulf War in 1991. © IWM (GLF 1280)
An RAF Tornado F3 in flight over the burning oilwells of the Gulf in the 1990s. © IWM (GLF 762)
From a vantage point at Basra Technical College, a sniper of 1st Battalion, Irish Guards provides covering fire for Royal Engineers as they attempt to extinguish an oil well fire during the battle for Basra City in 2003. © IWM (OP-TELIC 03-010-34-003)
Four British soldiers of 3 Division Headquarters and Signal Regiment conduct a foot patrol on the outskirts of Basra during Operation Telic 2, September 2003. © IWM (HQMND(SE)-03-053-009)
149 A. TK. Regt, RA
M.E.F.
14 Oct 1941
My dear Bill,
Your letter dated 5th September arrived safely. Thank you so much. It is grand to hear from you at any time and especially so under the present circumstances of my existence. I was very glad to hear that you and Rosemary are well and happy. I’m in the same condition of body and mind myself as a matter of fact!
Every condition of one’s life that I have experienced so far has its [redeeming], amusing and enjoyable parts. I have come to find it a rule of life. Every time that things get worse life still remains humorous and even enjoyable when you think it is not going to be! Experiences such as this damned well help you not to dread anything.
Let me describe shortly my immediate surroundings. I am sitting at a [rough] table in a deep dugout built of sandbags and old ammunition boxes and covered with a great variety of scrap… It is dark. There is a hurricane lamp on the table giving a dim light and throwing strange, dark shadows on the walls [of] the canvas, indeed nothing can be seen clearly a few feet from the lamp. Rats are scurrying around the sandbags, sending trickles of sand down the earth walls… I am warm (winter is beginning)… Jerry Jones (who sends you his love) sits on the other side of the table playing what he calls ‘golf’ with a pack of cards. I have a packet of ‘Woodhams’ beside me (I have had a weakness for ‘Woodhams’ since about 1920 when I used to smoke them…) and my rum ration. The rum is good and strong and makes one tingle all over. Now doesn’t that describe a happy situation for a fellow who is making himself live from day to day without worrying about the future?
We are ‘in action’ somewhere in a desert (I mustn’t say which!). There are a variety of explosions – not near enough to cause any anxiety – there are machine guns going off intermittently. When things ‘hot up’ a bit, as they probably will in an hour of two, I shall pop my head out of the dugout to watch the streams of flames and coloured lights and tracer bullets. The firework display is often worth seeing and it is interesting to know in which sector it is happening (if not in one’s own!) and then speculate what, if anything it signifies.
Now let me reassure you, if it is necessary, this may all sound alarming, but it isn’t really, even to me, and I should know! It is amazing how few casualties there are, even when things are hottest. You are as safe in a dugout as slit trench as anyone can expect to be, and (I have seen it happen as well as heard of it happening numerous times) shells and bullets can be all over the place causing a great deal of noise, and yet no one [is] even hurt…
The things I do find a bit alarming, especially at night, are the landmines. They are everywhere and no one [here] knows exactly where they are. The anti-tank ones are not supposed to go off if a man treads on them. The British ones are probably fairly safe in this respect. But there are a lot of fancy ones which our troops hid in haste … and if you are near them they say it is unwise to breathe heavily!… Another of our lads volunteered to guide a truck loaded with some of our ‘foreign allies’ through a minefield close to us. He led it straight into a mine which exploded. He was knocked flat on his face, the truck was blown up and all the ‘foreigners’ jumped out, shouting and cursing in about six different languages!… Well, old boy, you know the rest…
All the best Bill, old man. See you both, I hope, before too long. The war can’t last forever and we are bound to win! Cheerioh!
Your ever,
Gordon
While the British position remained perilous in the Middle East, a new threat arose in Asia: Japan. Manchuria was occupied in 1931, followed by the outbreak of war with China in 1937 and border clashes with the Soviets in 1939. Following the outbreak of the Second World War in the west, Japan sought to take advantage of the colonial powers’ weakness by occupying all of French Indochina in July 1941. The relentless Japanese advance had provoked an American embargo on supplying oil to Japan, a position followed by the British and Dutch authorities in the region. Japan had been pushing aggressively outwards in the region in search of the natural resources needed to maintain her growing empire and, deprived of access to vital raw materials, decided to take what they needed by force and launched a concerted attack on the US naval base at Pearl Harbor and Dutch and British colonial possessions in the region in early December 1941.
Lance Corporal John Wyatt served with the 2nd Battalion, East Surrey Regiment, as the British struggled to contain the Japanese invasion of Malaya.
L/C J. Wyatt
D Coy
British Battalion
Malaya
Dec 21-41
Dear Mum & Dad & Elsie,
Hope this finds you as safe & as well as I am at present… Well mum before I start I would like you all to give thanks to God at church for the mercy he has shown not only to me but to the whole Battalion. 3 times I have just waited for death but with God’s help I am still here. I have felt all along that with all your prayers God would keep me safe. I will only give you one instance of it. 10 of us were in a trench in a little … village in the jungle, we were told last man last round, for we were surrounded by Japs and as they were closing in on all sides some of the chaps were saying good-bye to each other, and I was really frightened at the thought of dying but as the minutes dragged on I resigned myself to it, then all of a sudden 3 aircraft came over, was they ours?…
Down came the bombs all round us, all we could do as we crouched there was to wait for one to hit us, but that good old trench saved our lives for it swayed and rocked with the impact, about one minute after they flew off believe it or not 4 tanks rumbled up the road, and [gave] our position hell. They flung everything at us, grenades, machine guns, but still we crouched in that little trench. We could not return fire for if we had showed our heads over the little trench the advancing Japs were machine gunning us, all of a sudden we heard a shout ‘run for it lads’, did we run, but the last I saw of the brave officer who said it, I shall never forget him, as we ran past him I saw him pistol in hand pointing it at the Japs holding them off while we got away. I haven’t seen him since.
Anyway we waded through about a mile of padi, bullets whistling past all the time, but we reached the jungle and safety, then on to find the British lines, we tramped 30 miles that day living on jungle fruits. The fight started at 7 in the morning, we reached safety at 5 at night. Then for sleep, food, clean clothes, shave, for we had been at the front for 8 days without sleep or clean clothes, for we have lost everything, the Japs have got everything, all my personal stuff, photos, prayer book, everything, but thank God I am still here. Most of the Battalion reached safety but a lot of poor chaps are still missing, some of my friends too… Excuse pencil as this is the first chance I have had to write in a fortnight, so please make do with this. Keep smiling Elsie & I hope to see you next year xxxxxxx.
Well mum our worries are over, we have just been told that we are moving back, and our job is to stop looting so all our fighting is finished… We certainly knocked the old Japs about while we [were] there did we, we are miles better than them and we are sorry we wont be able to get another smack at them, I will have to hurry as the candle is burning out. So I will say good-bye for now, Dorrie xxxx. Jimmy, George, Mrs Ward, Church, rest of family and neighbours, please don’t worry, God bless you all and keep you safe.
Your ever loving son,
John
xxxxxxxxx
xxxxxx
xxxxx
The Japanese steadily advanced down the Malayan peninsula until they came to the city of Singapore, the ‘Gibraltar of the East’ and a major British naval base. The city came under siege on 8 February 1942 and fell to the Japanese on 15 February 1942, described by Winston Churchill as the ‘worst disaster and largest capitulation in British history’. Lieutenant Colonel Tim Taylor was one of the lucky few who managed to escape just before the fall of the city.
Colombo
10 March 1942
The thought of how much I have to tell you rather appals me. You know that I want to tell it to you and I love writing to you, but this will be a volume before I finish. I’ll say straight away very briefly how I got here and then I’ll go into details of the story.
I was ordered away, quite unexpectedly, on Friday, 13th February, heading for Java. We were bombed at sea next morning and made for the nearest land… We crossed that by slow stages, in various forms of transport and left the [censored] in a warship, and arrived at Java on the 22nd February. We had a few days there and then came on here – were ‘torpedoed-at’, but they went underneath! and I’m now awaiting orders for the next stage. A month ago I was resigned for what seemed inevitable – being a prisoner of the Japs – and now things are altered completely.
That’s the bald outline and I’ll try and fill in the details. I’d better start way back when I moved out of the Adelphi and went to share a house with Braithwaite and Shean…
We were getting a fair amount of bombing at night just then as there was a moon out and there again we were well off, as the town was the usual target and we could lie in bed and feel that we were reasonably safe. By day the bombing was increasing and they had an almost daily visit to the docks area. I spent many an hour in the Railway Station shelter waiting for things to clear.
Those evacuations! The more I saw of them the more I was pleased you got away when you did. As soon as I had finished my job of getting people off ships we were hard at it putting women on, usually by night to avoid what raids we could. The scrum of cards and people in those docks was indescribable and when an alert went I had many anxious moments before all was clear again. Bombs in those crowds would have caused absolute chaos, but we were fortunate and nothing happened till the last afternoon I was in Singapore, when there were some casualties unfortunately. Three of us were on a big ship when one went right down an open hold, but again we were lucky and merely felt a bit shaken…
February crept on and every day seemed more and more unreal with the Japs getting closer and closer to Singapore. Soon we had to leave the house as it was getting near the front line and we all lived in our offices after that. Shelling started then and the war was right on our doorstep. Our batteries fired all day and night from positions around Canning and the Jap used to bomb and shell them in return… Meanwhile my job was slowly closing down as all ships were getting away and if you ever got a couple of letters I wrote hurriedly and sent to you in those last days you’ll have realised that it looked as if I was going to put people on ships until there were none left and then sit down and wait for the Japs. I didn’t expect to go myself as there had been no talk of any of us leaving up till then.
Then on Friday evening at six o’clock Brig Lucas sent for Palmer, Brown and me, the three A/Qs, and said, ‘the hunt is nearly up chaps and before it all ends I want to thank you for your work and help. I’d like to get decorations for you, but I can’t do that, but what I can do is to order you away.’ I’ll always remember that. The suddenness of it and the ray of hope that it brought. One felt that it was unfair for some to go and not others, but we couldn’t help feeling that a chance was there for us to take and the thought of all it meant was simply wonderful. Anyway he went on to say that it was the General’s order. Certain people had been selected, mainly specialists and some staff officers, and there was no question of refusal and we were to tell no-one else anything… We were only to take with us what we could carry ourselves, which meant leaving practically everything behind, but that mattered very little in the circumstances. I already had my kit packed, ready for incarceration!…
Leaving Canning without being able to explain one’s orders to those who were staying were very difficult… Poor Janak… He would arrive next morning to clean my buttons and find me flown and of course he would feel that I had hopped it and left them to fend for themselves. Only that morning I had gone round to the troops’ camp near the station to talk to them, as the camp had had a stick of bombs on it that morning and some of them were feeling shaken and wanted to leave the camp and I had told them to stay put and that I would tell them if it was necessary to leave – and what must they think now?…
We assembled at the rendezvous in the Harbour and a party of us were sent on board a motor launch… The last sight of Singapore was unforgettable. For days the sky had been covered in a black pall from the burning oil tanks on the island and that night it was handing low for miles about. All around was the glow of fresh fires, some in the harbour itself, making the scene as light as day, and here and there were the sudden flashes of our guns firing, or enemy shells bursting.
Java was our destination and there was conjecture as to how long our little boat would take over the journey. Our skipper later told us that he intended to run by night only, and to lie hidden by day, and that he thought we should be seven days on the trip. Water and food were limited and we should have to lie down where we could on the ship, so the trip looked like being anything but a pleasure cruise.
We slept somehow that night… In the morning we felt quite cheerful and enjoyed our coffee… Not long afterwards we saw the first planes and realised that we were far from being out of danger yet. We were amongst some islands, but showed no signs of lying up to hide, as the captain had said. Several more formations of planes went over us, but all left us alone. Soon, however, we realised from sprouts of water that our nearest neighbour in the convoy was getting it and after a while we went alongside to take off her casualties.
While alongside another formation came for us and we had the nastiest fifteen minutes I hope to experience. We cast off and went off from the other ship as fast as possible and thereby missed the first packet dropped by yards only… We were all ordered below to the cabin and there we lay on our tummies … listening to stuff coming down and feeling the boat zig-zagging as hard as she could… There [were] no life jackets on board and one hit would have put our cockleshell right under us, but we came out unscathed…
Back in the Middle East, a British attempt to relieve Tobruk in November 1941 proved successful, but the exposed British positions in the Gazala Line proved a tempting target for Rommel and he attacked once more at the end of May 1942. This attack broke the British position, sending them in a headlong retreat towards the Egyptian border; Tobruk fell on 21 June, and the whole British position in the Middle East appeared to be under threat.
Reverend Don Siddons was the Staff Chaplain at Eighth Army HQ during the retreat and this letter home to his wife, Edith, reflects his fears for the future.
From Rev V.D. Siddons C.F.c/aA.C.G. Eighth Army M.E.F. to Mrs V.D.
Siddons
No 61. 25/6/42
Dearest,
Things are looking pretty serious here, and no-one knows how things are going to turn out.
It seems quite possible that at some stage or other I might become a prisoner. I hope it won’t happen, and there may come a turn of the tide, or a stabilisation of the position, but we have to face possibilities.
If it does happen I shall do my best to stick it out and come home to you all in the end. If the enemy get Egypt and especially if they get Baku the war might last another 5 years, and how many people would survive 5 years in captivity is [the] question, as the food and sanitations are often poor, especially if the country we are living in is itself starving, and I imagine it is difficult not to get depressed in such conditions. On the other hand I should always have my work to do, whether prisoner or not, and I am not normally subject to depression, and am physically fit though 50…
You might not hear for some time if I became a prisoner but you must try not to become too worried. I am much more likely in this type of warfare to become a prisoner than any other type of casualty.
Whatever happens I know you will do splendidly for the children and will face life bravely. Don’t in those circumstances wish for the end of the war without victory. That would be of no use to us for life would be worthless. Rather ten years of captivity and victory than an immediate return and defeat or an inconclusive result. Better to to die a prisoner than that.
You have been wonderfully good to me; much better than I have deserved; and I have been completely happy with you, Darling. I want nothing better, when this job is over, than to finish my days in company with you; you have been the best pal a man could have.
I think the children should have all reasonable chances in regard to education, even if it means drawing on capital a bit. Remember that if we win the war you have ultimately fairly considerable resources. On my death you would get £1300 from my life insurance, or if I survive we get it in 1951. On the death of both my parents I think you should get between £2000 and £3000 but am not sure of the exact figure. You could always borrow from the bank (i.e. overdraw) on the security of either of the above, preferably and more easily the first… Barbara ought to get a good scholarship if she is to go to Cambridge, you ought not to have to pay a large proportion of that expense. Miss Jennings, Bill’s headmistress, and Bill herself would all advise you well if a choice of university is open with various corresponding expenditures*… Education expenditure cannot always be met out of income and should be regarded as an investment…
It is useless to suggest anything for Anthony at present until we see how he is going to develop. An architect would be a pleasant, valuable, and I should think, prosperous career after the war for there will be much rebuilding to do for many years…
Now that is all, my Darling. Things may be all right and all this rigmarole for nothing, but it is as well to be prepared for all eventualities. I trust you absolutely, and love you entirely and always, my Beloved.
Your very own,
Don
While the British were in headlong retreat in the Far East and struggling to survive in the North African desert, the main way they were able to strike back at the Axis powers was through the strategic bombing campaign over occupied Europe and Germany.
Flying Officer Ron Williams flew as the navigator on an Avro Lancaster with Nos. 106, 61, 57 and 617 Squadrons, RAF, from October 1942 onwards.
Officers Mess
RAF Syerston
NOTTS
23/4/43 1.30pm
Dear Mum and Dad,
I have received both your letters now for which thanks. I am very sorry about the gap in mine – I was clear in my mind that I had written sometime over the weekend – until I woke up on Tuesday!…
I’ve got another trip done since I wrote – we took part in the varied attacks on Hitler’s birthday. It was quite a nice trip as we could map read in the bright moonlight once we had crossed the sea. We did slightly different tactics which caused some fun on the way back (which I’ll tell you about later) – but nothing dangerous. Bob has now only 13 more to do, and I hope to do the same – we have got to the stage of counting how many to go now, instead of how many we’ve done…
There is a new stunt on this afternoon, and we’ve all got to be in a running kit at 2pm to do a bit of a x country, so I’d better go and change.
Love to all,
Ron
Officers Mess
RAF Syerston
NOTTS
28/4/43 1.30pm
Dear Mum and Dad,
Here we are … lunch eaten, and time for a short letter before the post goes. Your letter and the Guardian arrived yesterday tea time, for which thanks. Regarding the ‘number of trips’ query, it is usual, when pilots complete their tour by doing 30 trips, to finish other members of the crew also if they are only two or three short. It is pretty well the rule in the case of navigators anyway, so, being two behind Bob, I hope to finish on 28. With these last two, it now needs only eleven – should be in single figures soon.
Friday afternoon saw us doing a cross country of two or three miles across the drome and down by the Trent. Having a hot bath on return alleviated some of the stiffness next day. Bob and I were changed in time for the bus and a short quiet evening in Notts…
Sunday was again a quiet night. In the afternoon the crew did a bit of clay pigeon shooting – it’s the first I’ve done since ITW – and then Bob and I changed to go down to the WAAF officers’ mess, to which we had been invited for tea. We stayed there until about 8.30 when we all went along to the dance in the NAFFI.
Monday of course there was considerable activity. The ace crews from each squadron were attacking first and I am almost certain we were the very first to bomb. Of course that means we get all the stuff at us as we go in. Some was close and we even got one hole in the mainplane. However, we were also first back! I don’t suppose you’ll see anything about last night’s effort in the papers – very quiet, very short, but it counted as a trip!
Now they’ve given us a day off – a quiet afternoon is indicated and then probably out this evening.
The leave is still OK and I should be coming home Tuesday week. At the moment Vera and I are trying to arrange a couple of days at Bournemouth – at the weekend; but I expect she’ll tell you if and when she prices it.
Time for food now,
Love to all,
Ron
Officers Mess
RAF East Kirkby
LINCS
18/7/44 9.30pm
Dear Mum & Dad,
I have just returned to my billet for an early night, having waited in the mess to hear the 9 o’clock news first. You will have heard it, or, if not, by some other means by the time you get this, and of the great offensive this morning. We were one of the thousand aircraft that ‘attacked at dawn’ this morning in 41 minutes. It was a marvellous sight to look all round and see Lancs and Halis everywhere; to see where your bombs were going for a change, and to look all round the cattle area (we did a circuit of Caen)…
We had an American Liberator crew up on liaison last Tuesday and they came to briefing and interrogation… On the Tuesday morning we flew with them in their Lib… I was in the waist gun position – a very good view. On taxying [sic] after landing their front wheel burst, so we flew them to their drome in our Lanc to pick up a new tyre, and had lunch there…
Yesterday morning we took the Group Captain up for practice bombing – he dropped the bombs – and then we went on to the American drome to pick up our crew that had been down there for liaison, and have lunch. Their boys were returning from a mission, and we went to the interrogation…
So long then,
Love to all,
Ron
In the month after he wrote this letter Williams was transferred to the famous 617 Squadron who had carried out the Dambusters raid in May 1943. He was promoted to flight lieutenant and took part in the first raid on the German battleship Tirpitz in September 1944 before being shot down at low level and killed during a raid on the Kembs Barrage near Basle on 7 October 1944.* He is buried in Durnbach War Cemetery in Germany.
The RAF’s Bomber Command suffered some of the highest casualties of the war in proportion to the number of men involved, and the thought that they might not come back was never far from the minds of the men flying the heavy bombers over Germany. However, they had a job to do. Sergeant Reg Fayers, who flew as a navigator on Halifax bombers with No. 76 Squadron RAF, records these feelings in an unsent letter to his wife from the summer of 1943.
From Sergt. R.J. Fayers,
Sergeants Mess,
RAF HOLME ON SPALDING MOOR
To Mistress Phyl Fayers,
Ploughlane Dairy,
SUDBURY, SFK
SUMMER 1943 (Not posted).
Darling,
I’ve occasionally felt lately that should I not come home on leave next week, you would think it rather inconsiderate of me not to say a farewell and an excuse, so herewith both. (It’s a grey evening and I’ve nothing to do but write and read, and I’ve already read.)
Lately in letters I’ve mentioned that I’ve flown by night and that I’ve been tired by day, but I haven’t said that I can now claim battle honours – Krefeld, Muhlheim, Gelsenkirchen, Wuppertal and Cologne, I suppose I’ve been fighting in the Battle of the Ruhr.
But it hasn’t felt like that. It doesn’t seem like fighting to climb aboard an aircraft with your friends and climb to a space where the sunset seems infinite; to sit in a small space, and on the engine-noise background hear the everyday commonplaces spoken to you while you juggle with figures and lines to find God’s intentions in the winds; to sit for a few hours at 20,000 feet working hard so that when Tom eventually says ‘Bombs gone, photograph taken. OK Steve, fly away,’ it doesn’t seem anything more than part of the job, and a fresh course to be steered, this time for home. It’s aloof and impersonal, this air war. One has no time to think of hell happening below to a set of people who are the same as you except that their thinking has gone a bit haywire. It’s a fair assumption that when Tom dropped our bombs the other night, women and boys and girls were killed and cathedrals damaged. It must have been so. Were it more personal, I should be more regretting [it], I suppose. But I sit up there with my charts and pencils and I don’t see a thing. I never look out. In five raids all I’ve seen is a cone of searchlights up by Amsterdam, with the southern coast of the Zuider Zee – where poor Ben Dove was found – and a few stars. And as far as humanity is concerned, I can’t definitely regret that I’ve helped to kill German people.
The only thought that comes from the outside is when occasionally Gillie, the mid-upper gunner, says ‘Turn to starboard, go…’. It might mean that out there in the darkness which you cannot even see, somewhere there is a night fighter with a German boy in it; and he may kill you. When Gillie or Reuben says ‘Turn to starboard, go…’, that quick weakening thought comes in – ‘Maybe this is It.’ But you never can believe it. It doesn’t seem possible that what is so orderly and efficient a machine one second can become, within the next minute, a falling killing thing, with us throwing ourselves from it into a startling world of surprised chaos. But it can happen, and, I suppose, does happen to a lot of us. So far we’ve had two small holes in ‘H’ for Harry and nothing more. We have been very lucky. We have flown straight and high, dropped our bombs and come home to bacon and eggs, or maybe only beans on toast. But, so far, we have come home.
Should you ever read this, I suppose it will mean that I haven’t. I can’t imagine that. If I really could imagine it, I suppose I wouldn’t fly. Or would I?
I really don’t know.
But, darling, I could never live easy with the thought inside me that a struggle is going on in the world without me helping good old Right against the things so wrong that have got into our system. This world is a swell sort of place even now; there’s so much beauty in it, such thrilling beauty. If a thing is really beautiful, through and through beautiful, it seems to me it is good. And it could be so much more so. I suppose really that is why I sit on our bombs and fly with them until we come to one more of Jerry’s cities. Instinctively it seems I’ve come to help, first in destroying the bad old things, and then in rebuilding.
If you read this, I suppose there’ll be no Simon in this world. But for those other worlds that will come, there will be Simon. And there will be other worlds, darling; there will be Simon. For them, I suppose, it is that I fly. That must be the answer, I guess. I struggle instinctively to be with you, walking so quietly by Brundon fields and Barnardiston hedges, eating enough lettuce hearts so clean and green for the two of us, being together in the excitement of our love, and in the quiet moonlit night when one wonders about God. That is the beginning of my new world, of all my new worlds.
The most real and living thing in the life that I’ve had has been you, Phyl Kirby. I have loved you so that I haven’t words left to say. And I believe it’s so much in the soul of me that it will always stay with me. I don’t know what heaven I’ll go to (the immodesty of the man) but I fancy something simple, with a river, and lots of green. And I know you’ll be there. If there be a god – and there must be – and if there be a heaven – and there must be – then, too, there must be us. I’m afraid I really believe that, darling. I hope it doesn’t sound too mystic or anything, but I do believe in always having you, and in new worlds.
I suppose that is why I have no personal fear of dying. It would be darned interesting, were it not that it might mean breaking an early date with you. And I’d rather take leave next week than the alternative, of course. Life is sweet, too; I’ll have as much as I can.
So, if you ever read this, darling, I’m sorry if I had to break a date. It means keeping the next one the more certainly. And please don’t be too sad. Together we’ve had more out of living than most people can reasonably expect. And if we had to stop sharing those wonderful things, perhaps it was better that it ended when our love was so strong and firm and young, and while we both had our own teeth. If I have to go to heaven, I’d rather go attractively, and still be able to play soccer.
Love me till then, darling,
Toujours a vous,
Reg
Reg Fayers was shot down during a raid over Frankfurt in November 1943, but luckily survived and spent the rest of the war in Stalag Luft 1.
Thoughts of mortality were not restricted to the air crew of Bomber Command; a common theme running through letters home is concern for the well-being of wives and children should the worst happen. Lance Corporal Fred Baker served with the Royal Corps of Signals in the Mediterranean. He wrote the letter below to his four-year-old daughter Patricia, full of words of advice for her should he not survive.
Sunday 4th Oct. 1942
My Darling Little Pat,
I have been thinking things over while waiting for my boat, & as I might not return I think it is only right that you should have a letter from me which you can keep, to remember me by. I am writing this assuming you are now grown up, as you will not receive this till then. I can picture you as a lovely girl, very happy with plenty of boy friends. I am finding it very hard to write this as I may never see you in this stage. You have always been the pride & joy of my life. I have loved you more than my life at all times. As mother has told you perhaps I was always afraid of losing you. Now the tables have turned the other way & I might be the one to get lost. But do not let this upset you if this is the case, as the love for a father only lasts up to the time a girl finds the man she wants & gets married. Well darling, when this time arises I hope you find the right one & he will not only be a good husband to you, but will also make up for the fatherly love you have missed. At all times lovie be a pal to mother & look after her, do what you can to make her happy, as she has been, & always will be I am sure, the best little mother you will find on this earth. Don’t be selfish or catty, remember there are others in the world as well as you. Try not to talk about people as this get you disliked. When the pulling to pieces start, walk out or turn a deaf ear, it will pay in the long run. Above all I want you to be a sport, to take up swimming, dancing & all games in life you can get so much fun out of. Mother, I am sure, will do her best for you & see you get all the instruction she can afford.
Always try to be a sister to Peter & John, they may pull your leg about different things but the best way after all is to ignore them & do what you can for them. You will win in the end & be the best of pals. Well darling there is no more I can say, but to look after yourself where men are concerned, be wise & quick witted & only believe half they say, of course, till you get the right one.
Remember me as your dad & pal who worshipped the ground you walked on. Please don’t do anything that will upset mother, & I shouldn’t like you to, I will close now my little ray of sunshine. Always loving you,
Your loving Father
xxxxxxxxx
Sadly, his premonition was to come to pass, and Baker was killed in the Dodecanese campaign of September–November 1943.
Reinforcements were flooding in to North Africa to make good the losses of the disastrous Gazala campaign and its aftermath. Although the British troops had held the line, large numbers of extra men and a great deal of materiel would be needed before Eighth Army could assault Rommel’s men.
One of the divisions despatched to North Africa was the 51st (Highland) Division, which had been rebuilt after its loss in the Fall of France in 1940, and amongst its numbers was one of the better poets of the Second World War, John Jarmain. He served as an officer in the 61st Anti-Tank Regiment, and wrote the following poem that serves as an evocative description of his departure for the war in the desert. He sent the poem home as an addition to a letter.
Embarkation, 1942
In undetected trains we left our land
At evening secretly, from wayside stations.
None knew our place of parting; no pale hand
Waved as we went; not one friend said farewell.
But grouped on weed-grown platforms
Only a few officials holding watches
Noted the stealthy hour of our departing,
And, as we went, turned back to their hotel.
With blinds drawn down we left the things we know,
The simple fields, the homely ricks and yards;
Passed willows greyly bunching to the moon
And English towns. But in our blindfold train
Already those were far and long ago,
Stored quiet pictures which the mind must keep:
We saw them not. Instead we played at cards.
Or strangely dropped asleep.
Then in a callow dawn we stood in lines
Like foreigners on bare and unknown quays.
Till someone bravely into the hollow of waiting
Cast a timid wisp of song;
It moved along the lines of patient soldiers
Like a secret passed from mouth to mouth
And slowly gave us ease;
In our whispered singing courage was set free,
We were banded once more and strong.
So we sang as our ship set sail,
Sang our own songs and leaning on the rail
Waved to the workmen on the slipping quay
And they again to us for fellowship.
He also wrote to his sister Kate about his arrival in Egypt and his feelings for the pregnant wife he left behind.
From Capt. J. Jarmain
(No 137983)
61st A/Tk Regt. R.A.
c/o Army Post Office
No 2005
June 30th 1942
Kate my love,
A new address for you to write on my letter at last as you see at the head of this sheet. In fact I have not arrived there yet but am on the way, and in any case I do not know where it is. At least the journey is a very pleasant and unwarlike interval between one job and the next, and as it lasts so long, with all its days alike and no change of scene to show that we are moving, it is quite difficult to believe that I am bound for anything or anywhere. I suppose I do believe it in fact, but that seems not to affect my enjoyment of the trip, its warmth, amazing luxury, and above all its hours and hours of leisure…
If I thought that this isolation that I am enjoying now was to go on forever then I should immediately cease to enjoy it. But as it is I am loving it, loving the hours of the day, at last really able to see them as the [riveting] sheets of a notepad, clean and immaculate, and ready to receive whatever I may wish to put upon them. Strange how people are affected differently: many of those travelling with me are already impatient of the empty days, stretching before them… For me just the opposite is the case, the very emptiness of the days is their precious delight: what shall I fill them with? What shall I do? What shall I write poems about? War? Or flying fishes? Or English fields? – What shall I read? – Montaigne? Or Lewis Carroll? Or Shakespeare?…
I have said that I am happy on this ship, and maybe you have wondered, do I not mind leaving Beryl then? Leaving her, the goodbye, was like something happening under an anaesthetic. Travelling away from her in the train was the awakening, very miserable… Afterwards, when I get to shore and I know that she is out of reach, it will not be good. Being separated is one thing, bearable at any rate because it must be borne, but being so far that I know that I am in no way [near her], that is not pleasant.
And she is to have a child about August 8th. That for her is good, I think: it gives her a very definite hold on things and will give her duties to perform.
I wish I had not started writing about her. It has made me think about her and about the good years we should have had together, which now we will be missing. How many millions [of] lives this war has taken from their just causes and appropriated wholly to itself !
Funny, for I have, before beginning this to you, written eleven pages to her, without that bitterness against fate re-arising.
And that bitterness must be in nearly every one of us, German or Briton, Italian or American: only the Jap is incomprehensible…
God bless, and write to me, my love,
John
These new arrivals were joined by a new army commander, Lieutenant General Bernard Montgomery, and were destined to be blooded in the climactic battle of the Desert War, El Alamein. Montgomery spent the next two months training his new command for the task of breaking through Rommel’s defensive positions, and on 23 October he launched the battle of El Alamein with Operation Lightfoot. The four infantry divisions of XXX Corps advanced against the well-prepared Axis defences, while to the south the armour of X Corps struggled to break through the German minefields.
Following a week of bitter fighting, Montgomery reorganised his forces for another push, Operation Supercharge, with the 2nd New Zealand Division tasked with carrying out the first attacks. Attached to them were the men of the 8th Battalion, Durham Light Infantry, part of the 151st Brigade. Private John E. Drew, who served with the battalion, wrote to a bereaved family about the death of his friend in the battle.
Pte J.E. Drew
5442875 M.T. Sect
H.Q. Coy
8 DLI
M.E.F.
21/5/43
Dear Friend,
Just a line in answer to your request for a little information in regard to you late brother Joe.
As you already know I was with him on that night, well, let’s not bring back a sad moment but just imagine he’s still with us and try to describe a little of what happened before.
Joe and I were both in the Cornwalls until we came out here, and then we were drafted into the Durhams with whom we went up the blue* and as soon as we got up there we were allotted trenches which as you can probably guess were next to one another and in which we would sit and talk during the day and from where I learnt quite a lot from him about your family…
Joe and I were on guard when we first got any inkling there was a push about to begin, and I cannot put into writing the excitement there was…
At last dawn approached and we stopped to get breakfast, and it was after breakfast that we were informed of the job that was before us and, I must admit that the officer who spoke to us spared us no details in telling us what to expect and what was expected of us, and I can say that by then, and not without reason [we were] beginning to shake a little in our shoes, it was here that we were told of the Barrage the RA were going to put down and this news I am sure helped us through the next few hours.
Now comes the part of my letter that has kept me so long from writing to you.
We were now dressed ready to move to a forward position and from where we were to have what was to prove our last meal together, actually it was Bully stew with Biscuits with jam, which we ate sitting together behind a mound of earth at about four o’clock in the afternoon, then after a short rest we got dressed again and were once more on the move, we seemed to have been marching miles in thick deep sand and it is a march I shall never forget for Joe and I both shared a Bren Gun between each of us carrying it for about a mile and a half at a time and with the load we were carrying it sure was hard going.
Well at last we halted and were formed ready for the big push which we knew would be the turning point of the war, we layed [sic] there for quite a while and after the sweat of the march we were beginning to shiver… We only had KD on, so we cuddled up together to keep warm, and you can believe me Sardines had nothing on us.
It was here we had an issue of rum and nothing was ever more welcome, in fact we felt ten times better for it.
As we were lying there the order came to take up positions and everybody was keyed up, and it was a surprise when we were told to fix bayonets.
We moved up a few yards and then the next thing we heard was a crescendo of guns which shook us at first, we were now off and though we had to keep apart Joe and I kept in touch with one another till we were held down by machine gun fire.
Things looked pretty grim here and it was only the audacity of an NCO that got us out of it and which cost him an arm, by this time Joe and I had got our gun going again and we began to advance with the section, the next thing I knew was a tremendous crash behind us and as I fell forward I caught a glimpse of Joe going down, picking myself up I discovered that except for a few scratches I was OK. I then walked over to Joe and found much to my regret that there was nothing I could do for him and looking around I found what had been the cause of it all, one of the Jerry Panzers had feigned dead and was just going to move off. I then picked up the gun and though I must admit I was pretty mad by this time I let him have a full magazine and I am pretty certain he never lived to tell the tale.
After we had finished with our little part in the great scheme Montgomery had so successfully planned we came back to a few miles behind the front and my platoon officer informed me after we had been there a few days that he has been back and seen where our boys had been buried but though he tried, he was unable to let us go to see their graves, but I am sure they had a decent burial.
I am afraid this is all I can tell you at present but I will try to write you some more later on.
I will now close hoping you will understand and forgive me for not writing sooner.
I remain yours
Truly,
J.E. Drew
Trooper John Bassam, who served like John Jarmain in the 51st (Highland) Division, was wounded in the battle and wrote home to his family about his experiences.
10602041
Tpr F. Bassam
(A) Squadron
51st Recce Rgmt
Recce Corps
M.E.F.
2-11-42
Dear Father,
At last after such a long time I have found time to write a few lines to let you know that I am still OK. Well you will I suppose have been following the ME news with a lot of interest wondering if I happened to be in the battle or not, well our Squadron were right in [it] at the start [and] before we had time to realise what was on we were fighting it. Is just hell out here although all is going to scale. I am resting at present and am going to base tomorrow. I have heard nothing of the other Whitby boys but say nothing to their people… I am deaf in my right ear but thank the Lord the only thing like a wound was on my seat, just a scratch so don’t worry. The MO says my hearing will come back, at any rate my left ear is OK now. I was blown up time after time and lost my speech for a while. Quite a lot of our boys were lost but most of us live to fight another day. We hope to make this the end out here, the chances are good, we hope to be home by Spring. Well I must close and don’t worry more letters for you when I get time. Cheeryo, keep smiling.
Your son,
John
Flight Lieutenant Chadwick served with the Desert Air Force during the Tunisian campaign, and describes his reactions to the victory at El Alamein after all the hard fighting that had taken place in the desert over the previous two years, as well as the aftermath on the battlefield.
F/LT E. Chadwick
107968
HQ, RAF, ME
211 Group
24th May, 1943
My dear,
From time to time in my letters I have said I would write my experiences during the recent campaign from Alamein to Tripoli or to what we later found out was our final destination – Tunis. Actually in these early days we had Tripoli the target as this [was the] prize, and had been before the eyes of the Eighth Army, from the early days when the Desert Rats first whipped the Wops. Although my experiences date earlier than Alamein I will leave them until later as the grim days of the retreat had been put behind us and we had stopped the enemy. We were all ready now to hit back and hit him good and hard, it had taken us four months to do this – months and weeks of dreary life in the desert with the usual bombings by night and occasionally when Jerry got perky a party or two during the day. But for now it was the 23rd of October, the day we had all been waiting for. The day had been almost normal, nothing extraordinary had happened and the dusk came on with the sun dropping into a dark cloud that spread over the western horizon making a blood red flame that died away to a cold dark blue as the moon rose in the east to shed its white light on the scene which we were all expecting to begin. I remember as I saw the night draw on thinking what thoughts are in the minds of the men in the desert at this time. As zero hour approached we all listened to hear the barrage and dead on time it began and rumbled and crashed to wake up the silence of the limitless darkness of the desert… The following day the RAF took a hand and bombed and strafed with good heart all doing our best to help to give Jerry a licking just to change his continual run of success. At night the artillery opened up again pounding a way for the infantry to lever out the Hun who was still soft from the day’s bombing. During the night rain fell and we all wondered if our efforts would be diminished by its effect … but I think the Army were too full of fight to stop for the rain…
In our unit there were a matter of 300 men with about 30 officers and the whole lot could move off at about one hour’s notice and travel any distance and set up in the same time. This mobility was a splendid effort by both the organisers and the men who had the carrying out of the move… Our unit was, furthermore, divided into two parties, so that one party could move forward, become operational and then the rear party could come up to us or leapfrog over us and thereby be in a position to continually control the planes and hammer the enemy without let up… During these days and nights the Army had been pounding and nibbling at the enemy’s positions and we were anxious to hear that his line had been broken, so we could start away after him. This happened on the 3rd November, we were giving all we could from the air and the line was breaking slowly but surely. The advance party were on two hours’ notice to move and we were all ready to go. It was not until the 5th November that we moved… Everyone was light hearted and happy to be doing his bit in the show that was to repay us for the ignominy of the recent retreat… As we went along we gradually came upon the signs of war, guns and troops moving back up, and it was here I saw the body of some high officer being brought back from the front. Modern war deals hardly with high and low, front line troops and headquarters staff are all subject to instant attack… As we passed out of the defences we came upon the war in all its horror. Apparently the Germans and Italians had made a desperate attempt to close the gap here but had been wiped out by our guns and stiffies were lying about all alongside the road and deep in the desert. To us of the RAF who had been accustomed to death in less numerical severity the widespread ghastly scene was appalling and shook us somewhat. War is like that, one gets callous and indifferent by degrees…
The following morning we were roused at dawn and moved off hoping to get to our destination [where] we could have a meal in comfort. On along the road we went until we came across tanks and vehicles which were still burning, at one point the road was blocked by an Italian vehicle which had been newly shot up as the crew were still lying around on the road. This was after we had been travelling an hour and seemed to me to be rather near, in fact too near, the battle … however we continued until a Bren gun carrier came rushing over the desert to head us off … and I never saw vans, lorries, wagons and trailers turn around quicker ignoring the danger of mines alongside the road and head back like ‘the clappers of hell’…
Well, that is my story of the desert which I hope you enjoyed. It was tough in parts but one met some grand fellows during the war. Some did not complete the show & some will never see their homes again but the best of the people I have known in the service have been in the desert.
Despite the British success at El Alamein, there was still a great deal of hard fighting left to do in North Africa as the Axis troops slowly retreated across Libya and Tunisia, fighting rearguard actions all the way. At the same time a joint Anglo-American expeditionary force under the command of General Eisenhower landed in Vichy French Morocco and Algeria on 8 November 1942, in an action known as Operation Torch.
By 7 May 1943 the Allies had entered Tunis, and eight days later the Axis forces in North Africa surrendered, with some 230,000 men going into captivity. David Philips served as an officer with the 7th Battalion, Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry, and wrote to his mother describing one of the victory celebrations following the successful conclusion to the campaign.
7th Oxf & Bucks Lt. Infty
M.E.F.
2.6.43
Dear Mummy,
Many thanks for several letters recently received; I have answered some of them in a longer letter which may take some time to reach you. As you can see, the faithful typewriter still flourishes – although under fire it was hot touched – and although a few small springs are broken and one or two screws missing it still works almost as well as ever.
Today we had a big parade in the local town for the official celebration of the King’s birthday. We sent a contingent of about 80 from the Regiment, with 3 officers, of whom I was privileged to be one…
Then while the salute of twenty-one guns was fired, I thought how strange it was to be standing there as conquerors, surrounded by the symbols of Roman might, and how hollow now seemed Mussolini’s boast of eight million bayonets to defend his Empire. I could not but feel awed by the circumstance, and not a little thankful for the opportunity of participating in the exposure of that hollow boast: how truly has Nemesis followed hubris once more! But perhaps the strangest part of all was the reception accorded to us by the populace. They clapped. At first I was overcome by a sense of the ridiculous, and could scarcely control my laughter: do you remember how Peter Fleming comments on the strange impressions created by seeing the citizens of a South American town clap their soldiery? In the same way I felt there was something ludicrous in this applause: as if they thought our ability to march, and present arms, were something wonderful. But afterwards I was the more struck by realising that applause from a conquered populace for their conquerors was surely an odd phenomenon, and even now we ask ourselves why it was accorded: was it just excitement at the pageantry? Perhaps; or was it fear of reprisals if they remained silent? Hardly likely: or are we genuinely welcomed? I do not know the answer.
The march past which followed was impressive – I am told – and successful, and many of my men were as thrilled by it as I was; and a very important general has given the Regiment high praise for its prowess and smartness…
Love to all from
David
However, the war in the Mediterranean was far from over and on the night of 9/10 July 1943 the Allies launched Operation Husky, the invasion of Sicily, and then from 3 September British and Canadian forces began landing on the Italian mainland itself, with the Americans following on the 9th. Despite the initial success of the landings, and the Italian surrender, the Allies became bogged down in front of the German defensive lines that stretched across the Italian peninsula, the most impressive of which was the Gustav Line that contained the town of Cassino as its key position. This town, dominated by the famous Benedictine monastery above it, was the scene of bitter fighting from January 1944 onwards, as the Allies sought to break the stalemate and take the city of Rome with a frontal assault on the Gustav Line and an amphibious landing behind the German front line at Anzio. After months of hard fighting at both Cassino and Anzio, the British Eighth and American Fifth armies finally broke through the German positions and beyond the bridgehead. The US Fifth Army pushed on to Rome, which was captured on 4 June 1944, instead of pursuing the retreating German forces. There was to be plenty more hard-fighting in Italy, but the first stage of the campaign was at an end.
Following the Allied invasion of Italy in September 1943, the Italians signed an armistice with the Allies which was announced on 8 September. German forces rapidly disarmed and took over the positions occupied by their erstwhile allies, but the armistice also gave opportunities to escape to the many Allied prisoners of war who had been captured in North Africa and were now held in camps across Italy.
Gordon Clover served with the 149th Field Regiment, Royal Artillery, until his capture at Tobruk. His letter describes his arduous journey to freedom.
28 Sept 1944
My dear Bill,
I have been thinking of you, of all three of you, and wondering how you are. I’m going to try and give you in this letter a short account of how I got back after the armistice with Italy, as I expect you want to hear a few details. There are plenty of others who had a more exciting time but what happened to me was quite exciting enough for your ears. I got clear of the camp after the armistice without incident. The Huns came to take us once but we had wind of their approach and got clear with a few minutes to spare and they hadn’t enough men to scout the whole countryside for us. That was in northern Italy within a week’s walking of the Swiss [portion], which I was much tempted to make for. However, I set out to walk south with another officer. We walked and walked and then some, always in the mountains … across county roughly south west. We swapped uniforms with some filthy ragged civilian clothes, begged food as we went from the peasants and lived mostly on bread and [grapes]. After about six weeks we must have covered about 500 miles and with a zig-zag, cross country course…
On the whole the peasants were friendly and helpful though fearful (penalty for helping ex-POWs was death). I could speak the language fairly well but of course with my accent and appearance could not very well pass for an [Italian]! Then twenty miles from the line, we got caught again by the Huns. They were getting more and more numerous as we got close to the line and it was hard to dodge them and the line being stationary made it harder to get through. We spent some very unpleasant days staying in a dungeon well south of Rome and of course got covered with lice. Then we were put on a train for Germany, locked in cattle trucks with a bucket and a bale of straw. We took a poor view of this and a poor view still when the RAF came and bombed the train. However, there was a spot of confusion and … I managed to nip off and hide in an air raid shelter with a lot of civilians. Then I got into the mountains again alone and spent a couple of [nights] on a pile of bracken in an old shack high up in the mountains hoping for the line to move a bit. With the winter it was getting terribly cold so I continued … to Rome. There I wandered from refuge to refuge till I found a permanent cellar where I hid for few months like a troglodyte until the Allies arrived in Rome. That time in Rome was the worst of all. I had a bed but food was scarce and I had to stay hidden almost the whole time… However it all ended well and here I am, still on leave, after two months!…
We’ll have plenty to talk about when we meet… Love to R. Look after yourself, Bill, and come back home as soon as you can! It’s nearly over! Another letter soon to follow.
All the best, yours ever,
Gordon
In the Far East, the British had been forced out of the majority of their colonial possessions by the Japanese onslaught. Hong Kong, Malaya, Singapore and Burma had all fallen, and only India was left, but was under threat of Japanese invasion.
The British sought to rebuild their forces in order to wrest back their colonies from the Japanese occupier, which resulted in the formation of the famous Fourteenth Army in October 1943.
Freddie Ranken was a sergeant in the Royal Army Pay Corps based at Meerut in India, and wrote back to his wife’s family in England full of anxiety about the situation at home.
British Army Pay Office (RA Sgts Mess)
Meerut, Indian Command
26th August 1944
Dear Willie,
This is a letter that has been about to be written on a number of occasions but although I received yours on 23 July it is only now I am sitting down to write this as I have a day off on medical grounds. I was off duty Wed and Thurs as well. I have worried badly over the past couple of weeks since hearing of poor old Edie’s new trouble, being bombed out and have not had any details yet to ease my anxiety…
Your sample of summer weather, no rain till the end of May and then tons of it with cold as well is just like England at its most inconsistent worst. So you had your overcoat on for the 21 June and a fire too. Here we are in the worst part of the Indian summer, August, September, when we get the rains (monsoon) well and truly upon us and the heat still continues, so we are in a stifling atmosphere at times.
Glad you have enjoyed my various descriptions of places I have been to… Of course since your letter was written the whole course of the war has changed completely and Jerry may well be out of the war before the end of the year. The Russians are doing well now with Romania changing sides and Bulgaria packing in, while our two campaigns in France are both making wonderful headway.
I see you mention big changes on the White Hill … there certainly will be some changes to see when I get back but the one concerning me most at the moment is the loss of our home, or rather waiting to hear how much is lost. I have not had any details from Edie yet. Dad I hear is incapacitated from writing as he has his right arm in a sling, but I have written to him telling him I don’t expect any replies from him for a while. Your hours of work don’t give you much chance for a week-end, and fire watching duties don’t help a bit. I guess you fall asleep at all sorts of odd times when you can… I certainly agree with you that the sooner this bloody war is over the better… Let us hope it does not go on much longer… I must get rid of this wretched letter or I will miss the mail.
Cheerio,
Freddie
The Fourteenth Army became popularly known as the ‘Forgotten Army’ owing to the lack of recognition its exploits received throughout the longest land campaign of the war.
Harold Upton served as an NCO in the 1st Battalion, Seaforth Highlanders, which was based in India and Burma throughout the war. He wrote a series of letters to his girlfriend, later fiancée, expressing his hopes for 1944.
2828228 L/Sgt H.E. Upton
M.T. Section
1st Bn. The Seaforth Highlanders
India Command
January 1st 1944
Dearest Jenny,
I have been disappointed in my expectations to find several letters of yours waiting for me on my return as none have come for three weeks. However Jenny today I received your airgraph greetings which brought me much happiness and I feel sure that there will be letters on the way; mails for everybody have been very poor lately. I have not had any other letters either.
Well Jenny the New Year celebrations were a vast improvement on the Christmas do and everybody seems to have had a good time. I did not go to bed until about four o’clock this morning but did not have to be carried to it; I must confess that I was not feeling too good this morning.
There is so much I would like to say to you Jenny and I hope that you will not think I am still under the influence, I am as sober as a judge. I hate hinting at things and in my recent letters I have not done anything else, mostly due to the fact that I am afraid that your answer may be no. I confessed to you before that I loved you but was not a free man but now that I am free of all promises I find it difficult to tell you just how much I love you. Can I hope dear Jenny that you may be able to care enough for me to marry me when things get back to normal? We have not been able to see much of each other but we have exchanged many confidences in our letters and think we have a pretty good idea of what the other is like. Will you make an old man happy Jenny and say yes? I know your heart was elsewhere but perhaps in time you could forget and I know I would do all I could to make you happy. It is a lot to ask you to risk and marriage is said to be a gamble but I am sure that you would not find the life we would have to lead very trying; it may be a bit lonely at times but it has its compensations. Don’t think that you are second best, it was just bad luck that I didn’t meet you sooner and I don’t think you would hold this against me. You have no idea Jenny how happy you make me with any little endearments in your letters, think how much happier you will make me if you say that you will marry me; I promise I will never give you cause to regret it.
If only this war would end soon and I could see you perhaps I could tell you better how much you mean to me but all the same I do believe you have a good enough opinion of me to know that I would not love you just to pass the time and that if you can’t return it you will not let it make any difference to our friendship.
Perhaps this is a very poor way of telling you how I feel about you but I am no poet Jenny and what I lack in words I make up for in feeling. Do try to make 1944 the happiest year ever for me dearest one, I know you want to see me back but it would be a much better homecoming if you were waiting for me with open arms. I will write again soon Jenny and hope some of your letters arrive tomorrow. All my love and many kisses,
Yours ever,
Harold
Sadly, Harold Upton lost his life during the battle of Imphal in April 1944 as the Fourteenth Army repulsed a Japanese attempt to invade India.
Ever since the evacuation from Dunkirk in 1940, the Allies had been looking for a way to return to the Continent and by the summer of 1944 preparations for this second front were complete. A vast Allied armada crossed the English Channel on 6 June 1944: D-Day.
Bob Connolly served as an NCO with the 8th Battalion, Rifle Brigade, part of the 11th Armoured Division that landed on Juno Beach on 13 June 1944 and took part in the vicious battles around Caen between June and August. He wrote a series of letters to his wife both before and after his departure.
6969573 Cpl Connelly, R.W.
‘H’ Coy, 8th Rifle Brigade
A.P.O. England
9-6-44
My own darling wife Sheila,
Hope sweet that my letters wont take too long going through the various stages, and if a few days elapse between them don’t worry honey. [It] will no doubt be rather difficult at times, but believe me dearest I’ll write as often as possible, please sweetheart write as often as you can, for hearing from you will be such a grand tonic, doesn’t matter if they are very short, any little thing you do will be refreshing and interesting news to me.
Everything is OK honey, food good and plenty of kip, all the boys are in the best of health and spirits are very high…
Sweetheart we have been very lucky the last few weeks, [I’m] so glad that we saw so much of each other, I’ve been wonderfully happy and have been walking on air, our marriage has been and always will be such a marvellous partnership. Lucky Connelly they call me, I certainly have been in love, thank you so much honey for deciding to spend your life in partnership with me. Five years now dearest, and I am more in love with you now than I ever dreamt was possible in my wildest dreams.
Just in case my letters get held up, I’ll take this opportunity of wishing you all the very best on your birthday, such a pity we can’t spend it together, but honey you know I’ll be thinking of you whatever the circumstances I’m in, loving you with all my heart, soul and strength as always. Please buy yourself something very special for me, don’t think of the expense, for on your next birthday after this we will be together I feel certain, the war will be over and I’ll be able to select you something really special myself.
Must say cheerio now honey, look after your dear self, my heart is with you, and don’t worry about anything, everything is going to be OK. Forgive this being rather short, I’ll be able to give you more news soon.
God bless you my precious, all my love and kisses are for you only,
Bob
xxxxxxxx
6969573 Cpl Connelly, R.W.
‘H’ Coy, 8th Btn. Rifle Brigade
A.P.O. England
15-6-44
My own darling wife Sheila,
Had a great surprise today, two lovely letters, really sweetheart, they have done me the world of good, [I] now feel in the very best of spirits, such a lovely tonic to hear from the girl I adore, so soon after landing, please do write as often as possible my precious, hearing from you will keep me going and make me so much happier and bring dear old England lots closer.
The RAF are doing marvellous work and it’s most heartening to see how they rule the air. Swarms of fighters sweep the skies from dawn to dusk, and equally terrific amounts of bombers fly in formations through flak so thick that it seems impossible for them to reach their objectives but believe me they do.
I naturally can’t tell you what we are doing, but we are all in the best of health and spirits, and doing extremely well for food, cups of char and cigarettes, and of course all the usual trimmings.
The French people are very pleased to see us and most friendly, we are having lots of fun trying to understand and making ourselves understood with the help of cards and books. [I’m] beginning to pick up quite a bit of their language, and think I’ll study a foreign language properly when we get this lot over, and I’m once more back in civies with you my precious better half.
Its such a crime that some of these lovely little villages have suffered so much in the cruel blows of warfare, there is plenty of beautiful countryside still to be seen however, green fields, hedges and fields, stand out beautifully and defiantly as nature’s reply to mans’ wilful and wicked destruction. The weather is super now and we are all getting very brown, would love to spend a holiday with you here when peace once more reigns, feel sure you would love it. Passed a lovely old cottage in most romantic settings yesterday that would have pleased your artistic eye and made your dear fingers itch for a paint brush or sketch book…
Trust my other letters have arrived OK and haven’t been held up too long, also that you received the birthday greetings in time; you will get yourself something new from me wont you dearest? The old account can stand a few ‘quid’, [I] only wish I could be with you and buy something myself, but never mind sweetheart, I have a very strong feeling that by your next birthday we will be together in our own little home, with the world at peace at long last.
Sweetheart thanks a lot for the beautiful little enclosed sentiment, am looking forward to more, you are a darling, in every way and make me so very happy. Oh my dearest one I love you with all my heart, soul and strength and always will, stay just as sweet as you are honey, you’re marvellous, and I’m the luckiest devil on earth to have such a delightful partner. With my luck and a couple of million other helpers this blasted war should soon be over. Honestly though dearest, don’t worry for I promise you I won’t be taking any unnecessary risks.
Well my darling Sheila must say cheerio for now, and try to get a spot of sleep, nights are a trifle hectic here, and owing to having a little job on last night didn’t get much shut eye…
Look after yourself my precious one.
All my love & kisses are for you only.
God bless,
Bob
xxxxx
On 6 June Captain Gordon was part of the enormous fleet that crossed over to France. A doctor at No. 24 General Hospital in Scarborough, Yorkshire, he spent the week leading up to D-Day, as well as the day itself, on board an American Landing Ship Tank (LST) that was earmarked for casualty evacuation.
Captain S. Gordon
24 General Hospital
15.16 **
Scarborough
20/6/44
Dear Roy and Jan,
Now at last I can tell you of my adventures. On 29th May I went to Southampton and immediately went on board a special ship. We were 3 doctors and 33 men. It was what we had been practicing for at the Isle of Wight. Our job was to bring back casualties: Easy isn’t it. This is what happened.
The organisation was amazing… It was gigantic and also in flaming technicolour. There were thousands of ships of all shapes and sizes, each shape and size to do a special work. You may have seen pictures of some in the papers or on the newsreel. Ours was a landing ship for tanks and someone has a brainwave and decided that they would be useful to take vehicles over and bring back casualties. It’s a large ship with a flat bottom and 2 big doors in front… The tank deck which is 3 decks down is like a huge hall and is big enough to take at least 50 large tanks. Above that is the sleeping quarters for the crew and troops galley (cook house). The top deck was flat and was for carrying lorries and also had the cabins for the officers and the dining room. Above that of [course] was the bridge…
The first few days were spent unpacking the boxes of medical stores and putting them so that we would get at them easily as while vehicles were on board they had to be packed away… The patients themselves (on stretchers) were [fixed] on special racks which had to be fitted up and taken down and when these were full the remainder were laid on the floor (on the stretchers) in pairs or lashed together to prevent the stretcher from moving if the ship got into heavy seas and my goodness it certainly could roll. It didn’t pitch at all but it certainly could and did roll from side to side until it was almost impossible to stand and all loose things rolled also. Walking wounded went up to the troop deck where they slept in special bunks.
On Saturday we loaded up with lorries of all kinds, ducks (… which go on land or water) and a variety of different other vehicles, with their drivers and officers – about 400 men and that evening we were told all about the invasion – when, where and how and our place in it. It was due to start on Monday but it was postponed until Tuesday.
We set sail on Monday night at the end of the assault convoy and went along a lane through the mine field which had already been made for us by mine sweepers and marked out with flags. The sea was very rough and the crossing took about 15hrs and we anchored about a mile off the British sector of beach about 12 noon, about 4 hours after the assault had started and apart from some wrecked ships and assault boats and some firing from enemies there was very little to be seen of the actual battle. The Germans had just been pushed off the beach. I did see a tank and pillbox having a direct hit from a battle ship.
In this section the casualties were comparatively small on either side and we saw quite a number of German prisoners and every so often a mine would blow up on the beach. Because of this the ships were unloading on to special carrying craft which went from them to the beach and was rather a slow process. The number of ships had to be seen to be believed. The place was black with them and it seemed that one could quite easily walk from one to the other as far as the eye could see.
By the following day they had made the beaches comparatively safe and ships (flat bottomed ones) could be run aground on the ebb tide and be left high and dry for the vehicles to be run straight from the ship onto the beach. This we did and while they were unloading we three MOs went for a little stroll … to stretch our legs…
When the tide came in again we floated off and anchored about a mile off shore where we eventually had about 40 casualties brought to us in the ducks. These load on shore drive down to the beach into the sea and swim out to the ships and actually come on board through the doors. After being unloaded they roll out again and swim back to the shore with a load of empty stretchers and blankets…
We stayed there that night and the following day took on about 200 more casualties then had to wait for the convoy to be formed to return to England, arriving in Southampton on Friday night…
I suppose it all sounds dangerous and exciting, in actual fact it wasn’t anything of the sort. Thrilling yes – and I’m glad I was in it and wouldn’t have missed it for the world. We saw our enemy ships, and aeroplanes, although the latter used to come out at night when they would get a hot reception; as one of the Yanks said it’s like the fourth of July…
Of the 3 beaches there’s no question at all that the Yanks had the worse job and suffered the most as a consequence. It seemed amazing that they were able to land at all and push off the beach as they had to face fairly high cliffs with guns all over the place. That’s why their move forward was delayed quite a few hours. They eventually did their job and are still continuing to do good work and incidentally letting everyone know about it. Good luck to them, they’ve actually earned it this time.
Our work finished because the medical arrangements are going along fine. 200 beach hospitals are being established all over the place. Hospital planes and proper hospital ships are running…
The things that left the biggest impression was the [success] of shipping; the organisation and smoothness with which things go … as opposed to the petty restrictions of ordinary [times] and the kindness and hospitality shown to us by the crew of our ship and the keenness and coolness of the British Tommy with his joke and grin under all circumstances…
No more news.
Best love to both
Even before the first wave of troops hit the beaches on D-Day, there were already Allied troops in action in occupied France. As a prelude to the invasion, three Allied airborne divisions – the British 6th and US 82nd and 101st – were dropped over Normandy to seize key objectives and protect the flanks of the invasion beaches.
Gerald Ritchie was a company commander in the 12 (Yorkshire Battalion), Parachute Regiment, part of the British 6th Airborne Division.
Major G. Ritchie
12 Para Bn
BLA
Sunday
My own dearest sweetie,
I shall try and write you a proper letter tonight as I have a bit of time. My last few effusions have been rather poor efforts I am afraid. But we have been rather busy just lately.
It has been an extraordinary party these last few days and a very queer mixture of extreme unpleasant moments and some quite happy ones. The most touching and most gratifying thing about it all has been the extreme joy and pathetic gratitudes which the local inhabitants have heralded on arrival. I have never before been treated as these French peasants are treating us, and it is rather an amazing sensation and rather brings a lump in ones throat. Everyone without exception waves to you, flowers are thrown into the vehicles, and I remember particularly the sight of one oldish man standing up at his gate with his family waving his arms and shouting ‘merci! merci!’ At every little cottage I have stayed where the inhabitants have been there, they have produced everything of the best, wine, cider etc and given it away liberally to the troops, this appears to be the true spirit of France.
Most of the country is unspoilt and untouched; but here and there where the Boche has stood and fought, where there has been a good defence line, everything is smashed and horrible. I have seen a little town, complete and unspoilt in the morning, a blazing inferno in the evening and a mass of smouldering rubble, full of evil smells by the next morning…
Well my darling I think that is just about all for today, so will close now and go to bed.
All my love darling, mine is yours alone.
Your very loving and devoted husband,
Gerald
Though he was wounded and evacuated following operations in Normandy, Major Ritchie returned to his battalion and took part in the last great airborne operation of the Second World War, Operation Varsity, the crossing of the Rhine in March 1945.
Major G. Ritchie
12 Para Bn
BLA
Easter Day
My dearest Sweetheart,
At last I have found a few moments to write a proper letter to you to let you know how I am getting on. I hope you have got all the various field post cards I have sent you, they are very useful for just letting you know I am well…
Well my darling, I seem to have lived through such a multitude of experiences since I last wrote that it is difficult to know what to say and where to begin. Most will of course have to be kept until I see you I’m afraid. The initial party was a bit hectic for a time, but it might have been a lot worse and it was a real success, as I expect you read in the papers. My company have done magnificently and I feel very proud of them all; all my officers are ok…
It is rather an extraordinary experience being in this country, the people are very docile and polite, and in most cases seem very pleased the war is for them over, particularly because of the RAF bombing, which is pretty devastating. The thing that has surprised me most in this particular part of the world is the fact that the populace are very well provided for food and most other things too, but it may be only on the surface. There is no doubt though that they are fully aware now that they are beaten.
This morning we had a wee church service, but it was only a very short one, but it was at least something being Easter Day. I wonder if you were at church this morning… Well my darling, I think I will close now, my thoughts are always with you…
All my love comes to you with this as always, your very loving husband, Gerald.
Another officer who took part in the Allied airborne operations in Normandy and beyond was Captain Chris T. Cross, who was part of the 2nd Battalion, Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry. Cross had wanted to be a paratrooper, but at 6ft 4in was deemed too tall and instead joined the 2nd Ox and Bucks, which was an airlanding battalion dropped onto the battlefield by glider.
Lt C.T. Cross, C Coy
2nd OXF & BUCKS Lt Infty
A.P.O. England
June 23rd 1944
Dear Folks,
At present I’m lying in the sun in a very pleasant orchard in N. France and a force of about 500 Fortresses has just gone overhead, most encouraging… I have just changed my underclothes and washed my feet for the first time since I left England. And today we bought a few bottles of wine, and intend, if all is quiet, to have a little dinner party this evening because when we are busy we get a bit split up and the officers don’t get much chance to see one another… What we would really like is some bread – getting awfully tired of these biscuits, but the army bakers are not here yet and the local French don’t have any to spare.
My platoon is in very good form and we all get on very well together. The five new blokes I had shortly before we left are pretty good and with one exception fitted in well. The exception is now no longer with us – Jerry saw to that. But he has not dealt with us too severely – touch wood.
Being now at liberty to talk slightly about D-Day here you are for what it is worth. For quite a long and very tedious time before the thing began we were cooped up very tightly in a tented camp opposite an operational aerodrome near Oxford. It was incredibly hot while we were there but they stretched a point and allowed us out of camp to go across to the RAF mess & have a bath. ENSA* sent a show down one afternoon – held in plain air – quite amusing. And occasionally we packed a few sweaty men very tightly into a tent and showed them a film. But it was a trying time and a lot of money changed hands at cards. Meanwhile the officers and NCOs were very busy learning the story of what we were going to do, memorizing maps, studying models, air photographs, intelligence reports and all that sort of thing. All done in the near nude Nissen hut, whose doors and windows had to be kept shut! And throughout this time about half the company were within a dozen or so miles of their homes. And they had great temptations. However, all was well. The whole business was a bit nerve-wracking though, because we were not told exactly when D-Day was to be, and then, when we were told, the whole thing was put off for a day just when we were about keyed up to go.
The glider flight was bloody! It was of course longer than most we’ve done before because of the business of getting into formation, collecting fighter escort and so on. After about ¼ hour I began to be sick and continued until we were over the channel where the air was much calmer. The channel was a wonderful sight – especially the traffic at this end – Piccadilly Circus wasn’t in it. We were not over the coast this side long enough for me to be sick again, and we were pretty busy thinking about landing. The landing was ghastly. Mine was the first glider down, though we were not quite in the right place, and the damn thing bucketed along a very upsy-downsy field for a bit and then broke across the middle – we just chopped through those anti-landing poles (like the ones I used to cut myself !) as we went along. However, the two halves of the glider fetched up very close together and we quickly got out ourselves and our equipment and lay down under the thing, because other gliders were coming in all around and Jerries were shooting things about at them and us so it wasn’t very healthy to wander about. Our immediate opposition – a machine gun in a little trench – was very effectively silenced by [another] glider which fetched up plumb on the trench and a couple of Huns – quite terrified – came out with their hands up! Having discovered that we were all there and bound up a few scratches we then set off to the scene of the battle. I shall not tell you about that, except that apart from a bar of chocolate and ½ the contents of the whisky flask I had no time to eat or drink for a very uncomfortably long time – too much else to do, but it seems incredible now. From my last meal in England to my first cup of char and hard ration in France was very nearly 48 hours! But I’ve been making up for it since.
Somebody once said that war was composed of intensive boredom relieved by periods of acute fear. This is it, in a nutshell. The boys used to hate digging themselves trenches on Salisbury Plain, but you should just see how fast they do it now. And we’ve had a good many to dig in various different places since we came here. My hands are not as beautiful as they were!
The French people I have met have been marvellous – very pleased to see us – pleasure mingled with apprehension because they knew that when we arrived it might mean shelling, it might mean that we should have to raid their homes to protect ourselves, and it would assuredly mean the death of a lot of their livestock. This is a horse and cattle-breeding district, and one of the saddest things is to see their carcasses lying about, nobody having time to deal with them and fields full of very scared animals, some of them wounded. The local drink is cider – rough but very good and I hate to think what goes into the making of it. However, the alcohol in it makes it safer to drink than the water hereabouts. The civilians used to give us cider if we asked for a drink. Recently though we have not been near any places with inhabitants about…
It is now time for the party, and Jerry seems to be giving little trouble this evening. So that’s all for a while.
Love to you all,
Chris
Lieutenant Cross also took part in the airborne operations across the Rhine, though by this point he was the battalion’s Intelligence Officer.
Lt C.T. Cross
2nd Ox & Bucks Lt Infy
BLA
Germany. 27 March 1945
Dear Family,
It seems incredible that we’ve only been here three days, seems like weeks. But I’m all in one piece and the morale is sky high.
I’ve seen no newspapers since we were first shut up in the [town’s] camp. But unless there is a security blackout, I expect you know all you should know about our activities.
The Regiment has covered itself in glory – a really first class show… I’ve been feeding on Benzedine but it looks as though I’ll be getting some sleep today. Also food. The German farmhouses around here are very well supplied … and we are at present winking an eye at looting of hams, eggs and preserved fruit! In fact we are organising it, so that everybody gets the same share!
This can’t go on much longer, I only hope I never have to get into a glider again! The first three and half hours of that flight were wonderful – I was not a bit sick. But I put on five years in the last five minutes of it.
That must be all…
Love Chris
Lieutenant Cross stayed with the battalion right through to the end of the war, and wrote to his family at home describing the somewhat chaotic situation following the German surrender.
Lt C.T. Cross
Regtl HQ
2nd Ox & Bucks Light Infantry
BLA
4.5.45
My dear family,
I have just heard the 9pm news broadcast, containing the official news of the surrender to 21st Army Gp. As such dates go, this I suppose, will be an important one. For us, it’s not any different from yesterday or the day before.
I have missed all the fun of the ‘link up’ with the Russians – that has been left to the Divisional Staff, who have ceased to take any interest in us, but are concentrating instead on Vodka. Meanwhile it has been left to the likes of me, and there are not enough of us, to try and cope with 1 Surrendered armies and 2 Civilian refugees.
Yesterday was the worst. At 10 o’clock in the morning I had a belated breakfast after doing the final night advance – during which incidentally, the beautiful BMW was written off. From 1030am until 1130pm I had time for one cup of char and a sandwich brought to me by Richards. All that time I was dealing with German soldiers. I had to use a reception camp for rather more than one German division. Here the soldiers were searched for arms, organised into bodies of 200 approx and marched off. Many were wounded, many had marched so far that they would go no further. Their own medical services had to be organised to cope with these, transport arranged for them and so on. We are miles ahead of supporting troops, having rushed at full tilt over and beyond the Elbe, so we have no facilities for feeding the blighters. Furthermore we have civilians to cope with, of which more anon. So at all costs we had to keep them moving back. During yesterday I had something like 10,000 through my place. By the end of the evening I had no voice left at all, having been shouting orders in German at them all day. This I did mainly from the back of a horse…
Well anyway, this bit of the war is over. I suppose I should feel elated, but I feel tired and disgusted, and I can’t get the smell of Germans out of my mouth and nose, no matter how much I clean my teeth. Disgust, contempt and a little pity mix ill. What now I wonder?
Now I think is the time for you to send me some books. The Huns don’t keep English books in their houses and everybody is crying out for light literature for the days.
Love to you all,
Chris
At the same time as British forces were struggling in Normandy, and the Fourteenth Army was driving back the Japanese in India at the battles of Imphal and Kohima, a very different force was fighting its own battle way behind the Japanese lines in Burma. The brainchild of the unorthodox Major General Orde Wingate, the Chindits launched their first long-range operations behind Japanese lines in early 1943, and in early 1944, after Wingate’s death in March, a second more ambitious operation was launched. Twenty thousand men in six brigades, broken down into a series of individual columns of 500 or so men, were inserted behind enemy lines to seize vital airfields, and disrupt the lines of communication to the rear of the Japanese forces.
Colour Sergeant Tom Proudfoot was one of the Chindits, and served with 2nd Battalion, Queen’s Royal Regiment during the operation.
888437 C/Sgt Proudfoot
2nd Queens Royal Regiment
India Command
12.5.44
Dear Bobby,
At last I am able to write and tell you of our expedition.
I am now out of Burma, and recuperating after a most thrilling, hazardous and gruelling trip. We were members of the ‘Special Force’ until recently commanded by the late General Wingate. We set off and marched behind the enemy to the extent of 300 miles. At the initial stage of our trec [sic] we had to cut away every yard of jungle growth, we walked, or I should say, crawled 21¾ miles over mountains, in 69 marching hours, and climbed over 14,000 feet carrying a pack weighing about 70lbs so you can see how we at times could only do three miles a day.
We crossed rivers which were often waist high. After crossing the Chindwin without much trouble we then settled down to do some really useful commando-cum-guerilla warfare. We blew up bridges, roads, railways, damaged airfields, laid a few ambushes and we were in turn ambushed ourselves, but managed to escape. Our policy was to harass the Jap so that he did not know where or when we were going to strike, and because we in our party were small we fought the Jap when it suited us not when it suited him. Our last ambush was very successful. My guns caught the first trucks loaded with Japs, and cut them to pieces. He brought up reinforcements and put in a counter-attack which looked rather ‘sticky’ for a time, but we managed to slip away, only losing five men killed, and several wounded for the Jap total of 60 killed, and many wounded. In all we walked during our operation behind the enemy lines to the extent of 500 odd miles. It was a great strain mentally as well as physically as you can well imagine. Every track and village held for us the possibility of being ambushed and shot up so we avoided these, except when we travelled in the dead of night.
We were hunted as criminals. After we had been ‘inside’ for several months we were flown out in heaven sent planes. We were also supplied with food, clothing, equipment and ammunition which we needed by air, and we all pay tribute to the pilots, and crew, because they never once let us down. They also lifted our wounded after a battle, and flew them to hospital. I am in a rest camp for the moment and expecting a leave soon.
Since we came out people have [been] doing everything for us, giving us what we have missed in the way of luxuries during the last few months. I hope Bertha and new arrival are both well, I expect it will have happened before you have this letter, or have I forgotten the date? However good luck to her… You know I don’t think that it will be too long now before I come home … in my opinion we should be home by this time next year. Today I have had a thorough medical inspection, and strangely enough I have turned out one of the fittest men in our bunch as well as one of the oldest. Our physical category was A1 plus higher than that demanded by any other force. We had a commando with us who said commando work was a ‘piece of cake’ to ours!
Cheerio Bobby. I am trying to catch the post. Excuse horrible scribble. Regards to Bertha and (children?)
Tom
Captain Norman Durant of the South Staffordshire Regiment, who also served with the Chindits, reflected on the very different nature of the war in the Far East compared to the situation in Europe.
… And that’s all that there was to it, and on reading it through, very dull in comparison with the Press version. But this is a true account and I hope I have not overstressed any one angle. I have purposely left out descriptions of scenery, the rising sun, bird-life and native dress and habits because had I begun this would have turned into a 50,000-word book. I have purposely left out descriptions of rotting bodies, spilled blood and dangling guts because that is a constant factor in fighting a war. I have purposely left out criticisms because I wish this to pass the censor, and I have purposely left out the glory and the joke-in-the-face-of-death angle because it should need no stressing. This is merely an account of the ordinary men in an ordinary infantry Bn., telling what they were ordered to do and recording briefly how in every case they succeeded in doing it; and I hope it’s been legible enough to show you this.
Many people in this war had worse times and harder fighting but anyone who has fought the Italians, French, Germans and Japs will say with no hesitation that the Japs are the ones to be avoided. Somehow one can imagine that under different circumstances one could have a drink and a cigarette with a German and a quite amiable talk and a cup of tea with a prisoner, but having once met the Japs one can only imagine kicking their heads in. They look like animals and behave like animals and they can be killed as unemotionally as swatting flies. And they need to be killed, not wounded for so long as they breathe they’re dangerous. I have seen plenty of our dead and plenty of theirs, and whereas ours look bewildered, as though someone has taken an unfair advantage of them, the Japs have their lips drawn back over their prominent teeth in a last snarling defiance.
Captain Durant, though somewhat dismissive of his own actions, was obviously held in high regard by the men under his command as a letter to his parents from his platoon sergeant confirms.
Dear Madam,
First of all I will introduce myself. I was Capt. Durant’s platoon sergeant in the last ‘Wingate’ show. I have just received a letter from him thanking me for paying you a visit while on my disembarkation leave. I did say I would see you for him, but before I knew I was home my leave was ended. However, I think I can tell you more easily by mail than in person what the men, NCOs and myself thought of him while we were together.
When he first came we were a platoon of old soldiers, my fourteen years service was well down the roll, most of them were tough ones too. Pte Robinson for instance joined up in 1925 has served three or four terms in ‘Aldershot’ for striking. If I ran through them all you would think they were a savoury lot. The first words they said were ‘who has put this boy in charge of us?’ At the same time I think Capt Durant had his doubts. After three weeks together every man was satisfied with him. He could rough it as well as anyone. I tested him myself on his drinking. I cannot tell you how the night ended because I was carried to bed.
Well the night came for us to go to Burma, and of course our test was to see who was worth his salt and who was not. I think he was the first one to fire a shot. It was just after ‘stand to’ there were five or six Japs about two hundred yards away. I am afraid he missed, but from then until six o’clock at night it was one long fight. That was the day he got wounded. This is how it happened. About four-thirty over half of the men were killed or wounded. Brigadier Mike Calvert ordered an attack. The first time only six made the dash up the hill, lieutenants Day and Karns were killed, Major Jeffries shot through the mouth and your son through the fat of the calf, just above the knee when he was jumping over the side of the hill. I was the sixth and didn’t get touched. I think the only reason Major Jeffries and myself went up the hill three times was to find the ‘boy’. When we had control of the hill and still could not find him I gave up hope and came back and there he was getting the stragglers together. He had jumped over the wrong side of the hill. I put a bandage on his leg. We both went down to our own lads to get things fixed up for the night. I have been awarded the Military Medal for that day and everyone there thinks that Capt. Durant should get the MC, if not for his own bravery then for his platoon, he got them fighting mad.
Well weeks went on until we came out. I can honestly say he never showed the least bit of fear, either to [the] Japs or to his tough crowd of men who would do anything for him. It was the best nine months I have known in the Army. We could always find something to laugh about. In fact there was never a dull moment with him.
The last week must have been terrible for him, the marching was through deep mud and flooded rivers. One day he made twelve crossings on one river which was nearly a hundred yards wide. Every man, mule and our kit was over before he would rest. The last day I was lucky enough to meet an American. After bargaining with him I got twelve bottles of beer, but Capt. Durant was too ill to drink one, and still he carried his own pack.
Mr and Mrs Durant I notice this is the sixth page. I have tried to tell you what a great man your son is in action. It was a very good feeling to be with someone who went there to fight an enemy, to help win this war. I was very sorry not to have said goodbye to him when I left, but some day I hope to meet him in England in a healthy condition… So I will close by hoping you are in the very best of health and that very soon your son will be home with you.
Yours sincerely,
J. Jenkins Sgt
In Europe the Allied armies had broken out of the Normandy beachheads and were driving across France towards Belgium, with the German Army retreating before them.
Cyril Charters was one of the many thousands of men who were shipped over to France to support this great advance, in his case by serving as a projectionist with 37 Kinema Section, Royal Army Ordnance Corps (RAOC). Although, given the nature of his job, Cyril was a long way from the front line, he wrote a series of highly detailed letters home to his wife telling of his experiences and describing the situation of the French and Belgian population under German rule, as well as the end of the war in Europe.
13057038 Cpl Charters, C.J.
37 Kinema Section RAOC
BLA
Letter No. 40
Dearest sweetheart,
In this letter I am going to deal with the subject of how people lived over here under German domination. Besides being interesting (I hope!), it will help you to understand many events which have happened; from the antagonistic reception we experienced in Normandy to the recent trouble re. disarming the F.F.I. in Belgium. Now Normandy is one of the richest districts in France for dairy produce and agriculture and the behaviour of the Germans in this district was beyond reproach. It paid the Germans to be nice to the farmers and in return they seem to have been well supplied with dairy produce and the goods they wanted. It is not really surprising, therefore, that after four years living peacefully and in harmony that friendships sprang up, the girls went out with the Germans, more and more marriages were solemnized, and the Germans became a part of the villages. Then came the invasion and with it all the horror and actuality of the war that had almost been forgotten. What were the French wives of the German soldiers to do? There were a variety of answers, but the three that most concerns us are the following: (i) those who fought side by side with their husbands, usually isolated in a church steeple or similar vantage point, sniping, until they were killed together; (ii) those who took up the [roles] of their husbands who had fled, and retired to the woods, to cause delays and annoyances, sniping, at our own troops; and (iii) those who thought they could carry on as they did before, but who now walk about trying to conceal their bald heads!
It is not hard to understand their hatred for us; and worse was to follow for the Germans took with them everything they could get, with the result that there was a shortage of many things that had formerly been plentiful. Not unnaturally they blamed the invasion. Now there were also in Normandy during the occupation, a number of pro-Allied inhabitants. Two interesting cases I know of: one Victor who was doing intelligence work for us, and a cinema operator who worked one of the four great radio links for the underground. Also, after the invasion, there were those who wanted to do something big to gain the confidences of the Allies (and at the same time possibly hide their own guilt), and these grew and grew in numbers as the Allies became more advanced. Hence came the head-shavings and similar medieval practices.
But now let us leave Normandy and see what happened in the industrial areas. Now here was a vastly different case; there was no great food production here; but goods, produced by machines – and machines can be sabotaged!
This called for the SS and the Gestapo, and with them brute rule; the press gangs of men carried off for work in Germany; the questionings and beatings up, which is in no propaganda story; the lack of food and the taking of what little home-grown foods the inhabitants could raise.
It is hard to imagine the fear and horror in which these people lived, nor can we fully realise the hardships they suffered. We can only see it in the eyes of these people as they tell us; in the undeveloped state of the children, most of them suffering with rickets; in the anxiety which they cannot hide when they speak of their menfolk in Germany; and in the unexpected nooks and corners where their rabbits and other potential foodstuffs were kept, to keep them from the prying eyes of the German.
It is little wonder that this was the Maquis country. Young and able-bodied men had to hide, nor did they dare venture to a cinema or dances or entertainment, for the Gestapo kept a close watch on such places. What better then than to get their own back on this foe who kept them from their homes. And what a job they did when the time came!
Belgium presents another case again. As I told you in previous letters there exists a strong bond between England and Belgium created by intermarriage during the last war, and by the great exchange of tourists between the two countries. They never fully submitted to the German yoke, although of course there are individual cases, and there always seems to have been that silent antagonism, which the Germans could not break down. Food was rationed to such an extent that it was impossible to live on the meagre allowance, and there were many cases of starvation. Then came the blackest black market ever known, and one that makes the world stand still and gasp at its immensity. Fabulous prices were paid to the fortunate few who could get the urgently needed commodities. Starve or pay up.
Business men sold all their businesses, the wealthy spent all their money, and the poor – well, another alternative arose, starve or steal! Steal! But from whom?
Meanwhile underground movements had sprung up. Not one but dozens, assuming all sorts of names. The most popular was the White Brigade, so called in opposition to the Black Brigade (collaborators with the Germans). Their main job was sabotage and this they did well. But there was no uniting bond between parties. Consequently, when the advance of the allies swept past and there was no further need to sabotage, many (and I regret to say, the majority) [degenerated] into nothing more than hooliganism. But, as the need, or rather excuse, for hooliganism ended, and all the collaborators had been beaten up, another opening arose – the Black Market!…
The real big suffering of Belgium during the occupation was the food shortage. I have seen photos of people, taken before the war, fat and plump and sturdy. To see those same people today is incredible: thin and wan and meagre. Mummy used to laugh about giving me sausages whenever I was home on a 48hrs; but what would they have given for those same sausages here in Belgium!
Well this was intended to be a four page letter but it has turned out nine, and I could still write another nine but – pity the poor censor – I’ll continue it later!
So cheerio for now darling,
And all my fondest love,
Cyril
xxx
13057038 Cpl Charters, C.J.
37 Kinema Section RAOC
BLA
Sat. 5th May 1945
Hello darling,
Isn’t the news grand! The announcement of the surrender of the armies in Denmark, Holland and N.W. Germany has just been made, or rather, it has just come into effect from 8.00 this morning. And as I write this I am just half a mile away from where Monty accepted the surrender.
Everybody looks decidedly happy and cheerful but very little has been made of it so far. I think all the prisoners coming in and the general decay of the German resistance foreshadowed the news so that it was accepted more as a matter of course than anything.
It is Sunday as I continue this letter. It is nearly dinner-time and I have a few minutes to spare.
Last night I gave the grandest show of all. It was to men who had not seen a show for five years – our xPOW’s [sic]. The show did not start until just after eleven and it finished just before one in the morning. They were absolutely fascinated during the performance, and as they left afterwards, one after the other as they passed thanked me. It was very touching.
Today, darling, I had the satisfaction of crossing that last river barrier, the Elbe – now for that other water barrier and home, peace and you!…
Now, cheerio once more and all my love darling.
Your ever loving husband,
Cyril
xxxx
The collapse of the German positions in France led to the liberation of Paris in August 1944, and the Allied armies continued their rapid advance across the Belgian frontier, reaching Brussels at the beginning of September.
Captain Michael G.T. Webster was the commander of the Reconnaissance Troop, 2nd Battalion Grenadier Guards, part of the Guards Armoured Division. His letters home to his family from this period give an impression of the exhilaration felt by both the liberators and the civilian populations of both France and Belgium.
1 September 1944
We are all making history, I am writing this in my tank, on paper captured from a German officer who I took prisoner, personally; in fact we had rather a field day yesterday so I captured myself a German half track motor bicycle, you may have seen pictures of them. However, that is all very small fry compared with everything else. If only I could tell you where I am, how we got here and all the thousand other things which have added up to what has been the most exciting and exhilarating days of my life, but I mustn’t, I must simply be content in telling you that I’m more than alright and I’m in the best possible form anybody could be. That I’ve actually had tears coming to my eyes through sheer joyous excitement during the past two days. This might seem a bit exaggerated, but if it is, it is because the whole conception seems so…
11 September 1944
… This is to thank you for a lot of things, your letters, the soap, razor blade, saccharine, powdered milk and above all the last pair of socks. Imagine my quandary. You know something of the four hundred mile advance of the Guards Armoured Division to Brussels from Normandy.
It was my unfortunate lot, just before we started, my own tank broke down and I had to transfer to another one. This is always inconvenient, at the best of times, but normally one is either able to transfer one’s kit into a new tank or the original tank turns up again having been repaired in, say, a couple of days, but this time neither conditions apply… The result of all this was that I had not got with me the amount of reserve clothing that I normally budget for to carry on my tank. So it was an answer to prayer that your parcel turned up with the immortal pair of socks. Socks, however, and their replacement have been of minor interest in what has been the most exciting 10 days of my life. The battalion was virtually in the front the whole way and it was, along with Timothy Tufnell and his boys, the first brigade into Brussels; racing the whole way on a centre line parallel with the rest of our brigade. They only just got in before us and this even though they had a dead straight road the whole way, while we had an extremely curly and narrow one.
The job of a liberator although thoroughly enviable is also pretty exacting. As you can imagine, throughout France and all the way up to Brussels we received a rapturous welcome. Each successive village that we passed invariably stood out to wave us through. Nine times out of ten they were not simply content with waving; flowers, apples, beer, pears, plums were literally hurled at us, as we sped by… As for when we stopped in a village, or worse in a town, the tank would be swamped by animated Frenchmen, women and children who simultaneously wanted to kiss you, shake your hand, photograph you, give you a glass of cognac, explain in voluble French, or, hopeless for us, Flemish, how glad he was to see you and what his experience was of being at the hands of the Germans. This greeting, generally worked to a formal, rapid and incomprehensive patois, would be followed by what seemed to be three entirely ritualistic gestures.
1. General agitation of hands and arms as description ensued.
2. Realistic play of throat cutting plus appropriate noises in throat. To the un-initiated this appeared to be what the Germans had tried to do [to] the Frenchmen or women, but in point of fact it was intended to show what the particular native wanted to do to the Germans as a whole and Hitler in particular.
3. Pointed an imaginary rifle at an imaginary enemy and with cries of pop, pop, pop, showing how he decimated hundreds of ‘les Boches’.
In Brussels itself of course, this was multiplied by the hundred fold…
Despite the apparent ease of the advance in August and September 1944, the fighting in Normandy had been hard fought and bloody, with the British suffering particularly heavy casualties in the repeated attempts to take the strategically vital city of Caen.
Lieutenant Brin Francis was serving with the 8th (Belfast) Heavy Anti Aircraft Regiment, Royal Artillery, in the Far East when he learnt of the death of his brother David during the fighting around Caen.
21/8 (Belfast) HAA Regiment
SEAC
Sept 5th 1944
My Dear Mum,
I heard tonight from Joy – I should say Joy wrote to Jack Williams who came here and in a very kind way told me about David. I can only hope and pray that you, and Billy, learnt in as gentle way as I did.
When David went we all feared bad news, but when it comes it is a terrible thing, especially for you, who had been through all this wretched heartbreak before in this war.
I’ve only learnt of this a matter of hours, and I can’t believe it yet; to say that I’m very sad and very sorry would be a poor way, all I can say is I’m completely at a loss to say just how much this news hits me.
My thoughts flew to you and Billy, and I can hardly bear to think of you suffering all this agony again. It doesn’t seem fair that one family should be hit twice. All I can say to this is that whatever life holds for us, or for ours, we must not allow ourselves to grow either bitter or hard; and although this news does seem so hard to bear, we must never lose faith for a moment, and God will help us. Life may be difficult to understand, but we must go on the same way as we can be CERTAIN Dad and David would have us going on, doing our very best to be HAPPY and making others happy too.
It seems hard that this second loss to us should happen so near to the end of the war … but if we remember ‘where and when’ David died, we can be proud.
I will write a letter to Billy now, poor Billy, she will be suffering now, and we must do all in our power to help her, although I know that anything that can be done to help her in any way will be done by Mrs McLaine and Dolly. I’m afraid Billy will be heartbroken and nothing we can do will help her over her grief, as you know from bitter experience.
Try to be brave, as you can be; I know you will put on a ‘brave show’ for the world, and to relatives too, but try with all your might to be brave inside, because that’s the one I love.
God bless and help you,
Lots and lots of love,
From Brin
Following the advance into Belgium, and the failure of Operation Market Garden to gain a foothold over the Rhine, the German defences stiffened and the winter of 1944/45 saw a great deal of hard fighting as the British battled the German defences of the Siegfried Line and the Reichswald Forest.
David Sheldon was posted to Belgium in December 1944 and went on to serve as a platoon commander in the 5th Battalion, Coldstream Guards, part of the Guards Armoured Division. He took part in most of the major combat operations through to the end of the war, and described them in some detail in his letters home.
Somewhere in Belgium
15 December 1944
My dear Bob,
It may surprise you to hear at the moment of writing I am only about six yards from the Germans! That may sound startling but of course they are behind barbed wire! As a matter of fact the pieces of wire between me and them is terribly weak and it would be as easy as winking for them to slip through in the dark and if they took a disliking to me they could easily cut my throat if they wanted to. Luckily the night is over, but naturally I didn’t sleep too heavily and only had about a couple of hours of dozing.
The night before last about seven men escaped by cutting their way through the wire, so last night I had my guard on their toes. None has escaped under me so far and they are not likely to in daylight. One of the reasons for their probable plans of escape not being fulfilled last night, was that some searchlights were used for the first time which aided the sentries job considerably. Last night I had my revolver fully loaded and [it] is still on me at the moment ready to shoot.
The prisoners are pretty desperate chaps believe me and at the first opportunity would kill you. Some are very young boys (about your age of 12). It is said that some of them are tied to a tree, given food and water and a rifle and told to shoot any enemy they see. When prisoners arrive here they have only just been captured. None of them seem to shave and they look so shabby in their huge long coats but also they look terrible fighters and look as though they are born to fight…
Well, not so very long now, I expect to come into contact with them not behind wire. But still don’t worry, it is my job as an Englishman and as a member of the good Sheldon family to return the blows to those who create evil…
At the moment I hear the guns firing at the doodlebugs* in the distance. I saw the old familiar flame of one this morning, but it is much less dangerous here (in that way) than at home.
A very happy Christmas and it may be New Year by the time you get this but I am told all our letters go by air.
Much love to you all,
David
4 Coy, 5th Bn
Coldstream Guards B.L.A
19th February 1945
Somewhere in Germany
My dear Mum and Dad,
I expect my address will be the first thing that surprises you. Well if only I could tell you. I’ve had the greatest experience of my life and you know what that is. It is very difficult for me to know what I can say and what I can’t, but we certainly are on the winning side and never could that have been illustrated more than a few days ago. I was slap in front of everything, leading section, leading platoon, leading company and it was ‘hot’. Somehow I didn’t feel a bit frightened except before the battle, [and] then I was too busy to bother much. I am sure the thought of so many people praying for me helped me no end.
The support we had was terrific. I can’t over emphasize it and the air support was the closest the battalion has ever had. The orders I had to give out for the attack were detailed and one of the hardships was to go 24 hours with only one piece of bread and a little bacon fat for breakfast and some steak pie and one peach for lunch. From lunch onwards, after being very energetic, as even to carry full battle orders in action is pretty great, we had nothing until six o’clock the next morning, except a bar of chocolate which I ate in the night. I for one hardly knew how to stand up.
As I’ve always told you, it’s one thing to take a place and it’s another to hold it. We got it all right but we dug in and we were safe, that is the whole platoon. There were only a few casualties altogether, but the Germans came in, in many groups. A very rough estimate, for security reasons, was we captured over 150 prisoners. Once I was within about 15 or 20 yards of a Spandau when I was in front of my leading section. Luckily he didn’t fire accurately. I can’t tell the whole story but we killed him before long.
A great prize, there were plenty of them, was to get a German revolver as we disarmed them. Mine is in a very good condition and some day perhaps it many hang on a wall at home as a souvenir. German resistance was very poor considering they had so much kit. There was one chap, who when asked his age, said he was only fifteen and he only looked that too.
How I have enjoyed seeing so many German houses burning to the ground, as I’ve always wanted to have my revenge for the blitzes on England and for the V1 and V2. I am glad to have contributed to routing the enemy from his own grounds and the Sheldon family can say it was responsible (in a tiny way) for driving the enemy back.
Yesterday I got a letter from you Dad. Grand it was too and such a contrast to such a tremendous event in my life. My platoon is full of very experienced fighting men and all are very good chaps, practically all older than me. I’ve got lots of censored envelopes for you, but won’t send them all at once.
I don’t know when this letter will be posted, perhaps in a few days’ time, as the circumstances are rather awkward.
Much love,
David
P.S. Have eaten many animals recently.
4 Coy, 5th Bn
Coldstream Guards B.L.A
12th March 1945
My dear Mum and Dad,
Never before have I wanted to be able to tell you about my experiences recently which now, thank God, are over. Suspense for the last battle was terrible as it lasted for about three days and we knew it wouldn’t be pleasant. However, I was brought through with God’s help, unharmed, and I do feel it was something to be thankful for. I was not in front again, at least not to start with, but my name and yours is very ill omened. I have read in the paper about our sector as being described as ‘absolute hell’ and for a few hours it certainly was.
Now things are all right again and I’ve never felt so happy in my life to get away from recent events. I myself have been extremely lucky. I shall be able to tell you later, in another letter, in what way. I was lucky, as my steel helmet got blown off and my slit trench partially filled in. I had a rifle or something on top of my head when it was over, but still I was unhurt in any way except for a slightly sore head and slightly deafened. Still I had the practice in training of being run over by a tank and that was about the same!
You can imagine my relief now, although all along through everything I didn’t seem to be frightened as I had so much to do and other people to think about. The ‘Stonks’ sometimes were terrifying.
Now I believe all trouble in that part is over, as it ought to be. I have now changed into a clean shirt, the first time for about six weeks and shortly I hope to have a ‘bath’! Although it is a rest to come away (from the line), there is not the fun of doing what you like to a totally unoccupied fully furnished house!… The thing now is to sleep of course, but although I can’t say at this stage, I have, at the moment, rather a special job…
I must end now, all is well and I feel grand now especially having had a good wash and shave in comfort. I am sure your many prayers from home and Crowborough have comforted me tremendously under rather difficult times and I know you will rejoice at my being brought out totally fit and happy.
Much love to all,
David
As the Allied armies advanced into Germany they began to come across the many prisoner of war camps that housed men such as William Hymers, who had been in captivity since he was taken prisoner in France in 1940 while serving as a Lance Corporal with the 5th Battalion, Buffs (Royal East Kent Regiment).
He spent most of the war in Stalag XXA near Thorn, in what is now Poland, before being marched back to Germany when the Russians neared the camp and was eventually liberated by the British near Hamburg.
18 April 1945
Sweetheart,
Am writing this in the hope that I shall be able to post it. We are still waiting to be sent home as patiently as we can and still trying to grasp the wonderful fact that we are once again free men. What a day that was when we made our own guards prisoners and met up with some of our own lads with the tanks. They gave us grub and fags – all they had in fact. Our chief regret is that we are not at our best just now after the terrible time we have had but I bet you will soon feed me up to fighting pitch once more. Not that I’m too bad dear compared with many poor devils.
Went for a haircut yesterday and sat down right beside Gary. He looked a bit different owing to the fact of losing his teeth by getting a bang in the mouth with a German rifle butt. They were full of such tricks – setting large dogs on to us, whacking us with rifles as sticks, shooting some, stopping the food, what there was of it, and so on. Still they are paying now. Give my love to all and tell ’em I’ll be with you all soon.
Always Your Bill
All across the world, British and Allied prisoners were forced to wait for their release as the war in the Far East dragged on until August 1945.
William Innes-Ker was captured at the fall of Singapore while serving as an NCO with the 1st Battalion Straits Settlements Volunteer Force. His diary takes the form of a series of letters to his wife and describes his last Christmas in captivity and the disintegration of the Japanese position in the Pacific.
24.12.44
Christmas Eve! The shops all blazing with lights – full of good things, glittering tinsels, lovely silks and mountainous hams. Butchers with their shop fronts hidden by rows of turkeys, ducks and fat geese, and the flower shops with their little pots of white heather and early hyacinths – I wonder when we shall see those dear sights again? It’s extraordinary how infectious this Christmas Spirit is – even here in a Jail, hemmed in by walls, bars and dumb looking Nip Guards, the Spirit is abroad in no uncertain form. Jokes, ragging and general gaiety are order of the day. Plans are published for an immense feast tomorrow, and the cooks will work like madmen to turn out rice and veg in 10 different shapes and forms. Everyone has purchased 50 cent cheroots to smoke and a bulb of garlic to mix in with the food! What a stench there will be! And wonder of wonders, our temporary masters have notified [us] that all British born may send a 25 word radio to their next of kin… The Christmas pantomime here – called ‘Twinkletoes’ – a really ‘Crazy Gang’ effort, was so appreciated by some Nip guards who saw it, that the next thing was the General had ordered a Command Performance, and a bus load of military and civil Nips from town came out to see it!…
I wonder what you will be doing tomorrow… I picture your midday dinner – if in the country quite probably a turkey and maybe even a pseudo-pudding. Yum! I’d scream for joy just for a loaf of bread! Fancy, I’ve not eaten, or even seen, bread since July 1942 – 2½ years. Stop it Tam, this sort of writing gets you nowhere. I’ll close now Sweet till after the New Year – praying and wishing for you everything you can desire, which comes to the same thing as I do – namely our reunion soon – rich or poor never mind – just reunion and the freedom to live our lives together in peace.
3.2.45
Another very satisfactory visit from a great number of our friends who stayed some couple of hours and made a lot of noise. This was a few days ago, and since then every day one has called to see how we are getting on… I wonder if it will be all over by June? Things seem to be moving pretty rapidly here and there, or rather I should say there and there, NOT here! Apart from visits by B29s we see or hear nothing of what goes on around us, and while it is obvious there must be a terrible food shortage amongst the natives, we ourselves so far have not been reduced, through rumours are very strong just now. For this place to be so short of food, with its much reduced population, it may be deduced that Japan’s mastery of these seas is gone – presumably most of her ships are gone too.
Perhaps the most difficult task for those engaged in the liberation of Europe and the occupation of Germany was dealing with the concentration camps set up by the Nazi regime. Many camps came to light, including Sandbostel, a notorious prisoner of war camp, which contained a mixture of POWs and political prisoners, many of whom had been treated appallingly.
For the British, the most horrifying concentration camp they encountered was that at Bergen-Belsen, which was discovered by troops from the 11th Armoured Division on 15 April 1945. Michael Carey was a gunner with 48th Battery, 4th (Durham) Survey Regiment, Royal Artillery, part of XXX Corps who liberated the camp on 29 April 1945.
… But to conclude this epistle, here is an account of the camp we are now having to guard.
Situated in a tract of open countryside, largely bracken covered and black sandy soil, think of a huge tract wired off by an 8ft wall of barbed wire – an area of about 30 acres! All round the perimeter are high watch towers with search lights [fixed] on high. The inside area is quite bare of all vegetation and is now dry, very dusty and dirty with the black sandy soil. The area is laid out like any army camp – roads, huts and administration buildings, built for the greater part of wood. The normal population was 25,000, composed of all European nationalities… The fellows (and a few women) now in the place were marched for 2 months a distance of 600 kilometres, sleeping in barns and [haylofts] during February and March of this year. A few did part of the journey by rail – 100 men to a wagon built for 40 – but ¼ were dead on arrival at the destination.
The dead were thrown into miniature railway trucks and tipped into a common burial spot. The daily ration for the march was 3 potatoes and hot water – the rest had to be scrounged for. So the present inhabitants arrived on March 25th. For each hut, such as in our [camp] would house 100 men, there were 400 of the luckless people: in the hut they had to live for all purposes. There [is] a small area around each hut for [excrement] – perhaps 20yds wide. Water [is] laid on, but sanitation and hygiene is of the most primitive nature. Dysentery, typhus and general physical decay are rampant. I have had experience of dysentery myself in the Desert … but never have I seen anything as awful. After 5 or 6 years of captivity, bad treatment and little food you can form a slight impression of the state these creatures are in. Many of them are walking death – and during the first few days of our arrival they were dying at the rate of 400 a day! Even now we get 35 a day who die of starvation, typhus, dysentery or….! The Poles and Russians appear have been worst treated, and are in some cases almost not human! We have to guard our lot who are cannibals! – having cut out and eaten raw the heart and livers of their dead comrades. One party are German political opponents of the Nazis and they are in an awful state. They wear concentration camp uniform – i.e. a pyjama like outfit of blue and white stripes. No hair, and no real footwear. They live in dark cells and are too weak to be moved. At the moment all the people are being slowly fed up on better food – it is a great strain on their digestion – and tended by the doctor for whatever treatment is best. The poor beggars hobble about like frail ghosts and take ages to get up, move and settle down again. One man aged 42, was found to weigh 36 pounds! They are of all ages – from 13 to 85, living together – and yet there are many who remain fairly reasonable. The French, Belgians and Yugo Slavs are the quickest to recover and appear to have fared best during the past years. A few speak English, they still laugh and chatter among themselves, one fellow I have heard singing and a few have been kicking a football around. But the saddest of all is to talk to the Poles about their future. They are a party [who] leave the camp each day to go home, but several have asked us ‘where can we go?’ The Russians intend to hold on to [their] ‘homeland’ – and nearly all the Poles I have spoken to dislike the Russians as much as they do the Germans. Unless a big compromise is quickly reached on the question, Poland is to be a problem of the first magnitude. But to get back to the camp description. For the last two weeks German men and women labour corps have been brought into the place daily to clean it up, and you can not conceive the muck and mess they have had to clean up. The huts have been quite unsanitary and unkept, and the only thing to do has been to empty the huts lock, stock and barrel. Burn the whole stinking lot… Really, Kay, the filth and stench is indescribable, and unless experienced cannot be really conceived. However, one soon gets hardened to it and we get every other day free from the place. Now I am immune to all sights (dead, living, debased and half dead) and smell. One other point and I will finish this impression of a live real Hell. Now it is warm and dry, but what was the condition in February’s snow? Huts have fallen in, owing to having been stripped of wood for fires, and their clothing is made up of all manner of gear. In fact, that is the one comic side of the place. All queer mixtures of [beards] and clothes fashions. The place is daily improving, emptying, cleaned. The fellows are recovering strength, going out for walks, washing and wondering about their future. Others are still clinging to the last straws of life and an MO has told us that he thinks 60% of the camp will be able to survive.
The Germans who are working on the place, appear to be quite unmoved by the scene and the jobs they have to do. They have to do the most menial tasks imaginable, and are full of laughter and talk as they do it. Of course, all the POWs say we treat them in far too generously a manner. They want us to be more brutal and severe with them. Two days ago I saw a distribution of Red X parcels. They were delighted to have them, and are obviously vital to their survival. The Russians do not get Red X parcels and that may explain why they are in so much worse a condition than the French, for example Lolly and I went to an exhibition of art done by some of the inmates, and I asked for a painting as a souvenir from [a] Russian … but when I called for it the next day, he had left for Russia!
Well that is a slight impression of a horror camp. It is far worse in actual fact and some of the sights I shall never be able to forget.
What would help most of all though, would be to see you again and to spend a fortnight together on the jaunt in Devon, N. Wales or……
‘Au revoir’ blow out a match for me,
All my love is yours,
Michael
* PLUTO stands for Pipeline Under the Ocean, and was designed to supply petrol from depots in the south of England to the advancing troops in Europe.
* King Leopold III of Belgium.
* ‘Bill’ was Edith’s sister. Her name was actually Muriel, but was christened ‘Bill’ by her two older brothers who had wanted another brother. ‘Bill’ was Vice Principal at Cheltenham Ladies College.
* Both the Dambusters raid and the raid on the Kembs Barrage were Allied missions to destroy the dams along the Rhine. The Dambusters famously used Barnes-Wallis’ bouncing bomb in order to flood the Ruhr Valley, while the Allies attacked the Kembs Barrage in order to prevent the Germans from using it to flood the American troops who would be approaching the area.
* Going ‘up the blue’ was British slang for going on operations in the desert.
* Entertainments National Service Association (ENSA) was established in 1939 to provide entertainment for serving British personnel during the Second World War.
* The ‘doodlebug’ was the colloquial name given to the German V1 flying bomb. These unmanned bombs were first launched in June 1944 and British citizens on the south coast were subjected to their terrors until March 1945. The Germans also developed the V2, a ballistic missile, which again was used to target Britain from September 1944 until March 1945.