The Paras - late June 1941

 M.T. Section, HQ Company,

Fort Brockhurst, Gosport, Hants.

My Darling Chotie,

                                    I'm writing once again, as I have a few minutes off duty.

            I am making every effort to get into the Parachutists.  Apparently, there are a few openings in that direction, at any rate for the moment.  It should be a smashing life, if I can get in. 

            We had a marvellous time on Monday at the Sports.  George and I won the Wheelbarrow Race!  We only decided to enter for the fun of it, a few hours before the start.  No one was more surprised than us!  We got a couple of bob each in the form of a voucher in the NAAFI. 

            I managed to get a second in the Quarter Mile, only just losing first place.  I also got four bob for that. 

            There's very little news. The outlying companies are on the move again.  If I get a transfer anywhere, I'll either go to Lee or Hurn*, both better than this as regards getting home.

             I can't see any chance of getting home for some little time - probably not until my Seven Days.  It's rotten luck, but there's nothing I can do about it.  Still, things may turn for the better.  One never knows.

             Isn't the war marvellous?  Fritz will be bottled up in another couple of months**.  I'll be home for Christmas, and it won't be leave!  What a time we'll have then.  All you've got to do is earn enough money to keep both of us.  How does that suit you? 

              At the moment, John is slanging me for joining the Paratroops***.  He's going red in the face, saying I want to commit suicide or some twaddle like that.  We shall see. I'll turn up like the proverbial bad penny, all right after this show.

             Well, Darling, I must write home, as I haven't written for some little time. 

                                                            Bye, Bye, Darling,

                                                            Love you more than ever,

                                                                        All yours

                                                                                    Dicker

*Lee-on-Solent or Hurn, near Bournemouth

**Presumably news of Operation Barbarossa, the German invasion of Russia, had resulted in this hope.

***The Paratroops:

In the early days of the war every man who applied to undergo parachute training was a volunteer.  “The promise of a touch of glamour and higher pay that the Parachute Regiment provided, ensured that there was never a shortage of men ready to volunteer.”

There was resentment from the rest of the Army regarding those who left for the Airborne Forces - why should good units lose first-class men whom they sorely needed? Lieutenant-General Sir Brian Horrocks (later Dick’s commander in XXX Corps) lamented that it was always the natural leaders who volunteered for these “special cloak and dagger private armies ….In these special formations... each leader represented only himself as they were all of the same type; but in his regiment he was worth almost a whole section, for he was the man the others would follow." However, Brigadier Richard Gale argued that “for peculiarly hazardous operations demanding an exceptionally high physical and moral standard one must rely on the volunteer.”

© Chotie Darling

 

26th June 1941 - Hungary entered the war against Russia with the Axis powers.

 

Copy of Record    SERVICE AND CASUALTY FORM

27/6/41          Granted W.P.P.*

* Weekend Privilege Pass?           

Chotie and Dick met up in late June/early July,

possibly for the weekend of 27^th and 28^th June

and then maybe for Dick’s Seven Days leave.

However, he appears to have joined the Intelligence section

in the week commencing 7^th July 1941 or earlier.