Nine Days

Telegram – 12^th September 1942

 

LEAVE WEDNESDAY 16th LOVE = RICHARD + +

 

Dick had nine days Privilege leave from 17^th to 25^th September 1942

and met up with Chotie.

 

Copy of Record

SERVICE AND CASUALTY FORM

17.9.42         Priv. Leave    17-25.9.42 (9 days) 

Army Rank Trooper              Place Home Forces

 

 

12th September 1942 - a Japanese attack on Guadalcanal,'the Battle of Bloody Ridge', is defeated costing the Japanese half their forces on the Island.

12^th/13^th September 1942 – Major March-Phillips, the founder and leader of the Small Scale Raiding Force (insert link), based in Poole, was killed in a raid (Operation Aquatint) on the Normandy coast near St Honorine des Pertes (the beach later known as Omaha from the D Day landings). (From Combined Operations WW2 website.)

13th September 1942 - a major German assault in Stalingrad pushed Soviet forces back to the banks of the River Volga but was met with fierce resistance.  In the heavily bombed city the Russians became adept at street-fighting, or 'Rattenkrieg' ('the war of rats') as the Germans called it, with crack snipers hiding among the derelict buildings.  Women played important roles in the defence of the city, as bomber pilots, firing anti-aircraft guns and as medical orderlies, retrieving the wounded under fire.  (From ‘The Second World War’ by Antony Beevor, published by Weidenfield and Nicolson 2012)

 

18th September 1942 – British forces landed on the East Coast of Madagascar and by the 23rd occupied the capital Tananarive (now Antananarivo). The Vichy French government signed a peace treaty on 5th November 1942.