Leave next Wednesday - Thursday 26th November 1942

Same Address

Thursday

My Darling,

                                    Just a few lines to let you know that my leave definitely comes off on the second inst. ie next Wednesday.  This is of course subject to cancellation for a hundred and one reasons, but if all goes well, as I expect it will, I can’t see why it should not come off.

            Will you write as soon as you can fix up anything definite – I’m supposing, as usual, that you are able to… 

            I’m very busy at the moment, or would write more.  In any case there’s no real news – nothing at all with which to pad this missive.

            I got really wet through this morning – still am in fact (it’s now dinner-time) so will have to find something to change into.

            Sorry this is so short Darling, but I thought I’d write as soon as my name appeared on detail for leave.

                                                            all my love precious,

                                                                                    Dicker

P.S.  Write as soon as possible…

 © Chotie Darling

 

27^th November 1942 – German troops occupy the French Naval base of Toulon. The Vichy Admiral de Laborde (who had refused to deliver the French Fleet into Allied hands) gave orders to scuttle the French fleet and they succeeded in destroying 77 warships, preventing them from falling into German or Italian hands. Four submarines managed to escape. (See Operation Lila.)

 

29th November 1942 – Churchill warns Italy that the bombing of Italian cities will continue until Italy abandons the war, encouraging them to revolt against Mussolini. (From WW2-net Timelines.)

By the end of November the Japanese on Papua New Guinea, without reinforcements or supplies, had given up trying to take Port Moresby and retreated to their bridgeheads at Buna and Gona where desperate fighting with Australian and American forces continued.

 

43^rd Recce’s List of Officers for 30^th November 1942 includes the following for Regimental Headquarters:

Commanding Officer – Lt.Col.A.W.E.Crawford

Second-in-Command – Major H.G.Mason*

Adjutant – Capt.J.Day

Technical Officer - Capt.G.D.A.Hunter

I.O. (presumably Intelligence Officer) – Lieut.C.E.J.Leaphard**

 

Dick’s Headquarters Squadron included the following:

Squadron Commander – Major A.O.Swayne

Second-in-Comd. – Capt.C.G.Nuttall

O.C.A.Tk.Tp (Officer in Command of the Anti-tank Troop) – Capt.F.R.Henn

O.C. Mortar Troop (Dick’s Troop) – Lieut.S.J.Moreland

Signal Officer – Lieut.W.H.Moreland

Asst. Mortar Tp.Comd – Lieut.D.E.R.Scarr***

Adm.Officer – Lieut.T.A.Parry

2 i/c A.Tk.Tp – Lieut.D.Rigby

M.T.O. – Lieut.W.R.Falconer

Quartermaster – Major B.V.J.Vigrass

(From the papers of the 43^rd Reconnaissance Regiment held by the Archive and Reference Library, the Tank Museum, Bovington, Dorset.)

*Major Herbert George Mason had served with the Glosters since 1927. In 1943 he was posted to the Allied Military Government in Italy and rejoined the Glosters T.A. in 1947.

**Lieut.C.E.J.Leaphard – transferred to and saw action with No 6 Commando (see Small Scale Raiding Force).

***Liet.D.E.R.Scarr – the National Army Museum hold an account of his service with the Recce from 1941-46 (inventory number 10561).

(From WW2 Unit Histories and National Army Museum.)

 

Dick was in the Mortar Troop under Lieutenants S.J.Moreland and D.E.R. Scarr with probably about 44 NCOs and other troopers.  Mortar Troop initially served a pair of 3 inch mortars, carried by 15cwt trucks but by the end of 1942 their strength was increased to six 3 inch weapons, now each transported by an adapted Universal carrier with 15cwt trucks carrying extra ammunition. (See WW2 Battalion Organisation.)

In December 1942 43^rd Reconnaissance Regiment were still in Dover. Individual training took place on most days up to and including the 19^th December.  The Regiment took part in the 43^rd’s Divisional Skeleton Exercise Wyvern on 4^th, 5^th and 6^th December.

(From the War Diary of the 43^rd Reconnaissance Regiment held by the Archive and Reference Library, the Tank Museum, Bovington, Dorset.)

 

 The War in Dorset - December 1942

In December 1942 the 3^rd Special Services Brigade was formed from No 5 Commando and Royal Marines.  Billeted in Bournemouth, with an HQ at the Broughty Ferry Hotel in Boscombe, they practiced night landing exercises at Shell Bay and Brownsea Island and shooting on the Canford Heath ranges. The novelist Evelyn Waugh was then Staff Officer for Combined Operations and often monitored their exercises.

On 4^th December Barnes Neville Wallis unsuccessfully tested two spherical bombs, flown in from RAF Warmwell, on the Fleet lagoon. They failed to bounce and exploded on impact. He was again unsuccessful on 15^th December. By the seventh attempt in early January his team had achieved a skim across the water and on 24^th January the bomb bounced 13 times and jumped over a barn intended to simulate the wall of a dam. Trials in Dorset, codenamed ‘Upkeep’, continued into March and then moved to choppier waters in Kent. The bouncing bombs were used in May 1943 to destroy dams in the Ruhr area of Germany releasing industrial water supplies but drowning 1,294 people including several hundred Russian prisoners of war.

On 13^th December over 100 houses at Chiswell, Portland were flooded by a natural incursion of the sea breaching the Chesil beach.  Gas, road and rail links were put out of action.

The Armoured Fighting Vehicle School at Lulworth Camp came under air attack on 14^th December.

A single Dornier bomber dropped 5 bombs near Poole Quay on 16^th December. Two people were killed, twenty-six injured and several buildings destroyed as well as a Naval Patrol vessel.  Another bomber in Bridport killed 3 people and hit a bank leaving £1,000 in bank notes spread over the street.

On 21^st December the Free French navy gunboat Chasseur capsized and sank off Durlston Head near Swanage.

Church bells rang for Christmas for the first time since the beginning of the war, following the El Alamein celebration in November.

On 31^st December 1942 another Dornier raider attacked Poole Quay (destroying Bradford’s Store, which had just been repaired following the earlier bomb damage) but crashed into the Harbour while taking evasive action from Lewis gun fire.

(From  ‘Poole and World War II’ written by Derek Beamish, Harold Bennett and John Hillier and published by Poole Historical Trust in 1980  and Dorset’s War Diary - Battle of Britain to D Day’ by Rodney Legg, Dorset Publishing Company 2004)

 

In December 1942 43^rd Reconnaissance Regiment were still in Dover. Individual training took place on most days up to and including the 19^th December.  The Regiment took part in the 43^rd’s Divisional Skeleton Exercise Wyvern on 4^th, 5^th and 6^th December. (From the War Diary of the 43^rd Reconnaissance Regiment held by the Archive and Reference Library, the Tank Museum, Bovington, Dorset.)

2^nd December 1942 – the first self-sustaining nuclear chain reaction is achieved by a team of scientists in America working under the name of “Manhattan Engineering District”. (From WW2-net Timelines.)

 

Dick was on leave from Wednesday 2^nd to c.9^th December 1942.

Chotie and Dicker were together for a week during Dicker’s leave

 

3rd December 1942 - the British First Army's advance on Tunis from Algeria is pushed back by German Panzer forces (from ‘The Second World War’ by Antony Beevor, published by Weidenfield and Nicolson 2012).

4^th December 1942 – the first US Air Force raid on Naples, flying from North Africa, kills nearly one thousand people.  Naples was the most bombed Italian city of the war. 

 

7th December 1942 – ten Royal Marines set off in canoes from a submarine near the east Coast of France for Operation Frankton. Paddling 70 miles up the River Gironde they successfully laid charges to destroy enemy shipping in Bordeaux Harbour.  Two men survived, two were presumed drowned and six were captured and executed under Hitler’s Commando Order.  They became known as the ‘Cockleshell Heroes’ after their canoes codenamed cockles. (See Combined Operations WW2 website and update on Wikipedia.)

8th December 1942 – German troops occupy the Vichy French port of Bizerte in Tunisia, capturing French destroyers and submarines. (From WW2-net Timelines.) 

9th December 1942 - Australian troops take the Japanese bridgehead at Gona in Papua New Guinea.

 

11th December 1942 - Montgomery's Eighth Army attacks Rommel's forces at the Battle of El Agheila in Libya.  The German Panzerarmee Africa resume their withdrawal west towards Tunisia.

12th December 1942 – Germany counter attacks with Operation Winter Storm at Stalingrad, as their Army Group Don attempts to rescue the besieged and starving 6th Army. This had been defeated by the Soviets by 23rd December. (See The Battle for Stalingrad website.)