Rough-hew them how we will - Tuesday 17th November 1942

Address as usual

Tuesday

My Darling,

                                    Once again I find I’m able to reply to yours just received instanta, but I’d better not make a habit of it ...

                  Well, my Dear, you seem to have some news this time – whether good, bad or indifferent I leave you to judge, though from your letters I see a sort of aloof indifference.  As my literary hero said “There’s a divinity that shapes our ends – rough hew them how we will.”*

            I was pleased to see that you’re sticking out for a specialised job – for which I think you are very wise.  The main criticism offered against this procedure is that you tend to get into a rut; but a comfortable rut is preferable to wandering de place en place as most of us appear to do.

            I was, needless to say, even more pleased to hear that you will not be going before Xmas.  By all laws and statutes I should get my leave a fortnight today, ie the 2^nd of December – but you know what leave can be, or you soon will...

            En passant, I think you are in error as regards the leave; most blokes find that the feminine services are able to get leave when their ‘soldier hero’ gets his.  Naturally this is not always the case but I think you’ll find that in general practice it can be wangled.

            Sorry to hear that Diller’s given me the bird.  Maybe I’ll write her one of these fine days.  You might tell her that I’m giving the matter considerable thought.

            Well, there’s no news from this end.  I managed to get Saturday and Sunday – quite a change, and saw “The Saint’s Vacation” and, at last – “Reap the Wild Wind”.  Neither was particularly outstanding.  Always grumble, don’t I?

            Well, I suppose I must close here, not having anything else to hold your attention.

                                    Hope to see you soon, Darling

                                                all my love

                                                        Dicker

*Shakespeare’s ‘Hamlet’ – Act 5, Scene 2.

**a film based on one of the Simon Templar a.k.a. “The Saint” novels by Leslie Charteris. The film was reset in the Second World War with Nazis as the villains.

***a swashbuckling adventure film set in the 1840s along the Florida coast.

© Chotie Darling

17^th November 2012 – first clashes between US and German forces, in the Western Desert. (From WW2-net Timelines.)

 

19th November 1942 – launch of Operation Uranus, the Russian offensive to encircle and destroy Axis forces (German, Romanian, Hungarian and Italian) at Stalingrad. The encirclement of almost 300,000 men was completed on 22^nd November. (See 23rd August 1942 and WW2-net Timelines.)

Operation Freshman, a British commando assault on the heavy water plant at Telemark in Norway (potentially critical for the Germans to develop an atomic bomb), ends in disaster.  The captured commandos are executed under Hitler’s ‘Commando Order’.

20th November 1942 – the advance of the Allies’ 8th Army reaches Benghazi in Libya, an essential supply port for the campaign. (From WW2-net Timelines.

 

22^nd November 1942 – Eisenhower accepts French Admiral Darlan (Head of the Vichy French Armed Forces) as Head of the French Administration in North Africa in return for co-operation with the Allies despite opposition from General de Gaulle, leader of the Free French in Britain, and the French Resistance. Darlan was assassinated on 24^th December 1942. He was replaced as leader of French Africa by General Giraud on 27th December. (From WW2 People’s War, WW2 History of US Army in the Med and Darlan.)

23rd November 1942 - the US Eighth Air Force attacks U-boat pens at St Nazaire but their daylight 'precision bombing' tactics are failing with fewer than 3% of bombs falling within a thousand feet of the target.  (From ‘The Second World War’ by Antony Beevor, published by Weidenfield and Nicolson 2012)

 

The Recce Corps Commander Lieutenant-General Stopford inspected 43^rd Recce’s  ‘Carrier Drill’ and Battle Drill’ on Monday 23^rd November and the next day 43^rd Recce demonstrated shooting from A.R.C.s on Deal Vehicle Range for a visit from the Commander in Chief of Home Forces, General Sir Bernard Paget. (From the War Diary of the 43^rd Reconnaissance Regiment held by the Archive and Reference Library, the Tank Museum, Bovington, Dorset.)

 

24th November 1942 - Hitler orders the forces at Stalingrad, some 290,000 men, to hold out there and not attempt retreat through the Soviet encirclement.  A new Army Group Don is formed to breakthrough and relieve the Sixth Army.

 

25th November 1942 – Soviet forces begin Operation Mars, an attack on the central front near Rhez.  Unknown to them it was a diversionary offensive to facilitate Operation Uranus  and the Germans had deliberately been given information on the advance – more than 70,000 Red Army soldiers were killed in a month of fighting.

Left wing Greek resistance forces (EDES – the Greek National Republican League and the communist EAM-ELAS), supported by British SOE (the Special Operations Executive) succeed in blowing-up the Gorgopotamos Bridge in central Greece.  This cut the railway line to northern Greece for four months, one of the most successful sabotage missions of the war.  

(From ‘The Second World War’ by Antony Beevor, published by Weidenfield and Nicolson 2012