Chotie Darling

How many women have you slept with? - Thursday 25th February

As usual

Thursday

My Darling,

                        Many thanks for your letter received yesterday.  Glad to hear you’re still alive & kicking, even though rather over-worked… 

            Well, Precious, I have got an item of news this time, as, since last writing to you, I’ve been on and passed a War Office Selection Board for Commission.  It will mean a long and arduous task ahead but with proverbial luck and good management I see no reason why I shouldn’t be successful in this respect.

            I am now waiting to go on a pre-OCTU course, which may last any time before eventually getting to an OCTU.  After that it’s about six months of merry hell before getting the old commiss!

            What a game it is,,,I had three marvelous days on the Board, as all the time you’re there you’re treated as an Officer – even waited on at table by ATS….

            Marvelous old Georgian House and Estate* has been loaned to the W.O. for this purpose and the owner had the decency to leave all his furniture there.  The pictures alone were insured for £120000!

            You spend three & ½ days there doing just about anything the human body can do – and more, - intelligence tests, exams, interviews with Brigadiers, Colonels and psychiatrists etc.

            First question the last mentioned asked me, was “How many women have you slept with?”….

            Shook me – rotten.

            Most of the paintings I knew – several of Manet, Monet, Cézanne etc. so I had an interesting chat with the Brigadier and visiting woman M.P.  Apparently the owner used to buy still life & his wife, the nudes.  Some of the nudes shook us …..All excused like strip-tease, under “ART”.

            I’ll let you know any further developments should they arise.

            I wrote to and had a long reply from Benetti** the fellow at Hove.  Sent me a
letter full of arias, and invitations to stay with him.  The bloke’s a genius on arias.  Hope to look him up on my next leave, which brings me to a sore point. 

            I’ve had the wretched thing cancelled indefinitely!  Heaven knows when I’ll get it.  However one can’t talk of commissions and leave in the same breath I suppose.

            Saw ‘In which we serve’*** this week.  Wasn’t very impressed I’m afraid, though Captain’s wife’s speech was rather brilliant.

            Must close here Darling

                                                            All my love

                                                                        Dicker

*Brockham Park, Betchworth, Surrey.

**See letter of 3^rd September 1942 – Return to Dover.

***Patriotic British war film – ‘the story of a ship’ – directed by Nöel Coward and David Lean and starring Nöel Coward. Celia Johnson played the Captain’s wife.

 © Chotie Darling

140,000 candidates attended War Office Selection Boards during the course of the war. Dick was one of the 60,000 successful candidates.

In 1943 a further instruction was given to WOSBs - that no questions about sex and religion should be asked by psychiatrists.

(From ‘The British Army and the People’s War’ by Jeremy A. Crang)

 

43^rd Recce continued Troop & Squadron Training to Friday 26^th February when there was also an All Ranks Dance. On Saturday 27^th there was Maintenance and the Commanding Officer’s Vehicle Inspection as usual, as well as ‘Recreational Training’. 

Church Parade was held on Sunday and there was a presentation of a certificate for Good Service to Major B.V.J. Vigrass by the C.O. Major Vigrass also received an MBE and the Territorial Decoration during his career.

Troop & Squadron took place again on the 1^st and 2^nd March. At 5pm on 3^rd March the Regiment moved out of barracks to take part in Exercise Spartan, the
first Home Forces exercise for the invasion of Europe and the largest exercise the British Army had ever carried out but Dick was not with them.

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

 

28^th February 1943 – Operation Gunnerside, the most successful of the sabotage attacks on the Telemark heavy water plant in Norway destroys the Germans' capacity to provide heavy water of a sufficient quality for nuclear bombs. The Norwegian commando saboteurs were trained by SOE (British Special Operations Executive).

28^th February 1943 – German wives of Jewish men gather in Berlin to protest against the deportation of their husbands to concentration camps. By 8^th March over 1,000 wives have gathered and Goebbels releases 1,500 Jewish men to stop the protest spreading. (From WW2-net Timelines.)

 

Eric Postles February 1943

“61 Division moved back to England.  After many rumours and much speculation we went by rail to Larne, onto Stanraer and ended at Roman Way Camp, Colchester (a regular army camp) for Exercise Spartan.”  (Extracts from ‘My War Years’ by John Eric Postles ISO used by kind permission of the author.)

Tony Rampling joined 61^st Recce after they returned to England. Having completed his basic training in Norwich in autumn 1942, he’d been posted to Barnard Castle, where he learned to fire a Bren Gun in the Royal Armoured Corps until January 1943. This skill and his intelligence would have marked him out as a potential Recce man. He was briefly placed in the Royal West Kent holding regiment before joining the Reconnaissance.

 

1^st March 1943 – American Jews held a mass rally in Madison Square Gardens, New York to pressure the US government into helping the Jews of Europe.

Early in March 1943 Heinrich Himmler, Reichsführer of the Schutzstaffel (SS leader) visited Treblinka where 8,000 Jews and Gypsies were killed between 1942 and August 1943 and ordered that all the corpses were to be dug up and burned.  The ashes were spread far over the surrounding countryside to hide the murders.  This work took eight months. (From ‘The Second World War’ by Antony Beevor, published by Weidenfield and Nicolson 2012)

2nd to 4th March 1943 – in the Battle of the Bismarck Sea US and Australian air forces successfully attacked a convoy carrying Japanese troops to New Guinea. Thousands of Japanese soldiers were killed and the eight transporter ships and four destroyers were sunk.  The Americans had adopted a new technique of ‘skip-bombing’ – coming in low and bouncing their bombs in by the side of the ship to explode.  This gave them daylight supremacy in the sea. (From ‘The Second World War’ by Antony Beevor, published by Weidenfield and Nicolson 2012)

2nd March 1943 – heavy bombing of Berlin by the Allies

2^nd to 4^th March 1943 – in the Battle of the Bismarck Sea US and Australian air forces successfully attacked a convoy carrying Japanese troops to New Guinea. Thousands of Japanese soldiers were killed and the eight transporter ships and four destroyers were sunk.

3rd March 1943 – 173 people were killed by suffocation and trampling in Bethnal Green underground station when panic set in. (From WW2-net Timelines.)

 

END of Chapter 7

43^rd Reconnaissance – the beginning of the end

and Part 2 RECONNAISSANCE.

 

Alex Johnston - Tuesday 16th February 1943

5731671 Tpr Williams R

Mortar Tp HQ Sqn

43^rd Recce Regt

Home Forces

 

Tuesday 16^th

My Darling,

                        Many thanks for letter received this afternoon.  I haven’t been able to write you owing to pressure of work of late.  However here goes.

            I’m in a canteen at the moment which boasts a piano (NAAFI style), and am now hoping to get my friend† to murder the ‘Warsaw’.  He’s very nervous & won’t play if there’re too many people about – hallmark of a great artist….

            Sorry to hear you’ve been so busy lately, but the first 3 months are always the worst.  After nearly three years I do practically nothing.

            Had four letters today – Bryn, Diller, Mother & yours.

            Bryn had ‘marvelous time’ on leave, ending up by meeting a woman in London.  Apparently he met her in Bridport. Name of Pamela Gluning – redhead. Diller gave me all the ‘dope’ – Bryn never even mentioned her.  I’ve told him he’d better come clean.

            Went for a walk on Sunday afternoon by myself (my mate was on 48) and had tea at country pub.  Quite a change.

            Haven’t been to flicks for simply ages – lost all interest.  Seems little chance of getting any leave, but still soldier on.

            Bryn bought a couple of discs when on leave – the ‘Warsaw’ and Gigli’s* ‘La donna è mobile’ (Rigoletto)** so will probably wear these out when I get home.

            Found time to read Eleanor Peters’ ‘Tare Harvest’***, little else.

            Diller will have to leave bank shortly, as Quayle goes.  She’s been offered a chance abroad with V.A.D.****  Doesn’t  think she’ll take it.  She’ll end up in munitions if she’s not careful.  Probably do her good anyhow.

            Weather’s lovely here.  How’s it with you?

            Should like to see N Wales, but don’t like the people, I’m afraid.  Biased again….

            What’s the crowd like you’re with?  Hope they’re better than my lot.  If ever there was a dull mob it’s the Recce.

            I’ll close here, Darling and write again shortly

                                                                        toutà toi Chérie*****

                                                                                        Dicker

* Famous Italian tenor Beniamino Gigli

** ‘The Woman is Fickle’ - a song from Giuseppe Verdi’s opera Rigoletto.

***A novel about an English family farming in the Chilean Andes.

****Voluntary Aid Detachment – unpaid nursing assistants on the front line.  Diller was presumably affected by the new call up for women (see 13th January 1943).

***** “tout à toi Chérie” – French for “All yours darling”.

 © Chotie Darling

† Trooper DONALD ALEXANDER JOHNSTON

10600882

Who died age 21 on 24 June 1944 at sea when MV Derrycunihy hit a mine

Son of John and Amelia Johnston;

husband of Betty Johnston, of Sholing, Southampton.

BAYEUX MEMORIAL Panel 6.

MV Derrycunihy was a cargo ship transporting HQ, A and C squadrons of the 43^rd Recce to Sword Beach to fight in Normandy. On 24^th June 1944 she was sunk by an acoustic mine. 214 men lost their lives and 150 were injured.

(From the 43rd (2/5th Bn. Gloucestershire Regt.) Regt Reconnaissance Corps Roll of Honour courtesy of Recce Mitch and 43rd Recce on WW2TALK.)

WE WILL REMEMBER THEM

 

16th February 1943 – the Service du Travail Obligatoire forces all French men born between 1920 and 1922 to labour in Germany.  Thousands escape to join resistance forces in the mountains and forests of France or the Free French in Africa.

 

43^rd Recce re-commenced Troop & Squadron Training on Wednesday 17^th February continuing to the 19^th. On Saturday 20^th there was Maintenance, the Commanding Officer’s Vehicle Inspection and the Final of the Inter-Troop Soccer Competition and on Sunday a Regimental Convoy Harbour Exercise. Troop & Squadron Training, again, every day from Monday 22^nd February.

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

 

18^th February 1943 – Joseph Goebbels, Gauleiter (Nazi leader) for Berlin and Hitler’s Minister of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda, calls the German people to ‘Total War – Short War’ at a rapturous rally in the city.

21^st February 1943 – the 25^th Anniversary of the creation of the Soviet Red Army is celebrated in all Allied countries. (From WW2-net Timelines)

In Operation Cleanslate on 21^st February US forces occupy the Russell Islands in the central Solomon Islands. The Solomon’s archipelago is now controlled by the Allies.

War Office Selection Board

On 10th February 1943

Dick was attached to the No6 War Office Selection Board*

at Brockham Park, Betchworth, Surrey

 

Copy of Record from Service & Casualty Form

 

*War Office Selection Boards were established in 1942 to ensure potential officers were chosen on the basis of merit and more soldiers in the ranks would aspire to a commission. (The Guards, however, did not participate in WOSB selection.)

Boards of psychologists, psychiatrists and military experts presided over the vetting of potential officers over 3 days, bringing a scientific approach to selection. Candidates filled in detailed questionnaires on their civilian and military background, medical history and spare time activities. They took intelligence and personality tests and participated in group tests, involving discussions and outdoor exercises to assess their physical fitness and leadership ability. These included leaderless group tests to assess initiative, co-operation and social skills. A final interview with the military President of the Board was used to confirm officer quality. Assessments were usually held in large country houses. (From ‘The British Army and the People’s War’ by Jeremy A. Crang)

(I understand that the current process for officer selection is not so very different.)

 

See Dicks’ letter of 25th February 1943 and a personal account of the War Office Selection Board by Duncan Leitch Torrance in People’s War on the BBC website.  ('WW2 People's War' is an online archive of wartime memories contributed by members of the public and gathered by the BBC.)

 

On 13th February 1943

Dick ceased to be attached to the War Office Selection Board

and was posted to Home Details (O.C.T.U. Candidate)

having been approved by No.6 War Office Selection Board

as a candidate suitable for training at an OCTU*.

*O.C.T.U. = Officer Cadet Training Unit

 

Copy of Record from Service & Casualty Form

43RC/34/1/43 43 Recce      

Ceased to be attached to No.6 War Office Selection Board         Redhill

Trooper         13.2.43         JGordon

 

13th February 1943 – the German Army withdraws from Kharkov in north-east Ukraine as the Soviet Army advances.

The RAF bomb Lorient and St Nazaire in their efforts to destroy U-boat bases and shipyards on the French Atlantic Coast.

 

On 14^th February 1943 Colonel A.W. Henman,

President of the No. 6 War Office Selection Board,

approved Dick as a candidate for the Officer Cadet Training Unit

- POTENTIAL OFFICER QUALITY C

(See Applying for OCTU, Recommended for OCTU and War Office Selection Board)

 

Copy of Record:

RECOMMENDATION FORM FOR CANDIDATES FOR OFFICER CADET TRAINING UNITS

 

14^th February 1943 – Rommel’s Afrika Corps advance on Allied positions in the Atlas Mountains of Tunisia culminating in the Battle of Kasserine Pass on 19^th to 25^th February (the first major clash between German and US forces of WW2). Initially routed by Rommel’s attacks the Allies eventually halted the advance and the Germans withdrew to the Mareth line.  The Americans had lost over 6,000 men.  Allied aircraft and ground forces were also lost due to confused orders and ‘friendly fire’.  (From ‘The Second World War’ by Antony Beevor, published by Weidenfield and Nicolson 2012)

 

Rostov-on-Don (north-east of the Black Sea on the Sea of Azov) is recaptured by the Russians having been occupied by the German Army for seven months. 

Safely in Salop - Sunday 7th February 1943

5731671 Tpr Williams R

Mortar Tp HQ Sqn 43^rd Recce Regt

Home Forces

 

Sunday

My Darling,

                        Finding myself on a 24 hr guard I thought I’d drop you a line or two.

            Have just received your letter for which many thanks. Glad to hear you’ve been successful in getting your course and have arrived safely in Salop, which is a change after all.

            From choice I’d move every month if it were practical, but as you know I have got into the unenviable habit of staying several months in one place. However, here’s to a change of surroundings.

Don’t forget to let me know about your new camp especially as regards your CSM!  Maybe he prefers blondes….

            I’m utilising nearly all my spare time (?) in going to Evening Classes – generally four or five nights per week.  I’ve got to the stage of not knowing which class I’m in until I get there….Quite exciting.  I told you I got a French text-book with your Token, didn’t I? I usually put in an hour or so at dinner-time etc, also in bed at night. If ever you want to learn anything, do it in bed just before you go to sleep.  The subconscious is more in evidence then and consequently things make a deeper impression.  Am I boring you again?  Hope not.

            At this Tech. Institute they hold a recital of discs every Thursday. Last week I heard Joan Cross, Gigli, Solomon and Kentner.  Marvelous programme.

            I’m still trying the old ‘Warsaw’ at every opportunity. I can now play (?) the first six bars….You should hear this friend of mine play it. Just like Kentner himself.

            If you get your leave in approx. nine or ten weeks we should be able to manage something.  I should get mine the 23^rd inst.  At least I hope to. It’s not going to be much fun I’m afraid. I’ll send you some shekels though, so you can have a beer on me. 

            The main thing with your show is where you’ll go when you finish this course, as you’ll probably stay there some time.

            This is the main guard I’m on and there’s bags of spit and polish.  It took me 24 hrs to get ready for it.  Heluva waste of time altogether.  However these people must be humoured, I suppose.

            Brinner’s still on leave (until Tuesday 9^th) and still hasn’t got his transfer.  I may try to claim him here.

            Well, my Darling I must close here to go on Stag (guard).

                                    God bless you, Chotie.

                                                            Take care

                                                            Dicker

* Joan Cross was an English soprano, Beniamino Gigli an Italian tenor singer and Louis Kentner, the Hungarian pianist who played The Warsaw piano concerto (written by British composer Richard Addinsell) for the film ‘Dangerous Moonlight’.

© Chotie Darling

The envelope for this letter was has tape is on the left side saying:

OPENED BY EXAMINER

9358

P.C.90

 

 

43^rd Recce commenced Troop and Squadron Training on Monday 8^th February and this continued until the 12^th when there was also an All Ranks Dance.  On Saturday 13^th  February the Commanding Officer carried out a Regimental Kit Check and an ‘A’ and ‘B’ Squadron exercise was held from 13^th to 16^th February with ‘A’ Squadron trying a new organization of carriers and Assault Troops. On the 16^th there was also Section training.(From the War Diary of the 43^rd Reconnaissance Regiment held by the Archive and Reference Library, the Tank Museum, Bovington, Dorset.)

 

8^th February 1942 - British Special Forces in Burma, known as the Chindits and led by Brigadier Orde Wingate, commence their first penetration behind Japanese lines (Operation Longcloth), advancing from Imphal.

10th February 1943 – the remainder of ‘Sparrow Force’, Australian commandos fighting a guerrilla war against the Japanese on Portuguese Timor, are forced to evacuate the island.

The Warsaw - Thursday 4th February 1943

As Usual 

Thursday

My Darling Chotie,

                                                Many thanks for your letter of a couple of days ago. I sent one letter which you probably got Monday or Tuesday.

            Glad to hear you’ve had such a time on your 48 hr. Only wish I could have been at the old ‘Sloop’* as well. George and Bert seem to wangle it all right.

            Brinner, as I suspected is home on nine days privilege leave**, not embarkation as he would have me believe.

            I’m up to my eyes in work at the moment as I go to Evening Classes nearly every night I have free. The trouble with that Game is you never know when you’re going to be on guard, etc which makes a definite programme rather difficult to pursue.  However, one must necessarily be a martyr to achieve the fruits of education.

            Hope you manage to get to N. Wales.  Should be really lovely in the spring.  Not as good as the autumn of course….

            The old man hates the people there, of course but then he’s prejudiced.  Mother had a lovely time there in the last show.  Do you know where you’re actually going?  There’s plenty of castles there, I believe.

            I was supposed to be reading a paper on education tomorrow night at the Technical Institute but find I’m on Guard.  We do have fun, don’t we?

            I’m supposed to be playing Rugger this afternoon but decided I’d write to you instead. Rather nice of me, eh?

            Johnston (that’s this friend of mine) knocked hell out of a canteen piano last night.  Played the professional copy of the 'Warsaw’***, and rather shook everyone.  I can manage the first half dozen bars! I calculate it would take about fifteen years to get it pat…. Nil desperandum.

                        Must close here for tea

                                                All my love

                                                            Precious

                                                            Dicker

*The Sloop was a Poole pub in Lower Parkstone, very near to where Chotie lived.  It was demolished in January 2022.

** See letter of 30th January 1943

*** Ack-Ack girls learned to work with the guns at Artillery Practice Ranges such as Llandudno near the Great Orme headland on the North Wales Coast.  At Ty Croes on Anglesey, in the far north-west of Wales there was a practice firing camp where the girls directed gun fire at textile ‘sleeves’ billowing out behind planes. (From ‘Girls in Khaki – a history of the ATS in the Second World War’ by Barbara Green, published by the History Press 2012).  “We went on to a firing camp at Ty Croes, Anglesey, where they had the guns. When the first gun went off I nearly died because of the shock of the flash and the bang. We had no ear muffs and from that day onwards I had tinnitus.”  (Ruth Hamilton, nee Minshull, on the BBC People’s War website.)

Dick’s family was originally from Wales but his father had fallen out with them.

****The Warsaw Piano Concerto

 © Chotie Darling

 

This letter was re-addressed to:

Private Chalkley B.E.

    236 A.A. (ATS O.F.C.)

Trng Regt,

                Wingate Bks

                    Oswestry

having originally been sent to Talavera Camp at Northampton.

 

Section Training for 43^rd Recce on 6^th February 1943 focused on ‘Battle Procedure – Withdrawal’.(From the War Diary of the 43^rd Reconnaissance Regiment held by the Archive and Reference Library, the Tank Museum, Bovington, Dorset.)

Chotie goes to Oswestry

On 3^rd February 1943 Chotie was posted

to 236 Os.F.C.T. Regiment at Oswestry in Shropshire

to train for Anti-Aircraft work.

 

Record from Chotie's 'Service and Casualty Form'.

 

From ‘Chotie’s Story’:

“I had been sent from Northampton to Oswestry – an enormous camp – to train to be a radar operator.  We did full military training with a Sergeant Major on the parade ground.  God, it was just like prison.  Food so awful and the tea implanted with bromide to stop us getting passionate.  I lived on grub from the NAAFI and Andrews Liver Salts to make the water palatable.  Life was grim.  George visited me once and took me for a meal in a pub ‘heaven’.”

 

 

Women had joined men in mixed batteries on the anti-aircraft sites to cover an acute manpower shortage in the summer of 1941 at the request of General Sir Frederick Pile, the Commander-in-Chief of Anti-Aircraft Command in the Royal Artillery.  The ATS carried out all the duties the men did except the actual firing of guns. About 74,000 ATS ‘girls’ were in the Ack-Ack at any one time.

At Park Hall Camp they learned to use radar, ‘spotter’ telescopes, sound detectors, height and range finders and predictors to calculate where the gun would need to fire to explode near enough to the plane to knock it off course, or score a direct hit. They were trained in aircraft recognition and ‘shooting’ – how to call the firing orders to the men on the guns.  It was “very secret work requiring slightly higher academic grades than usual”. 

(From ‘Girls in Khaki – a history of the ATS in the Second World War’ by Barbara Green, published by the History Press 2012 and 'History - Gunners'.  For another first-hand account of training for radar location at Oswestry see 'Life on the Anti-Aircraft Gun-sites' by Joyce Stott in 'People’s War' on the BBC website.  'WW2 People's War' is an online archive of wartime memories contributed by members of the public and gathered by the BBC.)

 

The famous SOE spy, Violette Szabo, had also been stationed at Oswestry during her brief time with the ATS (September 1941 to April 1942). With her husband away in the French Foreign Legion she wanted to take an active part in the war.

“She had heard of a plan for using women in anti-aircraft batteries, not on the guns, but to aid and direct the guns by operating predictors, height-finders, and other instruments…

There was no hardship the men faced that the girls weren’t prepared to endure…They had Nissen huts to live in, the girls segregated in one group, the men in another.  But in the general canteen there was no such separation…after supper, if a mobile film unit or ENSA entertainers were not visiting them, they danced or put on an improvised show.  The exaggerated hip movements of the girls on parade were corrected and they were sent out on long route marches.  All wore trousers and lipstick was only allowed off duty.”

          Violette was selected to work as a Vickers predictor and went on to work on the Mersey anti-aircraft defences at Sutton Weaver, where the alarm went almost every night. 

“At times the action lasted for three hours or more.  The girls at the instruments had no cover at all and were liable to be hit by a falling bomb and by shell splinters.”

          Violette left to give birth to her baby daughter, Tania, but when her husband was killed at El Alamein she joined the SOE (Special Operations Executive). She spoke fluent French and was trained as a spy while nominally an officer in the FANY (First Aid Nursing Yeomanry). In April 1944 she was parachuted into France to help re-organise the Resistance network around Rouen. Working with the Maquis in Limoges, to co-ordinate sabotage activities during the Normandy landings, she was captured, interrogated and tortured by the Gestapo. Having refused to talk she was sent to Ravensbrück concentration camp near Berlin and executed there in February 1945.          (From ‘Carve Her Name With Pride’ by R J Minney.)