Best Battle Dress - Monday 8th March 1943

 

5731671 P/Cdt Williams R

30-0 Tp ‘A’ Sqdn

No1. Pre-OCTU R.A.C.

Alma Barracks, Blackdown, Hants

My Darling,

                        I have at last found a spare moment to drop you a line.  I arrived here on Thursday last and this is the first chance I’ve had of doing anything for myself.

            I’m here for a minimum of 9 weeks – probably longer before going to Sandhurst* – that is of course if I pass this.

            The old spit & polish here is murder, have to change to best B.D.* for every meal…..However, that’s enough of this.

            Have you heard of Eric & Eve yet?  I suppose they’re well & truly hitched by now….poor old Eric.

            Seems ages since I saw you, Chotie.  Don’t suppose I’ll be able to see you for some time either.  I’ll get leave after this course and another half way thro’ OCTU I hope….

            I haven’t had any pay for weeks – don’t know when I’ll get any either.  I’ve been living on capital (?) since I’ve been here.

            I’m afraid I won’t be able to write very much for the first few weeks – at least that’s what we were told by the C.O.  The general idea is to rush you off your feet for some time, until things quieten down a bit.

            At Sandhurst we get our own billets & batman.  Some life.

            Well, Darling, there’s really nothing to write about – I’d much sooner hear how you’re getting used to Army life.  I expect you’re just starting to get browned-off by now.

            I must close here as I’ve tons of work to do.  We’re on parade from 6 am to 7.30 pm. Murder.

                                                Bye bye, Chotie Darling

                                                            Always yours

                                                                        Dicker

                                                                                    xxxx

P.S. Please get address right as there’s a helluva lot of delays.

*Then the Royal Military College Sandhurst Royal Military College Sandhurst used as the Royal Armoured Corps OCTU for the latter part of WW2.

*B.D. – battle dress.

© Chotie Darling
Eve and Eric (Kessler?)'s wedding on 6th March 1943

 

9^th March 1943 – Rommel, the German Commander known as ‘the Desert Fox’, leaves Africa with jaundice and exhaustion and never returns. 

 

13^th and 14^th March 1943 – ‘liquidation’ of the the Krakow Ghetto in Poland. Polish Jews had been persecuted since Hitler’s invasion of Poland at the beginning of the war. In March 1941 all of the city’s Jews were forced to leave or crammed into the Ghetto area. From 30^th May 1942 Jews were systematically deported from the Ghetto to surrounding concentration camps. During the Krakow Ghetto massacre those able to work were deported to the Plaszow slave  labour camp; c.2,000 Jews (mainly children, the old and the ill) were shot in the streets and approximately 3,000 others were deported to Auschwitz-Birkenau where most were murdered in the gas chambers.  (See Krakow Timeline and History of the Krakow Ghetto.)

 13th March 1943 – an assassination attempt against Hitler led by Major-General Henning von Treskow fails when the bomb in Hitler’s plane fails to detonate.  A second attempt on 21st March also failed when Hitler left the building before the suicide bomber, Colonel Fresher von Gersdoff, could successfully detonate his explosives. Staff of Army Group Centre, on the Eastern Front, were behind both attempts.

14th March 1943 – the German Army in Russia retakes Kharkov in the Ukraine and almost surrounds the over-extended Soviet Army on that front.