Same address
Sunday
My Darling Chotie,
Many thanks for your letter received a couple of days ago.
Glad to hear you’re stationed in a fairly decent area* at least better than this horrible place – nothing but military for miles, and you know what they can do when they feel like it.
I’ve had to spend this weekend here again owing to Church Parade (UB**) and as there’s no travel next week (Easter) I’ll not be able to get home for some time. I’ve so much work to do, I couldn’t really have spared the time anyhow. I’ve been writing up notes for hours and hours this week-end – having had no time to get a beer even. Horrible….
Sorry to have missed your relatives in such a sorry way, but I see you didn’t lose anything. Trust you….where your tummy’s concerned anyhow.
I haven’t read anything or seen any flicks for weeks – my pipe’s my only solace in these hard times.
I’ve been thinking of going to see the family at Purley – I shall probably go when I’m at Sandhurst. The happy advantage is that it doesn’t take long to get there and what’s more important, doesn’t cost much.
I didn’t tell you that I shaved my tache*** off, did I? It’s been growing again for the last fortnight or so. This means that I couldn’t see you in my present naked state, anyhow. Only hope it grows before our next encounter. I don’t know how it happened
– I just sort of dashed it off. Shook me, pretty badly. However I rallied and started again. It’s coming along very nicely, thank you.
The blokes here have started tumbling in the barrack room on a couple of mattresses – helluva racket. Needless to say, I started it. Initially, I had control over it but now it’s run amok and no-one can do anything about it. ‘Chunky’ 5ft2 ex chef of the ‘Trocadero’, is pretty good. ‘Enoch’ is U.S.****
Well, Darling, I must close here.
Hope to see you soon.
All my love
Dicker
PS Have you heard from Eve lately? I’d like to know how that rat’s getting on ….
*“Our camp at Pill was close to Avonmouth, nearer the sea” (from ‘Chotie’s Story’.) Chotie, brought up not far from the beautiful beaches and Harbour in Poole, hated being away from the sea.
ATS paddling - one of Chotie's photos (1943 or later?)
**UB – utter bore?
***moustache
****U.S. – British slang for useless.
© Chotie Darling
18th April 1943 – having intercepted Japanese secret communication codes, US fighter planes successfully shoot down the plane carrying Admiral Yamamoto, Commander of the Japanese Combined Fleet. (From Chronology of World War II.)
Allied fighter planes from North Africa shoot down 74 Luftwaffe planes in what became known among US troops as the “Palm Sunday turkey shoot”.
19th April 1943 – Waffen SS German troops attempt to storm the Warsaw Ghetto. Jewish inhabitants of the ghetto, with some support from Polish resistance groups, fought against transportation by the Nazis to Treblinka extermination camp. They had been told they were to be resettled in the east and thought they might go to forced labour camps but by 1943 news of the death camps had leaked out. Almost 300,000 Jews from the Warsaw Ghetto had already been murdered at Treblinka in 1942. The defenders were initially successful but despite bitter resistance were defeated by 16th May - the SS set fire to the buildings and flooded the sewers where they were hiding. By June the Ghetto had been destroyed and most of the c.70,000 Ghetto residents were killed there or at Treblinka.
19th April 1943 - Montgomery’s 8th Army attacks the Axis defences near Enfidaville, south of Tunis but suffers heavy losses. Operation Vulcan with the Allies First Army followed on 22nd April and was able to slowly advance west of Tunis and Bizerte.
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