Brian and Chunky - Tuesday 1st? June

 

5731671 Officer Cadet Williams RK

77 Troop ‘B’ Sqdn

100 (Sandhurst) Octu RAC

R.M.C. Camberley

Surrey

Tuesday

Thanks very much for your letter and photo*.  It’s quite good don’t you think?  I’ve got a God awful photo of my troop taken the first day we had here.  (Actually I haven’t yet got one – it’s on the way).  We had one taken at Blackdown and that was so horrible that everyone refused to buy one.  I paid for mine and am still hoping to get my money back…. 

            I’ll send you one of the Sandhurst ones when they arrive.

            I’m writing this during a Gas lecture under pretence of writing notes so I have to keep stopping and pretending to look interested.  I don’t think I’m kidding this bloke, though.

            Well, how do you like Plymouth**?  You appear to have struck it lucky in getting such frequent changes of location.  I always seemed to stick for months in really horrible places.  Brinner had ten mths at Basingstoke and I can’t think of much worse than that.  Mind you move Eastwards next time.  Somewhere about Lilliput*** would be rather handy or even Chi or somewhere like that.

            (It’s a murderous job trying to write on one knee watching the lecturer with one eye and trying to appear reasonably attentive.)

            I get quite a nice time here on Sundays as all O/D’s**** draw cycles to go to church in Camberley.  Needless to say no one goes to church.  For my part, I repair to a certain YOCH I wot of and there drink gallons of tea (no sugar ….), smoke a pipe or two, and read ‘Country Life’ ‘Tatler’ and ‘Field’ until about noon when I lazily mount the crate and trundle back to my present abode at approx... 2mph.  However, we make up for it during the week, especially in PT which consists of pretty bloody runs of about 3-4 miles over obstacle courses in battle order.  Quite fun when you get used to it.  I shall have to use pencil from here as I’ve run out of ink.

            Life here, however, is quite pleasant on the whole though I hope to get transferred to an Infantry OCTU before I finish here.  Recce’s all right but I prefer the old infantry.

            Diller as you know I expect went to Leicester for initial training.  I bet it’s shaking her.  I went to Leicester once from Branksome***** if you remember but wasn’t impressed.  Good huntin’ country.

            Read Rose Macaulay’s ‘And no man’s wit’, also Noel Langley’s 'There’s a porpoise close behind us’ (re-read).

            Plenty of swimming here, nearly every day in fact – I’ve got quite brown (-ed off…)

            I’m supposed to be going home this wk-end for a few hrs.  Only wish I could get to Plymouth but it’s really too much.  I could have made Bristol I think.  However you may move this way soon. 

            I was slung on a charge last week!  Late on parade – but spun the Sqdn Cmdr a yarn and got admonishment – cushy.  I’ll never make it again though, at any rate not with the same bloke – a Grenadier Gds major.  All the officers here are either Grenadier Irish or Welsh Gds.  No Scots or Coldstreams. 

            It’s now Tuesday evening and as I have a few minutes before dinner I’ll round this letter off.  We're on parade again at 9 o’clock for a night march….

            It’s been alternate sun and rain here all today, which is a good thing, for this place gets pretty dusty, also the rain helps to fill the swimming-pool.

            The library here contains the Encyclopedia Britannica and Oxford so I’m quite happy to spend a few weeks there every now and then.

            Our troop officer goes by the name of Brixey – Battle-mad Brixey – who’s really very decent and very cushy.  The Guards Officers here nearly all wear long puttees, the old style, that is with service dress slacks.  Very comic appearance until you get used to it.

            I’m afraid this letter’s rambling on in my usual inimitable style (?) ….

            (I’ve put your photo on my chest, furniture not anatomical – looks very good).

            I’m very lucky in having Brian & Chunky as room-mates as we never seem to fight although we argue incessantly of course.  Chunky being a Londoner hates the country period houses, beer, smoking, in fact all the luxuries of life.  Brian being Irish and a pianist in the bargain is often moody and sometimes says hardly a word all day.  He’s over six feet, about fourteen stone and will make a brilliant soldier.  Plans to stay in the army after this show.

            Chunky’s married but being ultra-modern has no children.  Brian says he’s going to get married on his next leave.  I believe I told you he was a ham before joining-up, and was a Captain in the IRA for two years.  Nice people…..

            Warrant Officers here call us Sir and we call them Sir so everyone’s happy.  Occasionally the Sqdn Cmdr or someone dines with the troop which means about an hour and a half in the mess making conversation over really horrible coffee.  Happily I smoke and get rid of the coffee to Brian who eats like a horse.

            Well, Darling I’ll close here as I’ll have to post this before Dinner and the stunt tonight.

            Hope to see you soon, Chotie Darling

                                                            All my love

                                                                        Dicker

PS. Sorry half is in pencil but no-one has any ink at the moment I want it.

 

*See group photo of ATS from Bristol .

**This letter was addressed to:

 W/242328

Pte Chalkley B.E.

ATS OFC ‘B’ Tp,

462 Hy (M) AA Bty RA

c/o GPO.

Millbrook

NR Plymouth

          so Chotie’s unit must have moved to the Plymouth area. Millbrook is actually in Cornwall, on the western side of the Tamar estuary but defences here would have guarded the entrance to the Plymouth docks. Unfortunately there is no date visible on the envelope for this letter so the date is only guessed at in the context of the other letters. If I am right about 1^st June the move seems remarkably prescient since on 14th June Plymouth citizens had  ‘one of their liveliest half-hour’s’ of the war in a heavy raid, which dropped between 70 and 80 high explosive bombs of between 250 and 1,000 kg.  (From Plymouth Data. See also the National Archives.)

According to Phyllis M Rowe and Ivan Rabey on June 14^th “Hundreds of incendiary bombs fell on Saltash” (just north of Millbrook).  “Torpoint suffered the effects of a blast from a direct hit on the Devonport Dockyard and phosphorous bombs fell on Mount Edgcumbe Park” (located on Rame Head near Millbrook).

(From “When Bombs Fell” "When Bombs Fell" contributed by Cornwall Action Community Service on the BBC People’s War website.

'WW2 People's War’ is an online archive of wartime memories contributed by members of the public and gathered by the BBC. The archive can be found at bbc.co.uk/ww2peopleswar.)

***a little village by the Harbour in Poole.

****Officers of the Day or Officer Developers?

*****Dick was stationed in Branksome from September 1941.  See To Branksome.

 © Chotie Darling

 

3^rd June 1943 – de Gaulle establishes the Comité Français de Libération National as a ‘government in waiting’ (for the liberation of France).

4^th June 1943 – death of General Sikorski, head of the Polish government in exile and several other Polish leaders in a plane crash after take-off from Gibraltar.  Sabotage has been suspected and there are various conspiracy theories. (From WW2-net Timelines.)

 

10^th June 1943 – the Pointblank Directive sets out a co-ordinated approach to Allied bombing in Europe with the Americans flying precision bombing missions by day and the RAF undertaking saturation bombing by night, mainly against German cities. (From Chronology of World War II and WW2-net Timelines.)

At last the Admiralty replace Naval Cipher 3 , which had been decrypted by the Germans in March 1942. Although the Germans were able to read 80% of the messages in Naval Cipher 3 only 10% were decrypted in time to take action.  Still this had had a devastating effect on Atlantic shipping.