Registered Letter - Friday 11th June 1943

As before

Friday

My Darling Chotie,

                                                I’m afraid this will have to be a very short effort, as I’m Troop Leader this week and haven’t a moment of my own.

            I’ve been working up till midnight all the week and have all the worry of getting the admin. side done for the trip to Wales*.  We go at 4am Sunday!  Reveille’s at 3!

            I’m enclosing a troop photo we had taken the first day we arrived.

It’s pretty bloody.  If you can’t find me, let me know and I’ll give you the details of where I’m sitting.

            I’m also enclosing a quid which will help things along a little.  I hope ….

            I’ll try to get this letter registered tomorrow afternoon – if I get it off.

            Received your letter today.  Glad to hear you’re getting on as well as can be expected.  Must close here Darling.

                                                            All my love

                                                                        Dicker

Will write again just as soon as I can.

*Dick appears to have been at battle camp in Snowdonia for a week from Sunday 13^th to Saturday 19^th June.

 

Group photo with badges covered - possibly the Officer Cadet photo sent in this letter? Dick is third from the left in the front.

 © Chotie Darling

11^th June 1943 – bombardment of Sicily begins in preparation for Operation Husky, the Allied invasion of Europe from the south.  However, airfields in Greece, Sardinia and northern Italy are also targeted as part of an elaborate deception that included 'Operation Mincemeat'  (the planting of a dead body carrying ‘secret plans’ to convince the Germans that the Allies would invade through Greece and Sardinia).

11^th June 1943 – Heinrich Himmler, the Reich Commissioner for the Consolidation of German Nationhood, orders the liquidation of all Polish ghettos by decree.  This is extended to the Soviet Union on 21^st June. (From Holocaust Research Project.)

 

17^th June 1943 – Eric Brewer, later of 61^st Recce’s B Squadron and diary recorder of their activities (see this blog and ‘Beaten Paths are Safest’ by Ron Howard, Brewin Books 2004), was enlisted.  Extracts from his letters have also been published on this blog by kind permission of Derek Brewer and his family.

18^th June 1943 – ‘Radar’ (Radio Detection and Ranging) becomes the official term for ‘Radiolocation’.  (From WW2-net Timelines.) 

 

18^th June 1943 – Chotie visited the dentist at 71 MDN for the removal of a loose filling.

 See Dental Treatment Card – 18/6/43         71 MDN

 

20th June 1943 – RAF begin ‘shuttle bombing’ – planes leave England to bomb Germany then reload in North Africa to bomb Italy on return to England.  (From WW2-net Timelines.)

 

21st June 1943 – Jean Moulin and other key members of the Conseil National de la Résistance captured at Lyons, leading to many arrests in the French underground networks.

21st June 1943 - beginning of Operation Animals, an organised campaign of sabotage in Greece to deceive the Germans that they intend to invade there.