Quelques fleurs! - Wednesday 11th and Thursday 12th August 1943

Same Address! (almost)

77 Tp HAC* Squadron

100 OCTU RHC

RMC Camberley

Surrey

Chotie Darling,

                                    Sorry I just haven’t been able to write before but just tumbled into bed at night without having had a moment to spare.

            I must begin by thanking you very much, Darling, for a very happy week-end.  It was a pity it wasn’t longer – but we must always hope for better things rather than dwell on the imperfections of the moment.

            However, enough of this twaddle.

            (Just having an argument with Chunky about Elizabeth** as a girl’s name.  He says it’s his favourite name.  Actually I believe it is.)

            I’m now on wireless which is just about killing me…I’m getting fed up with this place – especially after seeing you.  It’s all so useless.

            I’m beginning to feel that I’ll be damn glad when this show’s over.  How about you?  Then maybe we can get down to things as they should be got down to.

            I’ve still forgot to post that letter home.  You’re as bad as I am….

            I seem to be writing to no purpose tonight.  Think I’d better leave this until tomorrow and see if I’m feeling in a better frame of mind then.

 

Thursday Eve

            Received your letter this afternoon.  Many thanks, Darling.  Glad to hear you had a safe, if premature, arrival.

            Moved again today to another part of the building and am now in HAC Squadron as you will see from address overleaf.

            Am now working literally all day as I have morse to do which has to be done in spare time (?).  Have to do 12 words per minute to pass out which takes at least an hour a day for me to achieve - if ever.

            Am still with Brian and Chunky and things are on a sane basis once again.

            I’ve had my week-end cancelled – the whole troop have in fact – which has annoyed me intensely.  Good thing it wasn’t last week.

            Haven’t heard from Brinner – ‘spose he’s on Selection Board or somewhere.

            Must close here, Darling as I have tons of work to do.

                                                Bye,bye,precious

                                                            All my love

                                                                        Dicker

 

PS Can’t see you for at least 12 months – cos I’ve shaved my tache off!!

 

*HAC stood for ‘Honourable Artillery Company’, one of the oldest military organisations in the world, having been established by charter under Henry VIII in 1537.  In World War the HAC Infantry Battalion became the Officer Cadet Training Unit for the Reconnaissance Corps at Sandhurst.

**A Chalkley family name (her mother’s name, Chotie’s middle name, my middle name, etc.). If Chotie and Dick had a daughter they were going to call her Elizabeth.

 © Chotie Darling

 

On 12th August 1943 Dick changed to HAC Squadron

OCTU RHC RMC.

He was still in 77 Troop.

 

12^th August 1943 – heavy RAF attack on Milan. (From WW2-net Timelines.) 

 

15th August 1943 – heavy German bombing raid on Portsmouth where Dick had been stationed from June to September 1941

 

 

17th August 1943 – Patton and his US 7^th Army enter Messina on the north-east tip of Sicily, the critical port for access to Italy.  The island was now in Allied hands.

 17^th August 1943 –Beginning of the Quebec Conference headed by Roosevelt, Churchill and Canada’s Prime Minister Mackenzie King. Agreement is reached that the Allies will invade Europe on a second front through France (Operation Overlord) and that a South-East Asia Command (SEAC) will be established with Lord Louis Mountbatten (Head of Britain's Combined Operations - including Dick’s Airborne unit ) as Supreme Allied Commander.  Major General ‘Vinegar Joe’ Stilwell , the American Army Commander in China and Burma, would be one of his deputies.

17^th August 1943 – in the Schweinfurt-Regensburg daylight mission the US Air Force attacks Luftwaffe production factories deep inside Germany, suffering heavy losses.  The targets were beyond the range of fighter escorts so the Americans had to rely on their heavily fortified ‘Flying Fortress’ bombers.

On 17^th and 18^th August 1943 in Operation Hydra over 1,000 RAF night bombers attack Peenemunde on the Baltic Coast, where the V-2 rocket (the world’s first long range ballistic missile) was in development. V-2 production was subsequently moved to the underground Mittelwerk factory near Nordhausen in central Germany, which used forced labour from Mittelbau-Dora (part of Buchenwald concentration camp). The Luftwaffe Chief of Staff, Hans Jeschonnek, commited suicide on 18^th August, having mistakenly ordered gun defences to fire on German planes when the use of 'window' by RAF Mosquito bombers effectively feinted an attack on Berlin. Hitler had also blamed him for the destruction of Hamburg in July

 18^th August 1943 – advancing Soviet forces north of Kursk liberate Briansk, south-west of Moscow.

19^th August 1943 – in the secret Quebec Agreement Britain, the United States and Canada agree to share atomic energy research, which, in 1945, led to the production of the atomic bomb.