Address as before
Thursday
Chotie Darling,
Just a few more lines about nothing at all.
They have a film show here every week – an army unit brings round the projector, etc and the show is held in a hall in the Castle. I managed to sit through the first hour or so but couldn’t stick it any longer than that. So accordingly I repaired to the pub and had the place to myself entirely, luckily.
The place is usually cram full with RAF personnel and a contingent from the local Waaffery. They’re an awful crowd. Drunk most of the time and very childish.
Can’t remember the film – I only saw about half of it.
Just finished Graham Greene’s ‘England made me’ – very good. Had a long letter from Monica this morning – full of woe as usual, complaining bitterly that I never answer her letters or something like that. I only wrote a month ago – at Xmas. In any case I gather that her husband’s the most jealous brute who resents her receiving any letters. He’s the sort who write every day – poor fellow.
I still haven’t had any pay but have borrowed 20 quid from the Squadron Leader to pay clothing and mess bills, etc. He’s an extraordinary sort of man – a young Captain*, Oxford and peacetime Sandhurst – very clever. An Historian, I believe. The only one with any real aesthetic appreciation among the whole bunch.
I never seem to get to bed these days – it’s past midnight now. That’s the advantage of a small mess – you can monopolise the radio and fire after about eleven or so. I usually stay down ‘till the early hours as I don’t get up until nearly eight in the morning, and I’m better off with less sleep, these days at any rate.
More Beethoven – unusual at this time of night – or morning. From Calais 2 which is very powerful here.
I’ve had a REME** Lieutenant sleeping with me – (not literally) for the past few days. He left this morning. Only spoke about three words to me the whole time. A Scotsman. Now I have my room to myself again which means I spread my kit over the whole place. Awful shambles. I must need a wife, I’m thinking.
Well, Darling I must get off to bed. It’s 1-30 and the fire’s nearly out and the Beethoven’s finished.
There’s going to be a terrific party on Sunday. The Colonel’s inviting all the officers in the Regt. I’m told that when Lt. Col. Sir William Mount. (Bart) T.D.*** throws a party – it’s some party.
Must close here, Darling,
all my love
Dicker
*Captain Frank Harding of ‘B’ Squadron? He published “War Echoes over Thirty Years” in 1970 including a number of poems about 61st Recce. (See ‘Beaten Paths are Safest’ by Ron Howard, Brewin Books 2004)
**REME = Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers
*** Territorial Decoration – for long service in the Territorial Army.
© Chotie Darling
21st January 1944 – resumption of German air raids on London in the ‘Little Blitz’. Operation Steinbock, launched in retaliation for the Allied raids on German cities and for propaganda purposes targeted South-East England, particularly London as well as ports including Bristol (where Chotie was stationed), Cardiff and Hull. The ‘Little Blitz’ continued until May and killed over 1,500 people.
22nd January 1944 – the Allies’ US Fifth Army land 36,000 men on the Tyrrhenian coast between Rome and Monte Cassino in Operation Shingle. Initially successful, Anzio became one of the bloodiest WW2 battles in Western Europe. The Germans counter-attacked and the Allies were then pinned down on the beachhead, under fire from German artillery, until the Gustav line was broken in May. By then almost 10,000 men, Germans and Allies, had been killed. (See Anzio landings.)
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