Birmingham Officers Club - Thursday 17th February 1944

Birmingham

Thursday

Chotie Darling

                                    As you will see from above I’m in Brum at the moment on a week’s course on Armoured Cars - very cushy, there being no exam at the end, and the hours are only from nine to four thirty.

            I have some unpleasant news as regards leave.  The whole Squadron has had leave postphoned one week which makes mine up to the 8^th March instead of the 1^st.  Can you change yours?  Let me know won’t you.

            I hope to go to Leicester this weekend to see Diller as our leaves won’t now coincide.

            I’m staying at ‘The Georgian House’ which is an Officers Club – very comfortable indeed, and right in the centre of things.

            This letter is rather sketchy as I’m writing it during a lecture on the Lubrication System.

            I’ve just been out to get a Theatre Ticket for tomorrow night – London Symphony Orchestra in a programme which includes my favourite overture – Tchaikovsky’s Fantasie ‘Romeo & Juliet’.  Pouishnoff is the soloist and conductor.

            Must close here as the lecturer is beginning to get a grip.

            Don’t forget to write!

Address now

            61^st Recce Regt RAC

                        Whittlesford

                                    Cambridgeshire

                                                                                    love

                                                                                    Dicker

*Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky’s Overture-Fantasy 'Romeo and Juliet' is an orchestral work based on Shakespeare’s play.

© Chotie Darling

 

17th February 1944 – surrounded German troops on the Dnepr river had attempted to break out in the Battle of the Korsun-Cherkassy Pocket but 20,000 were ruthlessly killed by the Red Army, even when trying to surrender. (From ‘The Second World War’ by Antony Beevor, published by Weidenfield and Nicolson 2012)

The US Navy attack the Japanese Naval and air base at Truk in the Pacific Caroline Islands (west of the Marshall Islands), making it nearly useless for the rest of the war.

18th February 1944 - Operation Jericho, a precision bombing raid on Amiens prison by the RAF’s 2^nd Tactical Air Force, frees 258 prisoners including many belonging to the French resistance. However, more than 100 prisoners were killed by the bombing and two-thirds of the escapees were re-captured. (See BBC WW2 Timeline.)

19th February 1944 – Operation Argument (better known as ‘Big Week’) begins with an RAF bombing raid on Leipzig.  The Operation, designed to lure the Luftwaffe into a decisive battle, launched a series of attacks on the German aircraft industry, led by the USA Air Force, who could now defend their long-range bombers with Mustang fighter planes. Until 26^th February they bombed the factories and air fields relentlessly by day and the RAF followed up, bombing the cities by night. (See BBC Big Week Fact File.)

20^th February 1944 – a Norwegian Resistance commando, Knut Haukelid, succeeds in sinking the SF Hydro ferry carrying heavy water from the Telemark production plant.  This might have been used by Germany to develope nuclear bombs. Following Operation Gunnerside and subsequent heavy bombing by the US Air Force, the plant was being closed down and remaining stocks moved to Germany.

 

22^nd February 1944 – US Air Force planes controversially bomb Nijmegen in Holland. (See WW2 Talk Forum.)

Hitler leaves his headquarters at the Wolfsschanze in East Prussia, which is now within range of the Soviet Air Force and moves to the Berghof, his Alpine retreat in Bavaria.