61st Recce Regt RAC
AP.O.
England
Monday
Chotie Darling,
I’m afraid I haven’t written you for some time, due to divers reasons – partly due to pressure of work and partly due to the fact that I took the opportunity of having a day off yesterday to go home for the day.
To say I had the day off is a slight exaggeration as I was working up till midday – and not trusting to buses & trains, owing to the state that these things are in, I decided to cycle*. When I was half way home it started to rain and I rode the remainder in a torrential downpour. However it cleared during the brief time I was at home and I cycled back in comparative peace. It took me four hours each way, so I only had some three hours at home.
I’ve given my greatcoat to Brinner as I won’t need it any more – coupled with some pretty sound advice on how to ‘go on’ when commissioned. He’ll gladly accept the coat – though not the advice, I fancy.
No more news from this end – things are going as per routine.
I managed to buy a pair of fleece-lined boots – knee-high black ones. Cost me a fortune but they’re the only thing. I don’t fancy lacing up army boots and anklets on a cold morning, a thing that has always offended my sense of having things cushy.
Have just heard Schubert’s 8th (unfinished), the best thing that has happened to me for weeks.
At long last they’ve got some beer in the mess (?) so tonight I intend to imbibe a little. I shall have to break myself in gently as I haven’t even smelled the stuff for over a week.
Went to the flicks with Geoff** last Sat. We both thought that ‘The Lodger’ was on and went gaily in, to find that it was on next week. What we saw in actual fact was ‘Bees in Paradise’….*** Geoff said it was the best leg-show he’s seen in years, but apart from that, it stank. I bitterly endorsed his words.
Are you reading Captain Foulenough’s résumé of his life story in ‘Beach-Comber’s Column in the Express?**** I never miss it. I’m trying to get a grip on two films at the moment ‘Heart of a Nation’ and ‘Le Jour se lève’, (Gabin)*****. Both seem out of the question, though I could have seen the former at the ‘Academy’ when I stopped in Town on returning from Scotland.
Well, Darling, how are you these days? Cheering up with the Spring I expect. As I am. The countryside around here is beginning to look lovely now, though it’s still a little early. There is also an abundance of thatched cottages in this area. I’d just love to get to work on one or two of them, as the whole place is almost completely unspoiled.
It’s really a very pleasant spot, and I’ve always gone for primroses….
Must close here to relieve the Adjutant ‘cos he wants his dindin – the rat.
All my love
Chotie
Dicker
P.S. No signs of leave?
P.P.S. The photo I had taken is absolutely shocking. I’m sending it on…
RKWilliams
*Some 40 miles between Nightingale Wood and Pagham!
**Presumably Geoff Winzer.
***’The Lodger’ is a 1944 horror film about Jack the Ripper while ’Bees in Paradise’ is a musical comedy with ‘scantily clad warrior women’.
****Captain Foulenough was a character in the entertaining ‘Beachcomber’ column. (See Beachcomber.)
*****’The Heart of a Nation’ is a French drama film made in France in 1940, which escaped the Nazis be released as a dubbed version in 1943 in New York. ‘Le Jour se lève’ (Daybreak) is a French poetic realism film made in 1939 and starring Jean Gabin.
© Chotie Darling
17th April 1944 – the British Royal Navy and Bomber Command begin intensive mining of the approaches to the English Channel to protect the D-Day invasion fleet. (From Chronology of World War II .)
18th April 1944 – in Exercise Smash), practice for the landings on D Day, is the largest live ammunition exercise of the war. Staged at Studland in Dorset (not far from Chotie’s home in Poole) Eisenhower, Churchill and Montgomery watched from Fort Henry. The exercise showed the vulnerability of the floating Duplex Drive Valentine tanks – some are still wrecks in the bay.
19th April 1944 – Ichi-Gō offensive by Japanese aiming to eliminate the airfields used by the US Army’s Fourteenth Air Force. Advancing in north-east China they reached Honan province where the local peasants, starved and looted by their own troops, turned on the fleeing Nationalist Army. (From ‘The Second World War’ by Antony Beevor, published by Weidenfield and Nicolson 2012)
The Allied Fleet begins their attacks on Japanese bases on Sumatra in Operation Cockpit.
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