From 17th to 25th September 1942 Dick had nine days Privilege Leave and spent some of this with Chotie. He returned to Dover via Hastings and sent her a postcard from there.
Hastings postcard
Writing to her again on 28th September he apologised for being “rather vacant”:
“I find it very difficult to act normally when home on leave, as I suppose all the time I realise that I have to come back to this existence.”
Perhaps inspired by his Mechanics course he’d applied for a transfer to the Engineers. It also seems that Chotie was planning a “change of employment” – possibly thinking of joining up? (She joined the ATS in January 1943).
A few days later he wrote again, teasing Chotie about becoming an old maid, so the engagement does not appear to have taken. He was enjoying the glories of autumn, vividly described in his next letter after a “four day scheme” or exercise. He’d also met a “very decent subaltern”, Ronnie Jury, who was to become a great friend.
This letter was sent on a Sunday in October 1942, probably the 25th:
Sunday
My darling Chotie,
Please excuse my writing in pencil but I came in a hurry and forgot my pen. I’m writing this in a Methodist Church Army Show, a hellish place to find oneself on a Sunday evening…However in a hour or so the Ritz will be open…
I’ve been on the range all yesterday and today – marking in the butts (too technical for you?) means you signal the shots from the target end. Very boring. We manage to alleviate part of the boredom by betting on our own target. After two days I’m where I started ! Not over profitable. I’m on again Monday and Tuesday.
Met a farmer on Friday. Charming. Quite the style with orange waistcoat etc, and a moustache like Marshall Budenny*. Very interesting. We talked for over two hours, mostly on farming topics. Needless to say he was born and bred here, (man and boy for nigh on forty year etc…). Altogether a very nice bloke, by which I mean he stood me a couple of pints…
Needless to say I haven’t yet heard from that rat du Rose. If you see him, tell him from me, he’s a SNAKE!
Fancy you liking Maggie Mitchell’s tale of ‘Ye Olde South South’***! Very surprising. It’s on here. Queues about a mile long for each performance. There’s certainly a sucker born every minute…
I went into a Church Army place this afternoon and found to my horror that they were issuing free teas. Now when you get your tea gratis they expect you to stay to a temperance service afterwards. There was a crowd of effeminate-looking service men seated round a table with various civilian was-led-in-the-blood-of-the-Lambers****, so I beat a hasty Dunkirk out of the place…
Well, my Precious – will close here and see if I can’t find a drop of something warm somewhere.
All my love,
Dicker
P.S. Will write again tomorrow or Tuesday.
*Marshall Budenny – a Soviet military commander with a moustache wider than his face.
**du Rose – one of Dick’s close companions in the Dorset Regiment. See http://www.chotiedarling.co.uk/my-blog/2010/09/enter-du-rose.html .
*** ‘Gone with the Wind’, from the book by Margaret Mitchell giving an idyllic portrayal of the USA’s deep South during the Civil War era, despite the reliance on slavery. It went on general release in 1941 and has been hailed as one of the greatest American films of all time.
****Possibly a mischievous reference to the Salvation Army.
© Chotie Darling
43rd Reconnaissance had continued training from their base in Dover with lectures and a major emphasis on firing skills (rifle and Bren guns).
Back in Dorset HMS Turtle, which was to become the Royal Marines base in Poole, was opened on 7th October 1942. On 12th October Churchill specifically praised the exploits of the commandos in his speech "Keep right on to the end of the road".
However, on 4th October a breach of wartime convention – killing a German soldier with his hands tied i.e. a prisoner – by the Small Scale Raiding Force led to Hitler’s Commando Order on 18th October – that all Allied commandos taken prisoner were to be killed (a flagrant breach of the 1929 Geneva Convention).
In October 1942 Roosevelt announced the establishment of a United Nations commission to investigate war crimes.
Bitter fighting continued in the Solomon Islands and on the Russian front, as the Germans continued their attempts to take Stalingrad and the Caucasus. Allied raids on Italian cities intensified in 1942 and on 28th October the RAF bombed Genoa and Turin.
In Africa Montgomery launched an attack on the German and Italian line at El Alamein – although Rommel lost half his panzer tanks the line held. The Americans were holding secret talks with Vichy France leaders in Algiers, hoping to prevent opposition to their imminent landings in North Africa. (General de Gaulle, the leader of the Free French, was not told about this invasion until it was taking place on 8th November).
As the tide of the war was about to turn a British Navy’s raid on a sinking U-boat submarine seized an Enigma machine and code-books crucial to Bletchley Park’s deciphering of German Naval messages.
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