Letter written on Friday 10th December 1943
“St Margarets”, Pagham
Friday
Chotie Darling,
I’m sitting in front of the fire at home, writing this on nine days leave! I’d just come back from a five days exercise, when I was told I’d been given a new troop (I only had the previous troop as a temporary measure) and that they were all going on leave the following morning so I’d better go with them.
I spent the first day in London and I’m going up again for a few days tomorrow – so that I can get this business of ‘seeing the relatives’ over for once and all.
Had quite a good time on the exercise, as I was not actively engaged – only umpiring, and on a motor bike, which gave me plenty of scope in getting about. Had half an hour or so in Herne bay and saw Monica and baby. She’s been under the doctor for treatment of some sort as she’s getting so fat. The baby looks all right to me, but then I’m no judge of that sort of thing. Her elder brother has just got married in Scotland so the whole family’s married now. Didn’t see anyone else I knew as I had so little time there, though most of them are away anyhow.
Spent one evening in Canterbury and had a little crawl by myself visiting the ‘Falstaff’, ‘Fleur-de-lis’ (sic), ‘Country’, ‘Shakespeare’ and ‘Three Carpenters’ , the five best known there.
Spent one night on a AA Site and slept on a sofa in the Recreation Hut. I don’t know whether it was mixed or not – if it was I was taking the helluva chance….these A/A women**….
Hope to see a couple of lunch-time concerts at the National Gallery – only missed one this week by a few minutes. Have heard a couple of Beethoven Symphonies this week which isn’t too bad.
It must seem ages since I wrote you last. Unfortunately I went on exercise with only about an hour’s notice which wasn’t even time to get a motorcycle or riding kit. I borrowed breeches for this show and wore them the whole five days. Either they were cut for a very thin bloke or they’d shrunk or something but they cut my legs to ribbons. Murder!
How are you these days? – cold I expect…If it were not for the fact that I’m sitting in front of a fire I should probably have written half a page – or less.
(Interlude for hot chocolate and cake….)
Space to denote passage of time.
Do you remember the Green Child’s head on the mantelpiece – the one Diller got in Belgium? Dad’s latest trick is to put a cigarette in its mouth. Looks horrible!
Incidentally I’ll send you some shekels for Xmas – it’s no use me trying to get anything – so that you can do some shopping or a show or something in Bristol. I’ve had to give up coupons for the other ranks’ kit I’ve kept – 18 for 2 pairs of boots! etc so at the moment I don’t know how much I’m worth. I will send some eventually.
I’m enclosing a book which I’ve been trying to get for the past year or more. Tell me what you think of it.
I’d better close here.
All my love, Darling
Dicker
*’The Falstaff’ http://www.thefalstaffincanterbury.com/?S=GADS&gclid=CIjL7oKBobsCFWfkwgod6zsAnQ and ‘The Shakespeare’ https://www.shakespearecanterbury.com/ are still open, ‘the Country’ was probably ‘The County Hotel’ http://www.dover-kent.com/County-Hotel-and-Tudor-Bar-Canterbury.html and is now the Abode Hotel http://www.abodecanterbury.co.uk/ , the ‘Three Carpenters was probably the ‘Three Compasses’ http://www.dover-kent.com/Three-Compasses-Canterbury.html (now the Lady Luck http://theladyluck.co.uk/) and the ‘Fleur de Lys’ is closed http://www.closedpubs.co.uk/kent/canterbury_fleurdelys.html.
** Chotie was an AA (Anti-Aircraft) woman in the ATS - they were also known as Ack-Ack Girls. (See http://ww2today.com/27th-december-1942-the-life-of-an-ats-ack-ack-girl.) The situation of the Ack-Ack Girls, often posted alongside men in mixed batteries, and some initial disciplinary issues, led to a loose reputation https://www.chotiedarling.co.uk/my-blog/2013/04/gunnery-wednesday-28th-april-1943.html that may have been ill-founded (although some male officers might have taken advantage of their command).
Chotie was stationed in a mixed heavy artillery anti-aircraft battery at Markham Camp, Easton-in-Gordano near Bristol. 61st Recce were based at Lympne Castle, near Folkestone, Kent.
Lympne Castle in 1830 (from Wikipedia) , now a wedding venue
© Chotie Darling
On 9th December Dick was officially discharged from 43rd Recce, his regiment before officer training. Ironically he was to spend a good part of December 1943 on Exercise Vulcan, an exercise designed to train the 43rd (Wessex) Division for its attacking role in NW Europe while 61st Division played the defending force. Dick returned from nine days leave on 16th December to find himself on the ‘scheme’ from 5 o’clock the next day with his new troop. He managed to write to Chotie during a 'lull' in the battle and had met up with ‘Chunky’, his room-mate during officer training. Eric Postles remembers Exercise Vulcan for the incessant rain - returning on Christmas Eve Dick “spent the whole of the Xmas hols trying to get dry, warm & clean again” (letter to Chotie of 26th December 1943 ).
At least Dick hadn’t been sent down the mines – one in 10 conscripts were now ‘Bevin boys’ working to ensure Britain’s supply of coal for the war effort. Hitler’s strangle hold on arms, goods and men, from across the Atlantic, was loosening, however. Allied shipping losses from ‘U’-boat attacks had more than halved during 1943, thanks to the Navy’s information from the codebreakers at Bletchley Park. On 8th December Tommy Flowers produced Colossus, the world’s first programmable computer was, which was quickly installed at Bletchley to obtain crucial information on German Channel defences prior to ‘D-Day’.
On 26th December the Royal Navy succeeded in sinking the German battle cruiser Scharnhorst in the Arctic Sea. The RAF continued its heavy bombing of German cities with a firestorm attack on Leipzig on 4th December and also bombed the V1 flying bomb bases in France – the flying bombs were not used against the Allies until June 1944.
In Italy the Allied 5th Army at last broke through the Bernhardt line at Monte Camino and the Germans withdrew to the Gustav line at Monte Cassino, guarding the main route to Rome. The Canadians leading the Allied 8th Army on the Adriatic side of the Apennines met fierce German resistance on route to Ortona but held the port by 28th December. Further south the Luftwaffe raid on Bari on 2nd December put this port out of action until February and hit a US ship secretly carrying mustard gas (for use if Hitler embarked on chemical warfare in Italy). Many civilians and troops were poisoned but the Allies tried to cover up the incident, which was not fully exposed until 1967.
In Yugoslavia the Allies recognised Tito’s communist forces, who were leading resistance against the Nazis as the future government of the country on 15th December. The same day the first war crimes tribunal against Nazi atrocities was held by the Soviet military at Kharkov in the Ukraine, following the discovery of 15,000 bodies in a mass grave near the city at Drobitsky Yar (from a massacre of the Jewish population in December 1941).
On 4th December Churchill and Roosevelt had met with President İnönü of Turkey in Cairo trying to enlist neutral Turkey’s support for the Allies (Turkey di not declare war on Germany until February 1945). Churchill had been exhausted since the Tehran conference at the end of November and almost died from an attack of pneumonia when visiting Eisenhower in Tunis before Christmas (from ‘The Second World War’ by Antony Beevor, published by Weidenfield and Nicolson 2012). Britain almost lost her leader just as the critical plans for Operation Overlord, the invasion of NW Europe, needed to be put in place.
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