75 years ago - a 'cushy' time in Birmingham

First page of letter on 61st Reconnaissance Regiment paper posted on Thursday 10^th February 1944

2/Lt RKWilliams

Royal Armoured Corps

Brandon, Suffolk

Chotie Darling,

                                    Sorry I haven’t written before this, but haven’t really had time.

            I was inoculated yesterday morning and owing to a severe shortage of officers in the Squadron I’ve had to remain on duty all the time.  I was out on the range yesterday and got pretty cold, as a consequence of which I went to bed feeling a little pallid.  On crawling out of bed this morning I found I couldn’t stand, so I promptly crawled back again.  However, I got up for lunch and am feeling a lot better now, though I still ache all over.

            Hope you managed to stay in bed after your jab, nothing’s more miserable than having to stay on duty.

            I’m going on a week’s course at Birmingham on the 15^th, luckily it won’t affect my leave.  It’s a very cushy course as students (?) stay at the Officers Club and all the instructors are civilians.  Pity Eric doesn’t still live there.  I received three oranges today – there’s an issue of three per officer in the mess.  However, like the good little boy I am, I’m sending them home to mother.

            I had a day in Cambridge last week – a lovely town.  Unfortunately it’s full of Yanks and there’s a beer shortage.  Notwithstanding these two major calamities I managed to have quite a good time.

            Apart from this one excursion I haven’t been out at all.  Unless you get at least 24 hrs off it’s not worth going anywhere.  Cambridge is the only place worth going to and that’s some forty miles or so.

            Just had a letter from Brinner.  He’s now started on Machine Gun (Vickers) which is the last phase of his training.  I also wrote to Diller to get her to change her leave, so that we’ll be home together.

            Would you let me know what time you’ll be arriving home so that I can make arrangements from this end.  (That is of course if you can get 72 hrs).

            Must close here, Darling as my arm’s giving me merry Hell.

                                                All my love

                                                            Dicker

 

This letter was written to Private B. E. Chalkley in ‘A’ Troop O.F.C. ATS, 462 Hy(M) Bty RA, Markham Camp, Easton-in-Gordano, Bristol so Chotie seems to have moved from ‘B’ Troop but in the same battery.

 © Chotie Darling

61^st Recce moved again before 17^th February – this time to Whittlesford near Cambridge.  It was here that they were “inspected along with 151 The Durham Light Infantry Brigade by the Divisional Commander General Graham and by General Montgomery.  We were also inspected by King George VI, and then by General Eisenhower wearing an immaculate midnight blue uniform.”  (Extract from ‘My War Years’ by John Eric Postles ISO used by kind permission of the author.)

Dick’s course in Birmingham was on armoured cars – he wrote to Chotie during a lecture on the lubrication system.  On Friday he saw a “particularly good” concert with the Russian pianist Leff Pouishnoff and the London Symphony Orchestra and met up with his sister Diller and Chotie’s friend Mary Dakin in Leicester at the weekend.  Diller was stationed there in the Pay Corps.  Returning to Whittlesford he wrote to Chotie again on 23rd February.

Whittlesford is right next to the celebrated Duxford Aerodrome, in February 1944 home to the 78th Fighter Group, who escorted the American bombers on their perilous daylight bombing raids. Britain and America were trying to force the Luftwaffe into a decisive air battle over Germany with heavy RAF raids on German cities by night and daylight bombing by the USAAF targeting factories and airfields.  Operation Argument (better known as 'Big Week') began on 19^th February 1944 with relentless bombing in vast raids of US planes, including the 78^th Fighter Group.

On 20^th February Norwegian resistance commandos succeeded in sinking the ferry carrying the remaining heavy water from Telemark (which could have been used by the Nazis to produce a nuclear bomb) to Germany.

The Russians bombed Helsinki in Finland on 26^th February (although Britain had declared war with Finland, which was allied with Germany, the US never did).  Adolph Hitler’s base on the Eastern Front, the Wolfsschanze, was now within the range of the Soviet air force so he moved his headquarters back to the Berghof in Bavaria.  However, he would not permit German troops in the Ukraine to withdraw and 20,000 were killed by the Red Army near the Dnepr River.

At Anzio in Italy the Germans staged repeated fierce attacks but although casualties were high the Allies succeeded in holding their beach-head.  On 15^th February Allied aircraft bombed the historic monastery of Monte Cassino but assaults on the mountain by New Zealand, Indian and Polish troops were held off by German paratroopers.

In the Pacific the US was successfully attacking the Japanese held Marshall, Caroline and Admiralty Islands.  They also launched their own version of the Chindits (Long-range Penetration Groups) in Burma - known as Merrill’s Marauders, these guerrillas operated deep in the jungle behind Japanese lines.  The British and Indian armies in Burma’s Arakan held their position against the Japanese in the Battle of the Admin Box.

The Allies were on the offensive and preparing for 'undoubtedly the most complicated and difficult' Operation ever taken (Churchill) – Operation Overlord.