Chotie Darling

75 years ago - Home, Married and at Rest

 

Dick was killed at the end of March 1945, less than 6 weeks before the end of the war in Europe.

He met Chotie for the first time since D Day on 1^st March in Pagham, where he was home on leave with his parents.  Five days later they married under under special license at Chichester registry office.  Their one night of honeymoon was spent at the lovely Spreadeagle Hotel in Midhurst, West Sussex.  On 7^th March they returned to be with family and on the 8^th Dick “Left Bognor for Dover via Victoria” to rejoin the war.

 Mr and Mrs Richard Williams with Dick's parents at Pagham

 

Meanwhile his regiment, now the 52^nd (Lowland) Reconnaissance, had at last crossed the anti-tank ditch at Afferden, defended tenaciously by German paratroopers.  They advanced into Germany, south-west towards Geldern and the Rhine.  On 3^rd March Montgomery’s pincers in the Northern Rhineland (British XXX Corps with Canadian 1^st Army for 'Operation Veritable' and the US 9^th Army for 'Operation Grenade') at last met at Geldern, about 10 miles from the Rhine, east of the Ruhr industrial region.  Dick’s ‘C’ Squadron were nearly at Twisteden, five miles to the north-west.  On 7^th March 52^nd Recce took over from 53^rd Recce to lead the Rhineland advance. 

Further south the US 1^st Army’s 9^th Armored Division dashed forward to secure an intact bridge over the Rhine at Remagen (between Bonn and Koblenz).  They secured a bridgehead across the Rhine and successfully defended the bridge from the relentless German attacks, including the use of V2 missiles.

 

Chotie wrote to Dick from Pagham on 9th March: “It was very wonderful to be with you for even this short while, so it is a glorious thought that we have a life-time to spend.  Don’t feel too blue – I am trying not to.”

 

Dick, having travelled overnight via Calais, had reached Bourg Leopold in Belgium, where he managed to spend a couple of days with his brother Bryn.  He wrote to Chotie on 12th March just before rejoining his regiment – his home leave had perhaps not been idyllic:

“You must find me terribly moody.  I try not to be, but since the beginning of the war I find I’m completely di-orientated at home.”  (My mother said Dick ‘knew’ he was going die and they cried all night on their honeymoon.)

 

Meanwhile on 10^th March Dick’s ‘C’ Squadron had been tasked with reconnaissance of the Rhine west bank along a four to five mile frontage near Menzelen (north-east of Geldern, near Xanten and Wesel).  At Menzelen they met no opposition and took a dozen prisoners.  There was more German resistance at Ginderich (nearer the river to the north) but they were soon backed up by infantry.  Pushing on via Gest (en route towards Wesel) they reached the Rhine at dusk and could observe hundreds of Germans on the opposite bank.  Calling down an artillery bombardment on the German defences, they also captured an enemy patrol sent back across the river to recover equipment.

From 12^th March 52^nd Recce rejoined their Division (52^nd Lowland), although squadrons were detached to work with various Scottish regiments – ‘C’ Squadron were with the Highland Light Infantry (City of Glasgow Regiment).

 

Dick was at Ginderich on 13^th March ‘resting’.

Photo labelled 'Ginderich, March 1945'. Dick is on the right.

 

Chotie wrote to him from her home in Parkstone where she was enjoying being 'Absent without leave' with her best friend, Mary Dakin.  She wrote again later, after a miserable time at the dentist, having broken a tooth on her mother’s home-made toffee.  She was meant to return to her unit now after 14 days leave.

Dick wrote on 14th March from a “cushy billet (no windows but everything else is OK)” where he’d had a party with three other “Bolshie subalterns” and had made a new friend, Peter Evans.  Lieutenant Evans had led ‘C’ Squadron’s ‘almost copybook advance to the River Rhine at Ginderich’ (Trevor Whitfield) and subsequently received the Military Cross for this and his role in clearing the Scheldt Estuary in autumn 1944.  Dick’s old friend from 61^st Recce, Ronnie Jury, was now a Liaison Officer “in some Corps or other.  A pretty steady job but not much excitement.”  After the war he returned to painting and taught at the Slade School of Art.

Don Aiken recalls that the 52^nd Recce were now pulled back about a mile from the river awaiting the Rhine crossing, which was preceded by an intense build-up of men and equipment.  Like Dick, some of the men passed the time in bare-back riding the horses left by the Germans.  One of Don’s troop was killed by a single shot across the river while riding.

 

Chotie wrote on Friday 16th March with some good news – she’d been granted another 7 days leave so would not be punished on her return.  Relatives were still sending money for their wedding presents and Chotie was enjoying taking her sister Margaret’s baby, Roger, out in his pram.  Her younger sister Beryl was also at home – they went to see ‘Kismet’ at the cinema.

On Saturday night Hull, where Chotie’s anti-aircraft battery were stationed, was attacked by a single Heinkel, which killed 13 people and injured 22.  Chotie wrote again on Sunday 18th while packing to return there and sent another letter when she was back at Fort Godwin (on Spurn Point near Easington, east of Hull) after "an eventful journey".  She’d treated herself to lunch at a Spanish restaurant near King’s Cross and missed her train.  Arriving late in Hull a fellow lady in her carriage had invited her to stay so she enjoyed supper, a comfy bed and bacon and eggs for breakfast.  “Everyone” back at the battery was excited about her marriage and she seemed to have told her “tale about a hundred and one times”.

 

On the west bank of the Rhine 52nd Reconnaissance Regiment had been assigned traffic control duties as part of the preparation for ‘Operation Plunder’ (the Rhine crossing), although their ‘A’ Squadron was now with 1^st Commando Brigade – destined to lead the assault across the river. 

Dick was at Kevelaer, back from the line and north of Geldern, in a 300 year old cottage “having evicted the ‘civvies’ ”.  He wrote to Chotie that he’d spent 48 hours painting signs (presumably for traffic control) after a very close shave when a shell killed the bloke next to him.

 

Chotie wrote on Wednesday 21st: “We had a spot of excitement last night” so Hull may have been under attack again.  She was furious Dick had shaved off his moustache.  He’d written “I reckon I look much better without it.  I now look eighteen instead of thirty-five” (he was 23).  Chotie was enjoying walking on the beach in the sun with friends.  On the 23rd she wrote “It is decidedly better up here, now that Spring is here” and was hoping to stay with her ATS friend Nan’s family in Yorkshire.

 

At 6pm on 23^rd March Operation Plunder began with a massive artillery barrage along the Rhine from Nijmegen to the Ruhr – the largest bombardment undertaken by the Royal Artillery during the war.  A huge smokescreen was amassed to assemble supplies near the front and at nightfall the RAF saturated the town of Wesel, on the east bank with high explosive bombs.  52^nd Lowland Division, with their guns trained on the bank near Wesel was “in the front row of the grandstand at one of the most imposing spectacles ever staged".  General Eisenhower watched the operation from within the Division’s beat for a while.

Sandy Handley in Dick’s No 15 troop remembered “we were on the banks of the Rhine opposite the town of Wesel” in a large bulldozed ditch. Their officer told them the artillery barrage was about to start - canon and rockets were fired with a deafening noise – and later came to their car again to tell them this was only the beginning: “he said at 11 o’clock pm ALL THE LOT was going to open up.  At 11 o’clock we found out what he meant!  The noise was terrible; my nerves were getting a bit jaded.  There we were, in front of all these guns, yards from the actual river. 

I suggested to the other chap we go under the Daimler, which we did, scooping ourselves a little dugout.  We thought the deeper we dug the more safe we were…”  They had a complicated code to send back messages but Sandy was so shaken he just relayed the message in phonetic terms: “At times like these certain things didn’t go text book fashion…I had experienced these artillery barrages since we landed but this was the Daddy of them all.”

The first attack towards Rees (north of Wessel), led by 51st Highland Division, was a diversion from the main attack.  1st Commando Brigade with 52nd Recce’s ‘A’ Squadron, quietly crossed the river at 10 pm.  The Recce were in canvas boats with oars – their job was to provide beach control parties for the commandos and keep up communications across the river while the commandos observed radio silence.  By mid-morning the Commandos had secured most of the town – of the 1,600 men with them 11 were killed and 17 missing. 

The 15^th Scottish Division also crossed during the night, north of Wesel while to the south the US 9^th Army had crossed between Wesel and Rheinberg on an 11 mile front.

“In the early hours of the next morning the guns had ceased firing and we could actually hear birds singing.  One of the Officers in charge of our section came over to our Daimler and said “Well done men!” although I didn’t think we’d done anything except cringe under the Daimler… The officer then said at 10 o’clock this morning the Airborne paratroops and gliders will come over and land on the other side of the river near Wesel … precisely at 10 o’clock we heard a roar which grew louder and louder.  Someone said “Here they come”.  They flew low.  It was one of the greatest memorable sights I have ever seen, unforgettable.  First the paratroopers, then the gliders being towed over this great river.” (Sandy Handley)

 At 10 am on 24^th March 'Operation Varsity' began with more than 3,000 planes and gliders dropping over 16,000 men of the British 6^th Airborne and the US 17^th Airborne Division.  Unfortunately they were landing in ‘Flak Alley’ – the main defences for the Ruhr – and took more than 2,000 casualties.  However, by nightfall they’d met up with the ground forces and captured 3,500 German soldiers.  Montgomery’s  bridgehead over the Rhine was established.

Don Aiken, was also on the bank of the Rhine having volunteered to assist the Royal Engineers with communications.  After the air landings they went in under heavy fire to build pontoons across the river for getting ground troops across.  Don was waiting for a runner to come from the next armoured car with the latest message when, poking his head out of the turret in a lull, he found the runner had been killed by a German shell landing close by. 

The bridges were constructed and in a few hours the infantry had crossed followed by tanks.  Soon the pontoon bridge was a two-way highway: “all the paraphernalia of an attacking army was crossing into Germany” and “long lines of German soldiers were being marched out to Prisoner of War camps somewhere in England”.  8,000 Royal Engineers assisted the crossing of the Rhine.

 

The rest of 52^nd Recce, now based in a tented camp in woods near Sonsbeck (between Kevelaer and the Rhine), were given the administrative job of getting the leading battalions and regiments from their concentration area up to the river bank.

Dick wrote on 24th March: “Well my darling, I’m in a smashing billet away from my troop in charge of about 20 miles of road as Traffic Control Officer.  Imagine it, armband and all!  I look quite a dog…I’m with two other subalterns who share my taste in living so we’re really very happy.  I’m afraid it won’t last for long though – it’s much too cushy for that.” 

 

Chotie was on watch between 10 and 3 am that night when she wrote to Dick:

“The news is good again today, darling, - it can’t be long now.  When you come back and when we can be together always, well, won’t it be wonderful?

One day next week, if we get a spot of ‘off duty’, a whole crowd of us are hoping to get cracking on a ‘binge’ - celebrating my third week of being married or something.” 

 

By midnight on 24^th/25^th March 80,000 Allied troops had crossed the Rhine, including Winston Churchill who went over the river in a landing craft near Wesel.  Over the next couple of days there were more Rhine crossings by the Americans to the south and the US 1^st Army broke out of their Remagen bridgehead and marched south to join up with Patton’s 3^rd Army forces.

 

Chotie wrote to Dick again on the 26th, having received a letter from Brinner: “It’s marvellous that you are so near to each other.  I hope you manage to meet.”

“Just think, darling, tomorrow we have been married 3 weeks...  I spend quite a lot of my time just dreaming of things to come.  Have built us a home and furnished it (all in my imagination) most marvellously.  I think I had better see what I can do with a Missen, probably have to.”

 

By 27th March the Rhine bridgehead north of the Ruhr was 35 miles wide and 20 miles deep and 52^nd Recce’s ‘A’ Squadron reverted to regimental command.

52^nd Reconnaissance Regiment “moved over the Rhine under a full moon in the early hours of Good Friday, 30^th March, 1945; crossing on one of the various pontoons and Bailey bridges built in record time by the Royal Engineers.  Mile after mile of vehicles queued for the limited space on the roads, therefore it was mid-afternoon before the regiment was concentrated near the town of Mehr (north-west of Wesel), just a few miles east of the Rhine, ready to take part in what was a rapid advance into Germany” (Carl Shilleto).

 

Dick wrote his last letter to Chotie:  from “a windowless ‘brewed-up’ house with with half a gale blowing but having so much spiritual warmth I’m not unduly cold.  My cushy post has gone with the wind and I’m now back on the job again…Nothing very thrilling to write about – so I’ll close here.

                                                          Your loving husband

                                                                        Dicker.”

 

Photos from the BBC's VE Day 70: A Party to Remember - Honeysuckle Weeks and Laurence Fox read extracts from Chotie and Dick's letters.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

At Mehr ‘C’ Squadron were placed in reserve, earmarked for Prisoner of War duties.  Dick learnt that Bryn’s unit was in the vicinity and set out to visit him in his small Daimler Dingo.  He was taking Bryn back when the car hit a small crater in the road, made by a shell or bomb.  Dick was killed instantly while Bryn escaped with cuts and bruises.

Sandy Handley remembered:

“Sometime in the afternoon Mr Williams’ brother came towards us and introduced himself and said “Mr Williams, your Troop Officer, is dead”.  Naturally we were stunned…

Later we (the No. 15 Troop) attended a small burial ceremony conducted by the 52nd Division Padre for the burial.  I think we all wanted to pass our condolences on to Mr Williams’ brother, who sat in another staff car with his fellow officers…

We would miss Mr Williams.  He had been with us from Normandy June ’44 to March ’45.  From a trooper’s point of view this Officer had looked after his eleven men and never asked us to do or risk anything that he couldn’t do himself.  We liked Mr Williams and we were going to miss his coolness.  He thought his troop were a good team too… 

It seemed ironic that a man could live through the many hazards and horrors of war, from the beaches of Normandy (where the 61st had become the first Reconnaissance Regiment to come ashore) and through the terrible fighting on the Rhine, only to be killed in a traffic accident.  Perhaps most tragic of all though was that the young officer had just returned from some leave and had been married for only three weeks.”

 

Chotie, at Spurn Point in Yorkshire, was “in the large mess hall, full of people.  The Sergeant-Major handed me the telegram to say Dicker had been killed.  The saddest moment of my life.”

 

Lieutenant Richard Kelner Williams is laid to rest in the Reichswald Forest War Cemetery south-west of Kleve in Germany.

We will remember them.

The Last Post

 Alex de Groot's memorial photo of Dick's grave.

 

75 years ago - a move to Hull

At the beginning of November 1944 61^st Reconnaissance regiment were taking their first break since 6^th June (‘D’ Day). 

Dick’s ‘B’ squadron were in harbour at Winssen, 15 kilometres north-west of Nijmegan on the River Waal.  Dick had 48 hours leave from 2^nd November and drove a party the 120 miles to Antwerp along “pretty grim roads” in a three tonne truck.  It took about 5 hours but seemed well worth the effort.

          “The shops are fun and already very ‘Xmassy’ – though everything’s too dear for the local population.  Service men with plenty of money are lashing out as usual….Cafés full of cream cakes, ice-cream and the inevitable acorn coffee…I made a complete pig of myself.”  Dick avoided the ENSA shows and went for the cabarets and night-clubs “(full of Yanks, Canucks*, Poles, ATS, Canuck WAAGs, etc.)” including a few Belgian strip-tease acts. (*’Canuck’ was a nickname for Canadians)

          “Prices are murder! But drinks in the Officers’ Hotel are very cheap.”  He seems to have been rather drunk when he wrote to Chotie on 3rd November.

 

Both Dick and Eric Brewer returned to Winssen from Antwerp on 4^th November but two days later Eric was on the ‘the Island’ front-line again at Zetten on O.P. (Outpost? Operational Patrol?).  Dick wrote to Chotie from the comfort of Winssen on Tuesday 7th  and Wednesday 8th – he was enjoying reading George Bernard Shaw, listening to German radio and talking with the local Burgomaster (magistrate).  The Armoured car Officers held a “miserable” dance on the 7^th with Dick running the bar.  The only beer available was “chemical synthetic stuff…you can drink something like 20 pints without mental troubles…The brewers call it ‘hop-less’ – the boys ‘hopeless’.”

Chotie was now based at the 6^th Heavy (Mixed) Anti-Aircraft Practice Camp at Cleve near Bude in Cornwall.  RAF Cleave used some of the very first drones as targets, launched off the cliff using steam catapults. 

Anti-aircraft ATS training at RAF Cleave, Cornwall

It seems Chotie may have been learning how to tackle the V1 or V2 rocket-bombs, which were becoming a nightmare in eastern England.  One ‘buzz-bomb’ had fallen just near Eric Brewer’s house; on 7^th November he wrote home “I received the Gazette and saw where the BB fell. Blimey, it was close to the house.   Lucky it fell when it did – if it had been in the air a fraction of a second longer it would have hit the house.”

On 9^th November 50^th (Northumbrian) Division, with 61^st Recce, joined 2 Canadian Corps.  They had liberated Dieppe, Boulogne, Calais and Ostend and at last succeeded in clearing the Scheldt Estuary of Germans so Antwerp could be used as an Allied port.  (Until 11^th November the front-line had to rely on the ‘Red Ball Express’; a relay of US Army supply trucks from the Normandy beaches.)  Sandy Handley, who had taken a shine to one of the barge girls at Ewijk (the village next to Winssen) was not so pleased when the Canadians “muscled in”.

 

The rest of ‘B’ Squadron moved up to Zetten on 10^th November so Dick was back on the front-line.  He moved into the same house he was in about a month ago (presumably when 61^st Recce were based at Herveld, just south-east of Zetten, from 8^th to 13^th October with the 101st Airborne).  Here he was with a Protestant Minister who spoke six languages - “a man of considerable intellect and general broadness of horizon” - who gave his house as a home for unmarried mothers.   Dick wrote to Chotie again on the 12th “from an armchair in front of a lovely fire…There’s a ton of books in this house – also a Blüthner grand (piano), so I manage to amuse myself during my ‘free’ time.”

Although the men often wrote re-assuring letters to their loved ones at home Eric Brewer (still at Zetten on O.P.) takes it to a new extreme, writing on the same day to say he was visiting ENSA shows and local cinemas and “the lads who are doing the cooking have started to bring our breakfast round to us while in bed.”  On 13^th November the 61^st Reconnaissance war diary records “The water level at Nijmegan bridge has risen greatly in the last few days.  It is believed that the enemy is now in a position to flood ‘the Island’ by blowing the dykes on either the River Waal or the Neder Rijn” (Lower Rhine).  Eric Brewer was on forward O.P. by the river on the 15th “saw two chaps crawling so we changed our position.  Blooming cold tonight.  Plenty of Spandau fire, etc.”

 

‘B’ Squadron was relieved by ‘A’ Squadron the next day and moved back to Winssen.  Dick was busy with personal and vehicular maintenance, including about four hours of washing because “the laundry system here is lousy – there’s no marking ink available and you never get the same stuff back again.”  He wrote to Chotie thanking her for some photos and excusing himself from buying perfume since “all that sort of thing is in Belgium …  there’s the snag of changing guilders into Belgian francs – no mean task as the Field cashier is never seen within 20 miles of the ‘front’ and I’m certainly never 20 miles from it!...

        Thawing out for the first time for days” he enjoyed an evening by the stove with Ronnie Jury, drinking Burgundy and listening to classical music from Munich in Germany. 

 

By the next night all the Regiment were back on ‘the Island’ taking over the sector east of Elst from an entire Brigade (the 151^st).  They had to plan for evacuation in case the Germans breached the dykes – Exercise Noah.  (Anthony Rampling remembers this is just what they did.)  Eric Brewer was near Arnhem again in “about the coldest and wettest position I have ever been in. There is 2ft of water in the slit trenches and we have to stand in it…”  On Sunday 19^th the Regiment was visited by the commander of the Canadian Corps and the temporary commander of 50^th Division, Major General Lynne.  They watched a V2 being launched from just north of Arnhem, behind the German front line.

          The Allies, having crossed the German frontier to the south, now began to mine ‘the Island’.  “Spasmodic shelling and mortaring of the Regiment’s forward positions continued” and Eric Brewer’s position was also subject to machine gun fire.  One of the mine-laying ‘sappers’ dropped a mine and “got his foot blown off.  The shrapnel just missed us.”  By November 20th five of the men in Eric’s troop were also ill.

        That was the day Colonel Brownrigg received the news that 50^th Division was to return to the UK as a training Division and the 61^st Reconnaissance Regiment was to be disbanded.  Dick sent Chotie this elegiac letter:

 

Chotie Darling,

                                    Received your letter, and the gloves yesterday, along with some tobacco from home.  So it was really a bumper mail.  Thank you very much for the gloves, Precious, they’re certainly the answer out here.

            It’s now almost five o’clock in the afternoon, raining steadily and quite dark.  As the electricity hasn’t yet been switched on for the evening, I’m writing this by candlelight.  I’ve had a very enjoyable afternoon – I went for a walk!  This may sound a little odd,  but quite genuinely, I haven’t been walking anywhere since I left England.

            I went out about two o’clock in typical November weather – a pale wintry sun, a fair wind, and very muddy underfoot.  I went as far as the nearest dyke, as the lane running on top of it was much drier.

            There’s no grandeur in the countryside in this country, but there’s beauty in the old white-washed farmsteads, lying in the rich meadows alongside the dykes.  Many of these fields were already flooded, and the last autumnal leaves were falling in the water and being banked up against the other side by the wind.  The river, when we got here, was about a hundred yards wide, and now already reaches the dykes on either side – some seven or eight hundred yards apart.  If the dykes should fail in their purpose the whole countryside would be flooded for miles, and presumably everyone would be drowned – but they’re pretty stout banks.

            By half past three, the sun had vanished and there was a gentle rain coming down – so I walked back into the face of it.  Luckily it was a mild, soft rain – which was quite pleasant – as I’d taken the precaution of carrying a rain-coat.  I got back to a warm fire and Spam* & chips for tea so altogether I spent a very happy afternoon.  Needless to say I went alone as neither of my brother subalterns share my aesthetic views….

            To get back to earth, I find myself instructing on the NCO’s Cadre course from Wednesday to Sunday – which also seems pretty odd, when everyone in England takes us to be in the thick of it all the time!

            I suppose you to be back at Bristol now.  Have you found the Christopher Hotel** yet?  Eric and I had many a drink there back in ’41.  It was there that the memorable occasion occurred when I cheerfully ordered two beers, and then, after they had turned up, found we’d only got enough money between us to pay for the one!  I still remember the look on Eric’s face as he watched me drink it….

            How’s Margaret bearing up these days?  You didn’t mention her in your last letter.

            Haven’t heard from Bryn for some time so I’ve no idea what he’s doing – or even where he is.

            Can’t think of anything more for now, Darling, so I’ll close here.

                                                                        Much love, Precious

                                                                                    Your devoted

                                                                                                Dicker.

 

*A canned pre-cooked meat with pork shoulder and ham.

** Mentioned in letter of 1st April 1944.

 © Chotie Darling

Dick had been with 61^st Reconnaissance for a year, his first as an officer; shifting from coastal defence to preparation for ‘D Day’, fighting in Normandy for two months before crossing France to the Battle of Belgium and Operation Market Garden.  He’d now been stuck on the Netherlands front-line for another two months.

On 21^st November Eric Brewer was moving into a burnt house to make it a strong point when he was shelled by the Germans and shrapnel hit his tin hat.  The burnt-out house was “just like a luxury, as bad as it is.  Gerry still active and also plenty of mortars.”  On 22^nd he wrote home that he’d “been told some good news today but I am very sorry I can’t tell you what it is.” Presumably Eric thought he’d be returning to England.  However, that same day Colonel Brownrigg had driven to XXX Corps HQ and, with the Corps Commander Colonel Horrocks, managed to persuade Montgomery to cancel the break-up of 61^st Recce.  Horrocks said that the Regiment “would be worth a brigade to me”.  (The normal strength of a Reconnaissance Regiment was about 40 officers plus less than 750 'other ranks' while a Brigade was three to six times as large).

 

Back on ‘the Island’ shelling continued and enemy activity was detected, including submachine gun fire (from infantry or paratroopers). The regiment could see several V2s being launched every day only 10 miles north of their positions.

          Chotie’s unit had moved right across England to Barrow-on-Humber on the Lincolnshire coast (possibly to the Barrow Haven anti-aircraft battery, designed to protect the port of Hull).  V2 rocket bombs could reach Hull and the 462 Heavy (Mixed) Anti-Aircraft battery of the Royal Artillery was now part of their defence against the buzz-bombs.

 

Dick had said he was teaching a course from Wednesday 22^nd to Sunday 26^th November but on 25th November he was more than 150 miles south-west of Arnhem in the little Belgian town of Izegem, near Courtrai/Kortnjk.  He was “fixing up civvy billets for the Squadron” and was only about 20 miles from Oudenaarde, the town his Troop had liberated where he had made so many friends. 

Back on the Netherlands' front-line 61^st Recce’s Regimental HQ at Elst was heavily shelled on the night of the 28^th and two soldiers were killed.  Eric Brewer was sheltered in the burnt out house until the end of November.  However, the 61^st Reconnaissance Regiment was about to leave ‘the Island’ at last. 

75 years ago - out of Normandy and across France

On 1^st August 1944 the 61^st Reconnaissance Regiment was still engaged in Operation Bluecoat, Monty’s drive southward on the boundary between Panzer Group West and the German 7^th Army, to the west of Caen.  Dick’s  ‘B’ Squadron was sent in to recce Amayé-sur-Seulles (west of Villers Bocage) in support of 50th Division and took an active part in its liberation by 69^th Brigade (the East Yorks and the Green Howards) despite fierce opposition.  Don Aiken writes that Eric Brewer’s Assault Troop came under fire and sustained casualties and even Eric, in his usual re-assuring letter home admitted that they “came up against some stiff opposition and were held up for about an hour”.  He also describes seeing about 120 prisoners give themselves up, many in poor condition and happy to surrender.  Eric’s Troop commander, Lt. Philip Truman, received the Military Cross for his part in the action at Amayé-sur-Seulles, which is also included in Major Frank Harding’s citation for the M.C.

Meanwhile 11^th Armoured Division had pushed forward, liberating le Bény-Bocage on 1^st August and reaching the outskirts of Vire on 2^nd August with some elements of 61^st Recce, who found the town virtually undefended.  However, 11^th Armoured were ordered east, leaving the town to the Americans.  By the time XIX Corps arrived German forces had rushed in re-enforcements and Vire was not liberated until the 8^th August.  According to Eric Brewer Lt-General Demsey, commander of the British forces, later told 61^st Recce that they’d been three days ahead of 7^th Armoured Division and had to wait for them outside Vire.

However, on 4^th and 5^th August Eric was on recce near Villers-Bocage, which had finally been liberated by the 1^st Dorsets (Dick’s first regiment) of 50^th Division.  The town was one of the Division’s original D-Day targets, almost two months ago.

Dick had a ‘rest’ day on the 4th August collecting food, ammo, petrol, etc and wrote to Chotie, who had managed to spend some time at home with her family in Poole, enjoying the sun.

Some of Roy Howard’s ‘A’ Squadron troop received severe injuries while investigating a booby-trapped building on 4^th August. Snipers, booby-traps and mines were the perils of any advance in Normandy.

 

61^st Recce had taken over ‘holding the line’ near Caumont-l’Eventé from 43rd Division (another of Dick’s former units) who advanced against fierce German resistance to secure the important high ground of Mont Pinçon, south of Aunay-sur-odon, on 6^th August.  On 7^th August the Canadian 1^st Army renewed it’s offensive towards Falaise with Operation Totalize but were halted at Quesnay (north-west of Falaise and Potigny) by the 11^th.  On the 8^th Eisenhower, Montgomery and Bradley agreed a new plan to encircle German forces in Normandy with American forces swinging east to meet the Canadians at Argentan, south-east of Falaise.

On 8^th August Eric Brewer wrote home to say he was ‘still in a kind of reserve’ and helping with the cooking.  On 10^th August they moved on, bringing in six prisoners, and on the 11^th August Major Harding with ‘B’ Squadron captured an important hill (Point 266), north of Condé-sur-Noireau, ‘and destroyed or captured all the enemy on the hill’, holding it until relieved.  Eric Brewer wrote “plenty of mortars, shells and spandaus".  Don Aiken says they moved to a cross-roads near Aunay-sur-Odon on 11^th August where they came under shellfire and a driver in his troop was killed.

 

Chotie, now at Shurdington near Cheltenham (her Ack-Ack unit had moved again), visited the dentist on 11^th August.

Dick wrote to Chotie again on Saturday 12th August, on a ‘rest’ day again, which “involves a vast amount of work as all the armoured cars have to be maintained, all guns taken down and cleaned and all ammo, food, water, etc replenished.  It’s a good six to eight hour job, when you consider that my crews have to do their own cooking as well.”  He was in “quite a pleasant spot…but the artillery is pretty shocking…we’re living in a continual barrage.”

 

61^st Recce’s Lieutenant Flint was awarded a Military Cross for his reconnaissance in Lénault (south of Mont Pinçon) where he and his troop encountered and escaped the enemy and then directed mortar fire on their positions.  Eric Brewer’s commander Lieutenant Truman, carried out a classic patrol clearing up ‘a spot of trouble’ near Mont Pinçon.  Regimental HQ was set up at nearby at le Plessis-Grimault, “one of the most evil-smelling places in the Bocage” – presumably due to the remains of action in the area.

On 14^th August a new offensive, Operation Tractable, was launched to close the gap in the circle between the Canadians and the US 3^rd Army and trap the remains of German 7^th Army and Panzer Group West in the ‘Falaise Pocket’.  XXX Corps (now commanded by Lt-General Brian Horrocks) advanced towards Condé-sur-Noireau with 50^th Division and 61^st Recce, to push at the base of the pocket.  Dick executed his own minor heroics during this advance when overtaking “some armoured cars of a rival regiment, halted short of some suspicious-looking grass turves in the middle of the road.  ‘We can’t get on,’ they said, ‘Mines.’  Without a word Williams threw the turves in the ditch and drove on.”

 

Dick wrote to Chotie again on the 16th August “in some very lovely country now – more open and rolling, something like the Sussex Downs though more wooded.”  He’d very nearly had his third bath since landing and did have his third beer, “which makes 3½ pints since we landed.”  

50th Division were now near Condé-sur-Noireau, which was liberated by the 11th Armoured Division on 17th August.  On 18^th August the ‘big push’ began – 61^st Recce moved forward towards Argentan with ‘the Black Bull’ (11^th Armoured Division).  East of Putanges on19th August ‘A’ Squadron’s Lieutenant Griffiths was leading his troop ‘with the greatest of boldness against forces far superior in numbers’.  11^th Armoured Division captured 900 prisoners while pushing the Germans back north of Argentan.

 

On 19^th August the Canadian 1^st Army, with the 1^st Polish Armoured Division, finally linked up with the US 3^rd Army at Chambois but were unable to hold back the tide of escaping German forces.  Approximately 40,000 Germans escaped.  More than 10,000 Germans died in the Falaise pocket and 50,000 were taken prisoner (2,000 by 61^st Reconnaissance).  Eric Brewer’s diary records that 61^st Recce pushed on through the gap taking 200 prisoners on 20^th August. They advanced 20–30 miles and were the first English boys the civilians had seen.

The US 3^rd Army took Argentan on 20^th August after eight days of fighting and waiting there for the Canadians to break through.  The Falaise Gap was finally closed on 21^st August.  61^st Recce were advancing 30 miles a day, being mobbed by the newly liberated French in the towns and villages.  On 22^nd August they were at Falaise (north-west of Argentan), now a devastated killing field filled with the bodies of Germans piled several feet high – even the planes flying 10,000 feet above could smell the dead, which included thousands of horses used for transport.

 

After a brief time ‘back at base’ 61^st recce moved to Vernon, on the banks of the Seine between Rouen and Paris, on 25^th August – the day of its liberation.

Dick wrote to Chotie on 26th August, with a few hours to call his own.  “There’s little or no devastation where we are at present, which makes things so much more pleasant.”  This also meant the locals were friendlier – Eric Brewer enjoyed a warm welcome from a couple at Vernon and Dick had met a very hospitable chap living in a barn after his house was bombed.  While they were glad to accept alcohol - hoarded and brought out to celebrate the liberation - the British forces had been instructed to refuse meals “as the French people don’t even get enough for themselves, let alone anyone else” (Eric Brewer). 

Letter written on Monday 28^th and Tuesday 29^th August 1944

61^st Recce Rac

BLA

Monday Aug. 28^th

Chotie Darling,

                                    Many thanks for your letter dated the 23^rd which I’ve just this moment received. 

            Glad to hear you’re home at last if only for six days, and the prospect of a month’s course is quite a pleasant one to look forward to.  Don’t do anything too strenuous will you?  The first course I had was a P.T one* and they gave me a bending all right….

            I’ll send this to your home address and they can forward it as soon as they hear from you in Scotland.

            I imagine it’s pretty crowded at Parkstone at the moment now that the coastal ban has been lifted – mother says it’s pretty bad in Bognor.

            Sorry to hear about the pubs** – especially the Sloop.  It’s Dad’s pet grouse, of course, at present, though you’d better be in training for Scotland.

            Very sorry to hear about Adrian – I didn’t realise he was over here.

            I may have a chance to contact Ted in the next few weeks though it’s very difficult.  I spent over two hours trying to find Brinner today but without success.  Apparently he’s still at Base, Somewhere.  At any rate it’s safer there.

            I’ve had a fairly quiet time lately but can’t guarantee it will last.

            I’ve been in many villages first hand and have had a great welcome from the people.  We’re lucky this way of course – it’s one of the few compensations of being in front all the time.

            I’m very fit and still very happy here – I suppose the ability to chat with the people wherever you go helps a lot.

            I wish I could see you again, Darling, but I’d sooner get this business over, than go on leave and have to come back again.

            I think we’ve got the worst of it over but I can’t pretend there aren’t big battles to come.  We’ve beaten a complete army now, but we’ve had precious little time to rest on our laurels.  They still have armies left, but I think we can beat them also.

            I’ve just heard the good news of a day’s rest tomorrow so I’ll write some more then.

            Goodnight, my Darling.

 

Well, Precious, Tuesday has arrived after a wretched night.  I’ve never experienced such a storm as we had last night – simply torrents of rain with added accompaniment of thunder and lightning.  I got soaked through and haven’t yet dried out.

            It’s rather a pity as we’re in very fine country, as I heard it aptly expressed – country that was never meant to hear more than the song of the birds or the pop of a Champagne cork….

            Aren’t the radio programmes wretched?  We have a radio on all day (in harbour) and the stuff they pound out is chronic.  I get heartily sick of the whole thing.

            I’m writing this in a barn full of new-mown hay, very pleasant indeed.  The rain outside is pretty steady and doesn’t look like stopping today at any rate.

            I don’t suppose I can write another letter to reach you before the 6^th, so here’s wishing you all the very best for your 21^st.  As soon as you can give me the address of an account you can use I send on a cheque – ‘fraid it’s all I can do out here.

            Must close here but will try to write you again tomorrow

                                   

All my love, Darling

                                                Dicker

           

P.T.O

 

P.S.  Found the enclosed mags. in Villers Bocage some long time ago.  The magazines were quite indifferent so I just cut out the best.  The rest of the stuff were third-rate patterns.  I thought the kiddies stuff the best.  Am I giving you ideas?

                       

                                    R.

 

*Dick became a P.T. Instructor soon after joining the Army in August 1940.  Chotie attended a P.T. course at Newbattle Abbey, Dalkeith, Scotland from 30th August 1944.

**Not sure what was happening to the pubs around this time but alcohol was at it’s scarcest in Christmas 1994/45 on the home front (see Christmas under Fire).

© Chotie Darling

 

On 29th August 61^st Recce crossed the Seine on a pontoon bridge and began their ‘swan’ across France towards Belgium.  According to Eric Brewer’s diary they were near to Elbeuf (by Rouen) on 30^th August, the same day that the Normandy capital was liberated by the Canadian Army.  The next night they were almost 100 miles further on near Amiens – this critical town on the Somme was liberated by XXX Corps on 31^st August after a night march by the 11^th Armoured Division.

61st Reconnaissance in Humber Armoured car at Beauvais, between Rouen and Amiens (IWM)

According to Colonel Brownrigg these were the most exhilarating days of the campaign.  They were protecting the left flank of XXX Corps but were sometimes 70 miles ahead of divisional headquarters and collected an enormous amount of prisoners.  Some were handed to the French Resistance fighters “who tagged onto us” - they took them to the woods and shot them (from Eric Postles' book).

Speed was essential – they had orders to capture the port of Antwerp in Belgium and the V1 rocket-launching sites terrorising London and the south-east.  (Eric Brewer mentions he saw a ‘Buzz Bomb’ launch site on 31^st August.)  The welcome in French villages and towns was now overwhelming and slowed progress so that often the ‘honours of liberation’ were left to the rearguard echelons.  There were sharp engagements and very little sleep – Sandy Handley confessed that one morning it was 61^st Recce’s job to wake up the Guards commander (the Guards Armoured Division with 50^th Division led XXX Corps in ‘the swan’) but they all overslept.  Monty had urged them to make every kilometre “a bomb less for England”.

 

 

On 1^st August Lt-General Patton’s US 3^rd Army became fully operational.  They swept west into Brittany conquering ‘a lot of real estate’ (Bradley) but failing to seize intact the critical western ports.  Rennes was liberated on 4^th August, Vannes on the 5^th, Angers and Alençon on the 10^th, Nantes on the 12^th and eventually, the Channel citadel of Saint-Malo on the 17^th.  Circling north to Normandy they were at Argentan by the 13^th August.

The Germans had launched a major counter-offensive at Mortain (south of Vire) on 7^th August, attempting to cut through to the coast and sever the US spearhead.  This was a disaster, thinning their defences further east so the British, including 61^st Recce, could at last push through, while Ultra (information via the Bletchley Park code-crackers) had prepared the American commander General Bradley for the attack.  Hitler demanded another offensive on 16^th August but instead von Kluge issued orders for a full-scale retreat and was instantly replaced by Field-Marshall Walter Model, who directed plans for escape through the Falaise gap.

 By now 'Pluto', the Allies undersea fuel pipeline between the Solent and Cherbourg, was operational.  Free French forces in Normandy began secretly hoarding fuel for a drive on Paris.

On 15^th August Allied Forces including the Free French landed on the south coast of France in Operation Dragoon and on the 17^th the Vichy government (except for Marshall Pétain) fled to Germany.

Chartres was liberated on 18^th August and the next day the Battle of Paris began with an uprising by the French resistance – communists led the people onto the streets while the rival Gaullists seized government buildings and institutions.  On 20^th August the US 3^rd Army crossed the Seine north-west of Paris.  Free French forces reached the centre of Paris on 24^th August greeted by a peal of bells from the great church of Nôtre-Dame and, despite Hitler’s order to burn the city, Paris was liberated almost unscathed on 25^th August.

 

On 23^rd August Free French Forces had linked up with the US 3^rd Army near Bordeaux, on the west coast of France, and the Germans retreated from the city.  In south-east France Cannes, Grasse, and Grenoble were liberated and, after fierce fighting, Toulon and Marseilles on 28^th August and Nice on the 31^st.

In Italy Florence was liberated by the British 8^th Army soon after 3^rd August, when the Germans blew all the bridges except the Ponte Vecchio.

 

With the Russian army on its doorstep the Polish Home Army began an uprising in Warsaw and was initially successful in taking control of large areas of the city.  RAF planes dropped weapons and supplies but Stalin set up a puppet Polish government in Lublin and left the uprising to burn itself out.  350 Jews were liberated from the Gesiówka concentration camp as Himmler ordered thousands of Jews from the ghetto at Łódź, south-west of Warsaw, to their deaths at Auschwitz. 

On 2^nd August almost a thousand Roma and Sinti left in the Gypsy Camp at Auschwitz were killed in the gas chambers.

In Amsterdam a young Jewish girl and her family were taken prisoner on 4^th August. Ann Frank died of typhus in the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp in March 1945 but her diary still tells the world the story of the Holocaust. 

On 20^th August the Allies began to bomb I.G.Farben synthetic fuel factory at Auschwitz with its enslaved labour force of Jews, British Prisoners of War and east European workers.  Primo Levi, the Italian chemist and author of one of the most famous accounts of Auschwitz ‘If This Is a Man’, survived the bombing.

The Russian army had captured Kaunas, the capital of Lithuania, on 1^st August.  They began to attack Romania on 19^th August and the King staged a ‘Royal Coup’, removing the fascist leader Antonescu and declaring war against Germany on 25^th August.  The Bulgarians also withdrew from the Axis coalition on 26^th August, becoming a neutral state while the Slovak resistance began an armed insurrection on the 29^th.

 

In the far east Chinese and American forces captured Myitkina in Burma (Myanmar) on 3^rd August but the Japanese Ichi-Gō advance into southern China continued with the capture of Heng-Yang in Hunan on 8^th August.

US Marines had seized the Japanese base at Tinian in the Marianas Island on 1^st August and by 10^th August Guam was liberated and all of the Marianas were in Allied hands.

 

While war raged around the world representatives of China, the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom and the USA met at Dumbarton Oaks in Washington to agree the structure of a new international organisation for peace and security – the United Nations.

75 years ago - Preparing for Operation Overlord

On 1st May 1944 Dick became a full Lieutenant.  He was still in Nightingale Wood and acting Squadron Leader – possibly while senior officers attended Exercise Thunderclap, Montgomery’s preparation sessions for D Day with ground force officers who would be involved in the assault.  By now Dick would have known he wasn’t going ashore with 61st Recce on D Day but would follow to France with the majority of the Regiment in later in June.  He wrote to Chotie describing the joys of the countryside and listening to classical music on the radio.

61^st Reconnaissance Regiment was inspected by General Eisenhower, the Supreme Commander of Allied Forces in Europe, at the beginning of May and also received a visit from King George VI.  On 6th May Dick was Orderly Officer, checking on the guards at night, and still running the Squadron.  Chotie had been home, to Parkstone in Poole, where her sister Margaret was expecting her first child (Roger).  Dick’s old friend Eric Kessler now had a baby son and Dick was “almost envious”. 

By 10th May he’d “managed to get rid of this Squadron Leader racket”.  On 14th May Bristol, where Chotie was stationed in an Ack-Ack unit, was again attacked by the Luftwaffe.  The Easton-in-Gordano anti-aircraft camps defending the harbour would have played an important role successfully defeating the impact of the attack.  Having at last secured 24 hours leave Dick wrote to Chotie urging her to join him in “the Haunch town” – their favourite pub was the Haunch of Venison in Salisbury (co-incidentally where Eisenhower and Churchill are said to have met when planning D Day).  She went AWOL and they stayed overnight together in Salisbury on Friday 19th May; their last meeting before February 1945.

 

Letter written on Saturday 20th May 1944

Usual address

Saturday

Chotie Darling,

                                    Just a few lines to thank you for a very happy, though all too brief, 24 hrs.

            I managed to get back with ten minutes to spare and just made the afternoon parade.  I hope you managed to get back without too much trouble – I hate the thought of you scrubbing floors all night*.  What you would do for me, Darling, is a constant source of amazement to me.

            I’ve just finished censoring the mail – a man size job tonight as unfortunately no one else bothered to do yesterday’s for me, with the result that I’ve had two days to do at once.

            I regret to say that the 24hr passes have stopped but there may be a chance of some leave a bit later on – three or four days, I imagine.

            I went to the naffy** and imbibed a little beer earlier this evening with the result that I keep running outside.  Sorry….

            All the other officers (both of them) went to the cinema tonight to see “Bombers Moon” – some punk Yank film, but I just couldn’t have stood it so I stayed here, in my little tent and wrote you, my Darling, which seems infinitely preferable.

            After this show, Chotie, I reckon we’ll take a few months off – sheer rest – and forget all about the wretched life we now lead.  Walking in Provence or somewhere like that.  We could find a little hotel every night … and when we’re married things will be different….

            I intend to come out of this business, darling, if only to take the chance of making you very happy, which is what you deserve.

            I must close here, Precious as I have to write a few lines to mother – not having written for some time.

            Goodnight, my Darling – I love you very, very much.

                                                                        Dicker

RKWilliams

 

*Presumably an ATS punishment for going AWOL (Absent Without Leave)

**Slang for the Navy, Army and Air Force Institute’s canteen and recreation building.  Officers weren’t meant to frequent the NAAFI as this was an intrusion on the private lives of the Other Ranks.  The Commissioned Officers had their own ‘mess’, sometimes separated into Junior and Senior, and the senior NCOs had theirs, known as the Sergeants Mess. 

Eric Brewer’s diary reveals he was working in the Sergeants Mess (“not a bad job”) from 22^nd to 30^th May (from Eric Brewer’s Diary by kind permission of Derek Brewer and his family).

© Chotie Darling

 

Soon after this Dick moved to Aldershot with the rest of the Regiment not involved in D Day (including Tony Rampling).  He wrote to Chotie with “No news from this end, of course.  The old security racket again.”

 

Eric Postles, Sandy Handley, Eric Brewer and Don Aiken were all to be part of the first assault.  They had been involved in the practice exercises, seen detailed reconnaissance films of their destination (without any names) and waterproofed their vehicles for an amphibious landing.  Eric Brewer went AWOL overnight on 6^th May and was fined three day’s pay, possibly by Dick (RW)

(Eric Brewer's Service Record - copyright Derek Brewer and family)

 

The camp was shared with American Rangers, an elite unit who were to spearhead attacks from Omaha beach.  Sandy was “shaking in my boots at the thought of what was to come.  The majority of us hadn’t seen any action at all so far.” 

Towards the end of the month the camp was sealed off – no-one was allowed out or in.  Personal items had to be sent home and the cars loaded with ammunition and supplies to get through the first 24 hours.  Some of the troops copied the Americans example and shaved their heads in case of lice.  On 31st May they were told they would be embarking the next day and were served steak – an unimaginable luxury in those wartime days. The gunner in Eric Postles car ‘did a runner’, trying to get home to Slough, and was never seen again so Eric went to war with a crew of three, instead of the four he should have had.

 

On 8^th May Eisenhower had decided that D Day would be on the 5^th of June and a week later Montgomery gave a masterly presentation of the final plans for Overlord to the King, Churchill and the Senior Officers of the Allied Armies. 

Map of the Overlord Plan from Olive-Drab website

150,000 troops were to land on the five Normandy beaches: United States 12th Army Group, commanded by Lt-General Omar Bradley, in the west on ‘Utah’ and ‘Omaha’ and the 21st Army Group of British and Canadians in the east on ‘Gold’, ‘Juno’ and ‘Sword’.  XXX (30) Corps would be led ashore on ‘Gold’ beach by Dick’s own 50^th Division.  8,000 British and 16,000 American Airborne troops were to seize crucial inland points ahead of the landings.

It was vital to keep the Germans guessing where and when the invasion would take place.  The deceptions of Operation Fortitude North continued with another attack on the giant battleship Tirpitz (feigning preparations for a Norway landing from Scotland) and Operation Fortitude South built up General Patton’s fake US First Army Group in SE England, threatening the Pas de Calais.  Air attacks on key military and infrastructure targets all over northern France continued with a 5,000 bomber raid on 20^th May.

Berlin suffered a 1,500 bomber raid on 7^th May by the United States Army Air Force but the Allied air forces were now turned towards tactical support for the invasion and the USAAF began strategic bombing of Germany’s synthetic oil manufacture, succeeding in halving production by the end of June.

In Italy the Allies at last broke the Gustav (winter) line, which had stalled them for so long, taking the stronghold of Monte Cassino on 18^th May.  They also broke out of the Anzio beach-head to the north, linking up with the US 10^th Army by the Tyrrhenian Coast on 25^th May.

In Eastern Europe the Red Army’s advance in the Crimea continued with the capture of the Black Sea port Sevastapol on 9^th May.  Hungary was now occupied by German forces – mass deportation of Hungarian Jews began on 15^th May (less than one third were to survive the Holocaust).

The U-gō invasion of India by Japan retreated from Kohima on 13^th May. 

Chinese forces crossed the border to attack the Japanese in Burma on 11^th May and joined with Merrill’s Marauders who had captured the Myitkina airfields.  However, the town and river port of Myitkina remained in Japanese hands until August.

On 18^th May the success of Operation Cartwheel was demonstrated when the US Navy’s Admiralty Island campaign at last isolated the Japanese base of Rabaul, making it useless.

For the British the attention of the world was soon to focus much closer to home.

75 years ago - Italy and Pagham

Letter written on Wednesday 1^st and Thursday 2^nd September 1943

Same address

Wednesday (nearly Thursday)

My Darling Chotie,

                                                            It’s a long time since I’ve written to you at this time of night, but I find myself with two others operating a wireless for three days and nights and this being the first I thought it would give me a golden opportunity to send you a young novel – so here goes.

            The remainder of the troop are out on a three days exercise and we are maintaining contact with them the whole time.  The system, as it stands sounds quite fun but unfortunately we are not allowed to sleep as those on the exercise aren’t able to.

            This little discrepancy is, however, compensated by the fact that I get a weekend on Saturday, so things aren’t really too bad.  Diller will be home I believe so she’ll have a glorious chance to moan to her hearts content, an opportunity I know she won’t be slow to seize.

Came back from 48hr scheme yesterday, just about all in.  This wireless* is murder, it’s not only the mental tiredness you get, but also chronic headaches owing to the headphones which have to be worn continually.  I’ll spend the week-end in bed – lonely and cold ….

            We’ve managed to scrounge some cocoa and milk, also a shave, so we have hopes of something hot soon.

            Weather here is typical autumn – lots of mist and rain and last night a beautiful sunset, one of the best I’ve ever seen.  The trees – hundreds of them here are just beginning to turn – though it’s early yet.  It will be lovely by the time I leave – always presuming I don’t leave prematurely …

            We have a pretty sound wireless officer, one of the pleasant slavedriver type who works all hours from morn ’til night and expects the whole troop to do the same…Luckily he likes his pint and consequently we always find ourselves some hundred yards from the Duke of Wellington for lunch and he always stands the troop a pint apiece.  God knows how much it must cost him.

            I was talking to the publican who says that the present Duke (who lives in the neighbouring estate – Stratfield Saye) is quite a pleasant bloke – Captain in the Commandos in Sicily and always goes to the pub when on leave to play darts with the farmers.  Apparently he’s about 30**.

            Did I tell you that Dad went up to Purley*** to see all the relations?  It’s the first time he’s seen his father for about five years!  Awful isn’t it?  Apparently things have changed quite a bit.  Gramp now looks his years – he’s about 78, which he never has done before and has slowed up considerably.  Cyril (Dad’s brother) took him on a trip which included all the most dubious of London’s night clubs.

            They all expect me to go up (after Brian going, of course) but I still prefer to go home, or if possible come down to see you.  (I still owe you about a dozen spankings…****)

            However, he did see them, they were all very pleased, and that’s that – for another five years anyhow.

            Incidentally is there anything I can get you for your Birthday? I haven’t had a chance to get out for ages, and you can’t do anything on schemes.  Let me know – and if there’s no chance of my getting it, I’ll send you some shekels*****.

            The ATS are a better crowd than I thought, despite their being mostly Generals’ daughters.  The one I had (not literally….) yesterday did all the cooking for us – and did it very well – probably because they were scared of letting us do it, as they have to eat it as well.  I managed to get her a room in a farmhouse and she managed to get me half-a-dozen eggs so we had quite a happy time.  She comes from Kent of course – Pett’s Wood – about a mile from Orpington†.  We had several common friends.  I should say friends in common – there’s a subtle difference….

            I still haven’t had an FFI†† – you really must organise another meeting…See what you can do.  I always get atrociously rude this time of night – at the moment I’m thinking awful things.  I couldn’t even tell you… 

            That’s enough of this – I’d better do some wireless for an hour or two.

            Well, I’ve done some morse – over an hour in fact and have just been relieved.  Still feel the same.  Good thing I’m not in the Bristol area.

            Read Deeping’s ‘Two Black Sheep’ on the scheme and also “Fanny by Gaslight” again (Michael Sadleir) which I’ve always thought an awful lot of.  It’s the finest picture of Victorian England of the last ten years and heaven knows there have been enough books on that subject!  I’m sure Fanny would get the same hold on you as she has on me.

            Won ten bob on a little side bet last night.  Bill said it was Tchaikovsky’s ‘Casse Noisette’ and I said it was ‘Eugen Onegin’ and Eugen Onegin it was†††.  Just as easy as that.  Wish money was always so procurable as that 10 bob.

It’s now nearly 2 oclock and we’ve got the water on the boil for some luscious cocoa!  Jeez! 

My two colleagues have just started to take an interest in things – now that there’s a chance of a hot drink!  One is that madman I told you about from Corfe Castle – incidentally his name’s Peter Collins (happy memories?) who still intends to live on Round Island after the war††††.  A genuine hermit’s life with just his wife.  Notice I say just!  This is where I should say “what more could a man want”… (after his pipe of course…Never mind Darling – you come second …)

            The other one’s an Oxford law student, pretty nearly broke.  Tennis champ of north of England.  Quite a good type.

            I’ve just had my COCOA(!) and, it’s good.  I’ve got a lovely warm feeling in my tummy which I definitely didn’t have before.

            Well, Chotie Darling I must close here as I have to go on the set again.  I’ll let you know how things went on the weekend and enumerate some of Diller’s moans.

                                    All my love, precious.

                                                Always thinking of you.

                                                                        Dicker

P.S.  You should read Napoleon’s letters to Marie Louise and Josephine.  They’re good….

*Wireless – “not enough emphasis can be put on the importance of communication in battle situations”…Wireless operators needed high quality training “to pick up weak signals against a background of atmospherics and interference” known as ‘slush’. (From ‘Phantom at War’ by Andy & Sue Parlour, Cerberus 2003)

**The Duke of Wellington’s estate at Stratfield Saye near Basingstoke in Hampshire . The 6^th Duke of Wellington, Captain of No 2 Commando, was killed in action at Salerno on 16^th September 1943 (from Commando Veterans website).

***Purley, near Croydon, South London.

****Possibly referring to Chotie’s involvement with her officer at the Bristol camp earlier that year??

*****slang for cash. Chotie’s 20^th birthday was on 6^th September 1943.

†Dick was born in Orpington in Kent and spent his childhood there.

††the 'Free from Inspection' inspection for venereal disease (presumably being used by Dick as a euphemism here)

†††Tchaikovsky’s ballet ‘The Nutcracker’ and not his opera ‘Eugene Onegin’.

††††an island in Poole Harbour.

Peter Collins was the name of one of Chotie’s early admirers:

“Peter Collins, the boss’s son, home from Blundell’s, a posh school in Devon, also took a fancy to me and given the chance, we would canoodle in the store room.  His mother was very kind to me and I was invited to stay at their lovely house in Talbot Woods for a weekend.  Peter had won a scholarship to Blundell’s for his brilliant piano playing and taught me about classical music - a love that has stayed with me all my life.” (From ‘Chotie’s Story’. See also F.W.Collins)

 © Chotie Darling

 

Dick went home to Pagham, Sussex over the weekend of 4th and 5th September and sent Chotie a postcard of Sea Lane, Pagham for her 20^th birthday on the 6^th September. 

His next letter of Tuesday 14th September had news of his brother Brin, now an Officer Pre-Cadet at Wrotham near Sevenoaks, and Dilys, his sister, home from the Pay Corps.  Dick was still worried he wouldn’t get an officer posting to the Recce

“They’re over staffed as it is, which has the annoying habit of making them very difficult to please.  They cheerfully accept about five in every fifty and the unhappy remainder have to go all through an Infantry OCTU, which takes nearly another five months.”  He agreed with Chotie that the news was good (see below) but wrote “We still have the hardest fighting to do”.

Chotie went home on leave again in September to Parkstone, Poole and met up with her best friend Mary Dakin.  Her unit moved from Portishead back to Markham Camp, Easton-in-Gordano, sometime in the month and she had two trips to the dentist in September.

Dick was still on “schemes” – training exercises, which went on for a number of days outdoors but had found time to read, see some films and listen to classical music on the radio (mentioned in his letter to Chotie of 28th September).

His future unit, the 61^st Recce, were involved in a full scale battle ‘scheme’ with Canadian and Polish troops - Exercise Link.

 

On 3rd September the Italian government signed a secret armistice deal with the Allies.  The same day British and Canadian troops of Montgomery’s 8th Army crossed the Messina Straits unopposed, to land in Calabria on the Italian mainland.  This and subsequent amphibious landings by the 1^st British Airborne Division at Taranto and Brindisi, on the south-east ‘heel’ of Italy, were intended to divert the Germans from the main Allied invasion south of Naples but did not succeed. 

The armistice was announced on 8^th September as the Italian Fleet sailed to surrender to the allies in the port of Valetta, Malta.  Italian forces in German-occupied territory became prisoners-of-war and German troops rushed south to take up defensive positions against the Italian invasion.  When the US Fifth Army including the British X Corps arrived at Salerno the Germans were already in place to meet them.  Casualties were terrible as the Allies attempted to break out of the beach-head.

By the 10^th of September the Germans occupied Rome and two days later they rescued Mussolini from his prison in the central Abruzzi Mountains.  At Salerno the Germans launched a counter-offensive on 13^th September, which nearly defeated the Allies but a few days later, with the 8^th Army approaching from the south, the German army began to withdraw to defensive positions north of Naples.

On 23^rd September Mussolini proclaimed the re-establishment of a fascist government in Northern Italy and Hitler now ordered the execution of all Italians carrying arms in Axis-occupied territory.  10,000 were massacred in Greece for resistance (5,000 on the island of Cephalonia on 24^th September).

The Allies' forces from the east and west coast joined up to form a front-line across the country on 25^th September and began to head north.  (This was an arduous campaign against Italy’s geography – a central ridge of high mountains with wide rivers flowing to east and west, providing natural lines of defence – as well as the Germans.)  On 27^th September the people of Naples rose up and drove the remaining Germans out of their city ahead of the Allies' advance.  Marshal Badoglio signed the official armistice with General Eisenhower on 29^th September at Valetta, Malta.

Free French commandos had landed on Italian occupied Corsica on 14^th September to aid resistance fighters in harrying the Germans withdrawing from Sardinia (they'd been duped into arming for an Allied Invasion by Operation Mincemeat) via the formerly French island.  By 21st October the Italian forces were assisting the French.

On 18^th September the British began an attempt to liberate the Greek Aegean islands with a landing on Rhodes but the Italian troops they were looking to for support had already been arrested.

Jews in Athens and Denmark were now facing the threat of deportation as their countries came under German control.  In Denmark, Danish authorities arranged a secret operation to move Jewish citizens into hiding for a safe escape to Sweden while in Athens two-thirds of the Jews escaped with help from the Greek Orthodox church and even the Athenian Chief of Police. The Danish resistance established a shadow administration, ‘the Freedom Council’, on 16^th September.

While Sweden remained neutral, Norway had been occupied by Germany since June 1940 and Hitler’s massive battleship, the Tirpitz, was anchored at Kåfjord on the far north coast.  On 22^nd September a British attack using midget submarines caused enough damage to put her out of action for 6 months.

In eastern Europe the German front-line was now held at the Dnepr river, across central Ukraine, but on 22^nd September Soviet troops began to cross despite suffering heavy losses.  The Allies were now poised to squeeze Hitler’s Europe between eastern and western fronts.

75 years ago - Re-union in Poole

Dick and Chotie met again for the first time since December at the Hollies, Chotie’s home in Poole for the weekend of 7th to 9th August.  There are some very happy family photos of this brief time together. 

Chotie's father William Chalkley is on the left, Chotie and Dick on the right and her brother Jack in front.

 

Dick wrote to Chotie at Henbury, Bristol, on his return to Sandhurst :

“I’m beginning to feel that I’ll be damn glad when this show’s over.  How about you?  Then maybe we can get down to things as they should be got down to.” 

On 12^th August he moved to HAC Squadron , the OCTU for Reconnaissance Officers, requiring considerable proficiency in wireless and morse but at least things were ”on a sane basis once again” with good prospects for his career as an officer.  Later in the month he wrote again

5731671 OTC Williams RK

77 Tp HAC Sqdn, 100 (Sandhurst) OCTU          

RHC RMC, Camberley,  Surrey

My Darling Chotie,

                                                                                    I’m very sorry I haven’t been able to write before but have only just got back from a wireless scheme and am also squadron Leader into the bargain.

            You always seem to be on the move*, which is a good thing as you see a little more of the country than I did for the first year or so.

            Just had a letter from Brinner – passed his WOSB easily – the same one that I went on at Betchworth Surrey.  He’ll probably go the (sic) Wrotham pre-OCTU, where Johnny went.

            I get a long(?) week-end in a fortnight’s time which is when Diller gets her leave so I may manage to see her then.

            Had a good time on the scheme although we worked until eleven every night.  Our particular group consisted of four cadets, 2 cars and 2 ATS.  They were very good, doing nearly all the cooking and egg-scrounging from the farms.  We slept in the hay-loft of a barn and they slept in the farmhouse itself.  Quite fun.

We do nothing but wireless schemes all the next fortnight which are pretty cushy physically but pretty bloody mentally.

            I’m trying to write this on my knee – murder, isn’t it?

            I can still see my old tree from our new room.  It’s just beginning to turn brown… As one of our Canucks** said “I guess that means the fall”…

            Haven’t read anything for ages – or seen a flick for that matter.  ‘Spect you still manage to find time for a little quiet reading.  Wish I could.

            No news of any kind – nothing seems to happen these days, except in Berlin.

            Will close here as there’s simply nothing to write about.

                                                            All my love, precious

                                                                                    Dicker

 

*Chotie’s unit moved to Portishead, on the coast west of Bristol, in late August/early September. 

**Canuck – slang for Canadian.

© Chotie Darling

 

Dick’s future Regiment, the 61st Reconnaissance, were still training in the Chilterns. 

 

While Britain was bombing the hell out of Germany with Air Marshal Harris’s ‘blanket bombing’ strategy the Luftwaffe continued to attack our ports, including Portsmouth, where Dick had been stationed from June to September 1941.

The RAF had bombed the devastated city of Cologne again on 2^nd August and on 23^rd August 717 bombers began a series of raids on the German capital, Berlin.  From 17^th August the V2 rocket development site at Peenemunde  on the Baltic Coast was also a target.  Production of this deadly weapon continued inland dependant on forced labour from the camp at Nordhausen.  Another German radio controlled and rocket propelled missile, the Henschel Hs293, was first used against Allied ships in August 1943.

Meanwhile Britain, the United States and Canada were secretly agreeing to share atomic energy research under the Quebec Agreement.  This led to the production and use of the first atomic bombs against Japan in 1945.

The USAAF (United States of America Air Force) was suffering heavy losses from its daylight bombing campaigns focused on military and infrastructure targets.  In August these included attacks on the Ploesti oilfields of Rumania and the Schweinfurt and Regensburg aircraft factories in central and southern Germany.

By August 17^th the western Allies were in occupation of Sicily and Patton entered the port of Messina with the US 7^th Army.  However, beginning on 11^th August the Germans had organised a very effective withdrawal conveying 110,000 troops across the Straits of Messina to the Italian mainland.  As German leaders met with the new Italian government in Venice, German troops were also pouring into Italy from the north.  Hitler suspected that without Mussolini the Italians would quickly surrender to the Allies.

In Eastern Europe one of the most significant concentration camp revolts took place at Treblinka in Poland on 2nd August.  Jewish inmates staged an uprising enabling more than 300 prisoners to escape (although only 100 survived the subsequent Nazi manhunt).

In Bulgaria King Boris III died suddenly on 28^th August  in mysterious circumstances having resisted Hitler’s demands for Bulgarian Jews to be sent to the concentration camps (although Jews were deported from the Bulgarian occupied territories in Macedonia, Thrace and Serbia).  On the same day the Danish government resigned rather than hand over resistance saboteurs to the German authorities.  Denmark became ruled by Germany who imposed martial law but thousands of Jews managed to escape to Sweden thanks to the help of Danish sympathisers.

To the east Russia was commencing a huge offensive to regain its occupied territory.  North of Kursk, Orel was taken following the German retreat and then Briansk while to the south Belgorad and then the eastern Ukrainian city of Kharkov were liberated.

Churchill and Roosevelt met with the Canadian Prime Minister Mackenzie King at the Quebec conference on 17^th August (Stalin had also been invited).   They agreed the plan to invade France from Britain (later called Operation Overlord) and established a South-East Asia Command to be led by Vice-Admiral Louis Mountbatten.  The ‘independent’ Burmese government, established by Japan on 1^st August, had declared war on Britain and Burma was a critical supply route for south China.

On 5^th August US troops finally took Munda airfield on New Georgia in the Solomon Islands where the US Navy was also fiercely engaged with the Japanese trying to land re-enforcements.  A US destroyer captain, John F Kennedy, became marooned on an island with the crew he’d helped to survive from his stricken ship but was rescued 6 days later.  He later became the 35^th President of the United States.

75 years ago - Chotie joins the ATS

Dick’s regiment in Dover had been joined for Christmas by the Canadian Reconnaissance Regiments and pilots from the Royal Australian Air Force – about fifty in all.  Dick reported to Chotie that he’d had “rather a quiet Christmas” , although he drank “eight pints of beer with Xmas dinner”.  Eric Postles had his Christmas dinner with his troop in a café in Portrush, Northern Ireland

Although 43^rd Recce had resumed Section training after Christmas they were given a half day on 1^st January.  Dick would presumably have been involved in the vehicle maintenance inspection by Lt-Col Crawford, the Commanding Officer, on 2^nd January but got out to the ‘theatre’ with his new friend Alex Johnston (later killed in the sinking of the Derrycunihy with other members of 43^rd Recce soon after D day).  They saw a strip-tease act featuring a 12 foot long python.  Dick, himself an amateur pianist who could play by ear, was most impressed with Alex’s rendering of Richard Addinsell’s Warsaw Concerto, the theme tune for the war film ‘Dangerous Moonlight’.

Dick had won a bet on the progress (or lack of) the Allies in Tunisia.  He wrote to Chotie on the evening of Sunday 3rd January wishing her luck with her entry to the forces.

Section training continued – Dick won two cross-country runs (43^rd Recce diary records these as held on 28^th December and 4^th January) and completed a forced route march.

Meanwhile Chotie had joined the Army. She was ‘embodied’ into the Auxiliary Territorial Service at No 1 Training Camp, Northampton on 8^th January.  Her first days there would have involved nit inspections, VD and pregnancy tests, vaccinations and visits to the dentist, as well as assessment for her future role in the army.  On 11th January she filled out a qualification form applying to be an Anti-Aircraft spotter with the Royal Artillery (or second choice an equipment orderly with the Royal Army Ordnance Corps).  Although she was one mark below the minimum in something called SP23 her other scores were good and she was “very keen to be on a gun site” so she was recommended for the Ack-Ack.  (Ack Ack was the name given to the anti-aircraft guns in the same way that the German anti-aircraft defences were called 'flack'.)

Dick wrote to her on the same day:

5731671 Tpr Williams, R.K

Mortar Troop, HQ Sqdn 43^rd Recce regt.

Recce Corps, Home Forces

Monday

My Darling Chotie,

                                                            So you’re in the Army at last…._ and from your letter things don’t appear to be too bad.

            I should imagine by now you know all about innoculation….Just ignore it.  Personally we always welcome it as it means 48 hrs in kip – that is TAB* of course, not ATT etc.

            Northampton seems rather a far cry from Dorset, but you may be posted farther South of course.  It’ll be the helluva way to go just for 48 hrs though.

            You say the clobber seems stiff – and soft cloth at that….

            I’ve just done an amazing thing – for me, or rather two amazing things – won two cross-countries inside a week!  Shock nearly killed me.  Had a forced route march today over ploughed fields.  Half the troop fell out.  I made it all right, but it left me with a swine of a headache.  All those who fell out go on a charge automatically. 

Expect you’re bored stiff reading all this tosh!  Specially if the innoc. Got you down.  We are always urged to get about and forget it, but I just give in and relax in bed.

            It’ll be a change to write to you at another address….

            Ramble, ramble….

Pretty chilly here, expect it’s the same with you.  We pinch about ½ ton of coal a week from various sources.

            Haven’t heard from Brinner for ages – and Eric needless to say has always failed to write.  Brinner’s still somewhere in Essex I suppose.

            Did you hear about Monica’s effort?  Baby daughter – 9lb 4oz something.  Helluva weight.  Mother did tell me her name.  I’ve forgotten I’m afraid.

            Re. Xmas present.  Is there anything you want?  Or would you rather I send you the shekels?  Don’t be afraid to let me know will you in your next epistle.

            Met an Eire padre last night.  Ex boxer from Dublin Varsity.  Found quite a lot in common.  Opera, Georgian Houses etc.  Quite a lively argument about the Church.  Had to admit we both had our own points….

            Don’t forget to give me a lucid description of the Sarn’t-Major.  Yes Ma-am….

            Must close here, Darling.

            Hope I get the address right.

                                                                        All my love

                                                                                    Dicker

P.S.  Don’t let ‘em get you down….

* Typhoid inoculation

© Chotie Darling

 

On 12th January Chotie’s enrolment into the ATS was approved and she would have begun basic training with lots of drill, parades and inspections, tests on Army regulations and getting used to the Army life.  I don’t think Chotie would have found it hard to look smart, although forcing her abundant blonde hair up into her cap was always a problem:

“How well I remember Barbara,  – she had the most lovely smile and the most beautiful hair which she had great difficulty in keeping up above collar level as laid down in Kings Regulations!” (Rosemary Cowley/Stewart, pers comm).

 

Chotie in the ATS

On 13th January 1943 the call-up (compulsory military service) in Britain was extended to single women of 19 – Chotie’s age. 

In the Warsaw Ghetto the first armed resistance by Jews to the concentration camp deportations succeeded in securing a temporary halt to the transports.

French resistance to the Germans was growing as the French communists joined with General de Gaulle’s Free French (in opposition to the Allies’ appointment of Vichy France collaborators to lead in North Africa). However, on 30^th January Vichy France established a secret police force modelled on the German Gestapo and called the Milice.

That day, the 10^th Anniversary of the establishment of Nazi Germany, the Allies bombed Berlin by daylight in a propaganda coup and the following night the RAF began to use H2S the first airborne ground scanning radar system (developed by TRE in Dorset and Malvern), greatly improving their accuracy.

A ‘Combined Bombing Offensive had been agreed by the US and Britain when Roosevelt and Churchill met at the Casablanca conference on 14th January, with the Americans attacking the Luftwaffe and aircraft factories by day and the RAF continuing to bomb cities at night.  They also agreed the plan for the invasion of Sicily - Operation Husky – although they were meeting fierce resistance from the Germans in Tunisia.  (Rommel’s forces defeated both French and US forces at the battle of Fäid Pass on 23^rd January.)

The war in North Africa was at least diverting desperately needed support from German units on the Russian front.  The Red Army at last succeeded in breaking through the German encirclement of Leningrad (St Petersburg) and moved in to crush the surrounded Sixth Army at Stalingrad. On 31^st January the German commanders at Stalingrad surrendered.

US and Australian forces finally achieved victory over the Japanese in Papua New Guinea and the Japanese began a planned withdrawal from Guadalcanal in the Solomon Islands.

The Allies could now feel that the Japanese were not invincible and, when the news of defeat at Stalingrad leaked out, German citizens began to realise they might not win the war.  The Allies capture of Tripoli, the capital of Libya, on 23^rd January signified the end of the Italian Empire.

75 years ago - A Very Happy Leave

On 2^nd December 1942 a team of scientists working on the Manhattan Engineering District Project achieved the first self-sustaining nuclear chain reaction.

Atrocities against Jews continued in countries under German occupation.  By the end of December 1942 approximately four million Jews had been killed, as well as 40,000 Roma (on 16^th December 1942 Himmler had ordered that all Roma or gypsies were to be sent to the concentration camps).  News of the death camps had begun to reach the Allies command and on 17th December Britain and the US vowed to avenge Nazi war crimes against the Jewish people.

Fighting continued in terrible conditions on the Russian front.  On 12^th December the German’s Operation Winter Storm attempted to reach and re-inforce their starving Sixth Army at Stalingrad but the Soviets attacked in Operation Little Saturn, forcing withdrawal with the loss of 10% of the Luftwaffe’s transport planes.

In Africa Rommel (unlike the obedient Paulus, commander of the Sixth Army) had defied Hitler’s orders to ‘stand to the last’ and was withdrawing his remaining forces west.  Montgomery’s Eighth Army attacked on 11^th December, in the Battle of El Agheila, but failed to stop the Panzerarmee Africa’s retreat towards Tripoli.  Although Operation Torch in West North Africa was diverting much needed men and supplies from the Axis in Russia, it was not going to plan.  The Germans rapid occupation of Tunisia included the critical north coast port of Bizerte.  However, US planes were now able to attack Italy from airfields in Algeria and Naples was heavily bombed on 4th December killing 900 people.

In the Far East Australian forces at last took the Gona bridgehead from the Japanese on Papua New Guinea and on 21^st December Britain launched a doomed offensive to recapture the Mayu Peninsula in Burma’s Arakan (they were forced to retreat to India after three months and 3,000 casualties).

Nearer to home the new navigational radar system, known as Oboe (and developed by the Telecommunications Research Establishment in Dorset and Malvern) began to be used on 21^st December, greatly increasing the accuracy of RAF bombing.  Six ships were destroyed in Bordeaux Harbour on 11^th/12^th December – not by bombs but with limpet mines attached by Royal Marine commandos who paddled up the Gironde in ‘cockleshell’ collapsible canoes in the heroic Operation Frankton.

Despite the cold-blooded murders under Hitler’s Commando Order the role of commandos was developing. In the Bournemouth area the newly the 3rd Special Services Brigade (which was to see service in Burma) trained under the eye of the novelist Evelyn Waugh, a Staff Officer in Dorset’s Combined Operations command based at Anderson Manor.  Dorset was also hosting the first tests for Barnes Wallis’s bouncing bombs on the Fleet Lagoon.  The county continued to suffer from German bombers, with civilians killed in Poole and Bridport in December 1942 and an attack on the Armoured Fighting Vehicle School at Lulworth Camp.  However, church bells were heard for the first Christmas since the beginning of the war - they had been silenced for use only to warn of invasion but once again rang out in celebration.

 

In late November the 43^rd Reconnaissance Regiment was subject to inspections by General Sir Bernard Paget, the Commander in Chief of Home Forces and Lt-General Stopford, the XII Corps Commander. The Corps, then based in Kent, included Major General Ivor Thomas’s 43rd (Wessex) Division). Dick wrote to Chotie on 26th November 26^th November only of his forthcoming leave and being ‘wet through’ all day.  Individual training continued in December although Dick had a ‘very happy’ week on leave with Chotie from 2^nd December. Chotie returned to Dorset for her sister Margaret’s wedding to a guardsman, Ted Lewis.

Chotie as bridesmaid at Ted and Margaret's wedding

On 13th December 43^rd Recce were issued with light khaki berets, to replace their ‘field caps’.  There were Divisional and Regimental Skeleton exercises before Section Training started on 21^st December when Dick’s HQ Squadron Company went on a route march:

 

Letter Tuesday 22nd December 1942 

PPS.  Good book “Tambour Terrace” Eleanor Dunbar Hall

As before

Tuesday

My Darling,

Sorry I haven’t been able to reply to your last before now, but I’ve been away on a scheme for the last few days.  This culminated in a route march which finished me off – I was wearing new boots, so today finds me on the sick list.  There’s a run on this afternoon and being excused running for five days I’m able to write to my Chotie.

Thanks for the letter and cake.  You must thank Margaret for me – when next you see her.

I had a letter or rather a note from our mutual friend Lightfoot*, last week.  Apparently he’s in Colchester (Essex).

Brinner has also moved to Essex – rather in the wilds, I gather.  I’ve despatched a letter to Diller – shake her I expect – as I’m not sending any cards.

Let me know as soon as you see anything in the cheese-dish line – I hardly remember what they look like.

            Hope your medical** went off all right.  Let me have the dope as soon as possible.  Also the Dance.

Went to a whist drive last week.  No luck of course.  I should have been well in, but went down 12-1 which finished everything.  Really stupid girl for a partner…Ginger.

                        Look like the Fighting French in our berets.  Remember that photo you had of cadets?

                        No news of course.  Devilish dull here – though we don’t get much time anyhow.

                        (With Doug’s letter came a Pkstone Cong***. Magazine.  Know who sent it?  Sure I don’t)

                        Roll on Christmas … (Incidentally which Christmas is the war going to end by now?)

                        Must close here.

All my love Darling

                                                                        Dicker

1. Will send you something if I should ever see anything.

*Doug Lightfoot

**On 17th December 1942 Chotie was enrolled into the Auxiliary Territorial Service (ATS) at Southampton.

*** Parkstone Congregational Church (now Parkstone United Reformed Church), opposite Chotie’s home on the corner of Chapel Road and Commercial Road, Parkstone, Poole Dorset.  Chotie met Dick at the church Youth Club when she was fourteen.  Her family left the house in the 1960s and it was knocked down and replaced with a tyre shop.

© Chotie Darling

 

Chotie was about to start a very different life in the ATS so posts particularly concerning Dorset end here.

75 years ago - the End of the Beginning

November 1942 was the month that the tide of the war turned for the Allies. 

In Africa the legendary success of Montgomery and the British Eighth Army at El Alamein pushed Rommel’s German and Italian forces into a retreat from Egypt to Libya.  On 3^rd November General Dwight D Eisenhower was flown from Hurn Aerodrome in Dorset to the Rock of Gibraltar, his base for command of Operation Torch in West North Africa and on 8^th November the American landings began in Algeria and Morocco.  Although initially US troops found themselves fighting the Vichy French, Hitler’s aggressive response to this new threat - sending German troops into the south of France in breach of the 1940 Armistice Agreement - led the French leaders in Africa to declare a ceasefire.  Germans also landed in Tunisia and very soon American forces were engaged in fierce fighting with the Germans for the first time since World War I.  Eisenhower accepted the Vichy French Admiral Darlan as head of French North Africa to the disgust of General de Gaulle, the leader of the Free French.  Admiral Laborde, having been reluctant to hand the French Fleet to the Allies, scuttled the Fleet in Toulon Harbour rather than let it fall into German hands. 

The US Air Force bombed the ‘U’- boat docks at St Nazaire in western France (which was already under German occupation) but their daylight ‘precision bombing’ was proving less than accurate and their airmen paid a high price for flying with visibility.  In Norway British and Norwegian commandos were attempting to destroy the German heavy water plant (critical for the development of German atomic weapons) at Telemark without success.  Denmark had resisted adopting anti-Jewish legislation so Hitler installed a Nazi, Erik Scavenius, as Prime minister.

Hitler (increasingly crazed by amphetamines?) doomed his Sixth Army to annihilation at Stalingrad by commanding the beleaguered forces to again attack this ferociously defended city.  They made their final push on 11^th November - just as the cruel Russian winter took hold - leaving a weakness in their flanks, held by the Romanians.  Operation Uranus, the Soviet encirclement of the Sixth Army, had been planned since September.  Advancing on 19^th November the arms of the circle met by the 22^nd.  Although a diversionary attack at Rhez, Operation Mars, was a disaster, the Red Army could now draw the net around nearly 300,000 men.  The Führer forbade his army to attempt a retreat.

In the Pacific the Second Battle of Guadalcanal left the US Navy finally in command of the waters around this critical stepping stone to victory.   By the end of the month the Japanese had also abandoned their attempt to take the capital of Papua New Guinea, Port Moresby, and had retreated to their original bridgeheads.

As Churchill appositely said in his speech of 10^th November:

“Now this is not the end, it is not even the beginning of the end, but it is perhaps the end of the beginning.”

 

Dick was still kicking his heels in the 43^rd Reconnaissance Regiment at Dover.  On 29th October Corps he sent Chotie a Recce broach and wrote of the “rain, rain, rain for days on end” but with “glorious sunsets”, books and cinema to pass the time.

The Reconnaissance Corps badge

At the beginning of November 43^rd Recce commenced the “Winter Routine” and a 6 week period of intense individual training.  Dick was on exercises, cross-country runs and route marches with lectures on guerrilla warfare from China.  His letter of 6th November sadly mentions friends dead or missing in action: “I’m afraid we’ll all miss someone before this wretched show is over”.  Chotie was still thinking of joining up – she wanted the WRNS initially (a smarter uniform) but was persuaded to join the ATS to work on something new and “top-secret” (radar location of planes for the anti-aircraft guns).

In Dick’s letter of the 10th he’d visited Canterbury, where he was at school before moving to Poole.  He’s also called in on his former girlfriend, Monica – now married and pregnant – and had a frosty reception.  The news was “brightening up” (see above)and Dick writes with some foresight “the importance of command in Libya cannot be over-emphasised as it means command in the Mediterranean, which we hope will lead to the elimination of Italy as an Axis Power”.

On 17th November he writes:

Address as usual

Tuesday

My Darling,

                                    Once again I find I’m able to reply to yours just received instanta, but I’d better not make a habit of it ...

            Well, my Dear, you seem to have some news this time – whether good, bad or indifferent I leave you to judge, though from your letters I see a sort of aloof indifference.  As my literary hero said “There’s a divinity that shapes our ends, rough-hew them how we will.”*

            I was pleased to see that you’re sticking out for a specialised job – for which I think you are very wise.  The main criticism offered against this procedure is that you tend to get into a rut; but a comfortable rut is preferable to wandering de place en place as most of us appear to do.

            I was, needless to say, even more pleased to hear that you will not be going before Xmas.  By all laws and statutes I should get my leave a fortnight today, ie the 2^nd of December – but you know what leave can be, or you soon will...

            En passant, I think you are in error as regards the leave; most blokes find that the feminine services are able to get leave when their ‘soldier hero’ gets his.  Naturally this is not always the case but I think you’ll find that in general practice it can be wangled.

            Sorry to hear that Diller’s given me the bird.  Maybe I’ll write her one of these fine days.  You might tell her that I’m giving the matter considerable thought.

            Well, there’s no news from this end.  I managed to get Saturday and Sunday – quite a change, and saw “The Saint’s Vacation”** and, at last – “Reap the Wild Wind”***.  Neither was particularly outstanding.  Always grumble, don’t I?

            Well, I suppose I must close here, not having anything else to hold your attention.

                                    Hope to see you soon, Darling

                                                all my love                                                   

                                                              Dicker

*Shakespeare’s ‘Hamlet’ – Act 5, Scene 2.

**a film based on one of the Simon Templar a.k.a. “The Saint” novels by Leslie Charteris. The film was reset in the Second World War with Nazis as the villains.

***a swashbuckling adventure film set in the 1840s along the Florida coast.

© Chotie Darling

75 years ago - Before the Tide Turns

From 17^th to 25^th 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 25^th:                 

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

 

43^rd 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 7^th October 1942.  On 12^th October Churchill specifically praised the exploits of the commandos in his speech "Keep right on to the end of the road".

However, on 4^th 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 18^th 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 28^th 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 8^th 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.

75 years ago - Driver Mechanic, Mortar Troop

On 21st August 1942 Dick (a Francophile and fluent French speaker) wrote to Chotie horrified at the list of French celebrities published as traitors for collaboration with the Germans.  Some of the boats from the disastrous raid on Dieppe had left from the Sussex coast and the county had received attention from the Luftwaffe – Dick’s mother was shopping in Bognor Regis shortly before the Odeon was bombed and Dick, who “saw most of the action in the Channel” was “machine-gunned in the streets”.  On 29th August he got very drunk with some French-Canadians, who may have been involved in the commando raid, carried out by mainly Canadian forces.  He was still enjoying other delights of Brighton with frequent visits to the cinema, as well as the ballet.  He seems very keen to become engaged to Chotie in his letter of 30^th August, but as far as I know there was no engagement.

‘Polyfoto’ of Chotie just before her nineteenth birthday.

On 2nd September Dick passed his trade test as a Driver Mechanic with good results. He wrote to Chotie the next day to let her know he would soon be back in Dover and wish her a very happy nineteenth birthday. He’d also visited the opera and made a new friend, the Italian Benetti.

On Tuesday 8^th September, back with 43^rd Recce he wrote again:

5731671 Tpr Williams R

A/TK Troop, HQ Squadron

43rd Recce Regt,  Recce Corps,

Armed Forces

Tuesday

My Darling Chotie,

I'm in a lecture at the moment, so I'm writing this in my notebook under pretext of taking some notes…  I got your letter this morning - for which many thanks.   Hope you can read this scrawl but I never could write on my knee.  Glad to hear you celebrated your birthday in style - wish I could have been with you.

            (The bloke here is a yawning on about internal combustion engines - very dull after six weeks of it.)

By the way - in your last letter but one, you told me about your ‘change of employment ', but it was, if you remember, in the form of a postscript, which I missed of course, at the first reading.  When reading it again at a later date (a very sound habit of mine), I came across it, and needless to say, would have congratulated you in my last epistle.  Anyhow - nice work.

            (I very much doubt whether you can make head or tail of this scrawl.  I've got a job to understand it myself - but persevere, Darling.) 

I have to keep answering questions all the time to this wretched man - a Sergeant from the Ordnance Corps.  Up to now, I've managed to keep just one jump ahead of him.  He's not really very bright - typical of the R.A.O.C.*, but writing a letter as well has its snags.

I've been enquiring about my leave, and may get it on the 16th i.e. next Wednesday (a week today), but it seems rather doubtful.  What can you manage if I do?  I'm afraid I can't say definitely, because the Squadron Office don't know themselves.

I've been put on fire guard for a week (!) which means I work evenings as well.  I haven't been out since I've been here.  Not that there's anything of interest.  I went out on an exercise yesterday morning, and passed through some marvellous villages, would have delighted Frances B. Young**.

Glad to hear you met Jones.  Where is he stationed these days, or didn't he tell you?  Did I tell you that Brinner was on a course in North Devon?   

Are the old Dorsets*** still with you?  It would mean that they've been there a year now.

I've got a cross country to run this evening after tea, a Devil, isn't it, seeing that I haven't done PT of any sort for seven or eight weeks.

My two Scotch friends have gone on leave to bra’ wee Ayr, and left me disconsolate, although they are both in ‘A’ Squadron, and I don't see much of them.  (The lecture has at last ended, 1½ hrs, so I'll finish this tonight - maybe...)

Well, Lulu, after the lecture I heard I'd been transferred from the Anti Tank Troop to the Mortar Troop****, and having seen the Troop Commander about my leave, feel more confident about the 16th - but remember it’s still not definite.

This mortar job appears cushy - driving - but not quite so cushy in action.

Well, Darling, I must close here with all my love,

                always yours, Precious

                                your loving

                                            Dicker

P.S.  I mentioned our “engagement” to the old folks at home in my last letter.  I haven't yet had a reply ... keep your chin up, Lulubelle..

*Royal Army Ordnance Corps – responsible for supplying weapons, ammunition and equipment to the Army.

**A Frances B. Young wrote a biography of Mary Sidney, Countess of Pembroke (an Elizabethan writer) but the origins of this reference are obscure.

***Dick’s original regiment (see Chotie Darling Part 1 ‘The Blue Cockade’) last heard of at Branksome in Poole.

****A Reconnaissance Regiment consisted of one HQ Squadron and three Reconnaissance Squadrons. Mortar Troop was one of the four Troops in HQ Squadron (with Signals, Armoured Tank and Admin) and used 6 x 3” mortars. Mortars are portable. Fixed to the ground they are used to fire small bombs in a slow high arc into the enemy at close range.

 

In September 43^rd Recce received orders to mobilise complete with re-inforcements, which presumably would include Dick. There were Brigade exercises ‘Break in’, which Dick may have been involved in and ‘Break out’, which he would have missed while on leave.

Later in September the Sunday Pictorial (now the Sunday Mirror) published an article on the Recce entitled “The First Thrilling Story of Britain’s ‘Reccies’ – our Secret Army is Ready”:

“The men of the Reconnaissance Corps have taken on one of the toughest jobs in the war – the spearhead of our attack on Germany. They are as elusive as guerrillas, fast as scouts, tough as commandos…..every one picked for brain as well as brawn…everything is improvised, time reducing, hazardous…an army which will roam behind enemy lines…their job, to spy on the enemy a close quarters…every scrap of information they get will be fought for” etc.

(From ‘Beaten Paths are Safest’  by Roy Howard, courtesy of the Sunday Pictorial, now the Sunday Mirror.)

 

Back in Dorset Chotie had “a change in employment” – since she was in Beales’ knitwear department in June 1942 perhaps this was when she went to Plummers, the employment she recalled after the Land Army episode? Certainly her last civilian job before January 1943 was as a window dresser at Plummers (Chotie called herself a “Display Artist”).

Luftwaffe attacks continued with 5 people killed by a bomb not far from Chotie’s home in Parkstone on 11^th September.  In the Channel planes from Warmwell sank two armed trawlers on 9^th September and 21 people died when a famous Poole flying-boat, the Clare, caught fire over the English Channel the 14^th. A new aerodrome that was to play a critical role on D Day and in Operation Market Garden was now under construction at Tarrant Rushton.

Poole’s Small Scale Raiding Force successfully obtained captured German wireless operators and Naval codebooks from les Casquets lighthouse in the Channel islands on 2^nd/3^rd March but their founder and leader, Major Gus March-Phillips was killed in another raid on 12^th/13^th September on a beach at St Honorine in Normandy, later better known as ‘Omaha’ (from the D Day landings).

 

On 3^rd September 1942 a National day of Prayer was held in Britain for the third Anniversary of the Declaration of War.

Germany began a major offensive in Stalingrad on 13^th September with orders from Hitler that the entire male population of the city should be eliminated. (From ‘The Second World War’ by Antony Beevor, published by Weidenfield and Nicolson 2012)   Fierce Russian resistance and cunning was eventually to save the city but Stalingrad became a legend for the huge numbers killed on each side – possibly 750,000 troops and approximately 40,000 civilians.

On the other side of the world thousands of Japanese soldiers and US Marines were killed on one day, 12^th September, in the ‘Battle of Bloody Ridge’ over the airfield on Guadalcanal in the Solomon Islands.

75 years ago - Brighton

On 22^nd July 1942 Dick had been assigned to the No3 Technical Training Group in Brighton, to learn to be a Driver Mechanic for the 43^rd Reconnaissance Regiment

Although slightly dismissive of his new comrades: “a very rough lot - no signs of mental vigour” he was “very thankful” to be out of the Airborne.  He enjoyed being back in Kent, his childhood county (he’d attended the Simon Langton School in Canterbury) and found “almost everything was going on” – cinema, theatres, etc. in when he arrived in Brighton.  On his 21^st birthday, 28th July he was still suffering from his latest vaccinations (43^rd Recce had received orders to mobilise for overseas) and had a quiet night out by himself in the town centre.  By day he was training at the Dreadnought Garage in Hove and eating in the local 'British Restaurant'.

Postcard sent from Brighton on 4th August 1942.

Dick managed to get home to Pagham on the weekend of 8^th August but was also enjoying the delights of Brighton, going to the Anglo-Polish Ballet twice.  On 16^th August he wrote to Chotie about the films he’d seen in town:

Letter – Sunday 16^th August 1942

5731671 Tpr Williams R

Room 28

3^rd Technical Training Group

Preston Barracks, Brighton, Sussex

Sunday

My Darling Chotie,

                                                                        Many many thanks for polyfotos.  They’re marvellous, Darling.  I showed them to the boys who now regard me in a different light.  I would have sent them back with this letter, but haven’t yet procured a big enough envelope, but I’ll definitely send them in my next.

And also many thanks for a very nice letter.

            Well, Lulu belle there’s no news as usual.

            I went to the ‘Curzon’ yesterday – saw Viviane Romance in “L’Esclave Blanche” (White Slave) a French film.  It was very good but not up to the usual high standard achieved by French Directors. She (Viviane) is very much like Danielle – also has her hair up.

            I’m looking forward to seeing Eileen Joyce tonight – never having seen her before. She’s an Australian and extraordinarily good pianist to hail from there.         

I saw a rather good film a few days ago – “Mien Kampt” (sic)* – showing Adolf’s rise to power since his early days after the last war and the brilliant way he went about it – the way he removed Ernst Roehm, Dollfuss, Schnussnigg (sic) and the rest**.  A lot of it was documentary, ie actual shots, especially of the jolly old Reichstag Fire Trial*** etc, and the flagwrapping parade in the Olympic Stadium***.

            Well, Precious, I must close here as it’s now dinner time, and as I didn’t get up in time for breakfast, I’m not missing it.                            

                                        All my love, Chotie Darling,                                     

                                                        Hope to get leave soon                                                         

                                                                                         Dicker

*Dick meant ‘Mein Kamf’ - German for ‘My Struggle’, the title of the film and Hitler’s autobiography.

**Ernst Röhm – head of the SA (Sturmabteilung), the Nazi brown-shirted stormtroopers. Arrested and executed in the ‘Night of the Long Knives’, 1934.

Engelbert Dollfuss - Chancellor of Austria from 1932 to 1934, who destroyed the Austrian Republic and established an authoritarian regime based on conservative Roman Catholic and Italian Fascist principles. Assassinated by the SS in July 1934.

Kurt von Schuschnigg – succeeded Dollfuss as Chancellor of Austria. Opposed the Anschluss, (annexation of Austria by the Third Reich) and was imprisoned by the Nazis when they invaded Austria.

***The Reichstag Fire Trial in 1933 followed the part destruction by fire of the German ‘parliament’ building soon after Hitler became Chancellor of Germany. Marinus van der Lubbe was charged and executed for having set the fire as part of a Communist plot and the Nazis used the incident to ensure the defeat of the Communists and other leftist parties in the following elections.

****The 1936 Olympics in Berlin, Germany.

© Chotie Darling

 

Meanwhile 43^rd Recce in Kent was ready for mobilisation and continuing training.  They may have been destined for the Far East, Africa or even France…

 

Churchill arrived in Cairo on 3^rd August 1942.  The staff changes he made there resulted in Bernard Montgomery (Monty) taking charge of the Eighth Army in Africa.  Rommel’s Afrika Corps again attempted to break through the El Alamein line at the end of August but was forced to withdraw.  Churchill flew on to Moscow for talks with Stalin who reluctantly agreed that there would be no Allied invasion across the Channel in 1942 to take pressure off Russia.  Instead plans went ahead for landings in western North Africa with Dwight D. Eisenhower appointed as Commander-in-Chief for the invasion.

An offensive by besieged Soviet forces in Leningrad prevented the Germans from cutting off their supply line across Lake Ladoga.  Germans in southern Russia scaled Mount Elbrus but their over-stretched forces never reached the rich oilfields of the Caucasus.

On 6^th August 1942 the World Jewish Congress announced that one million Jews had been killed in Nazi occupied Europe.  Roosevelt warned that the perpetrators of barbarism would ultimately have to stand in courts of law and answer for their acts.

On 7^th August the Allies began their first major offensive against the Japanese, landing 19,000 US Marines on Tulagi and Guadalcanal in the southern Solomon Islands (which the Japanese had held since May).  The Japanese responded, landing thousands more troops and Guadalcanal became a bitter campaign of jungle fighting and survival.  In the Battle of Milne Bay on Papua New Guinea the Japanese attacked on 25^th August but the (predominately Australian) Allies had won their first decisive victory against the Japanese by 7^th September.  Japan directly attacked the USA in late August and September, firebombing the west coast forests.

In India the ‘Quit India’ campaign led to the British arresting Gandhi and other Congress leaders.  On 19^th August 1944 the British and Canadian combined operations raid on Dieppe in northern France ended in disaster.

The first all American bombing raid from Britain went ahead in daylight on 17th August, directed against the railway yards in Rouen, France.  The huge RAF night-time raid on Nuremberg on 28^th August killed 4,000 civilians.

 

Dorset, where Dick’s beloved Chotie lived, was still suffering from coastal bombing with 15 people killed in Bridport and Swanage in August. Combined forces practised for the Dieppe Raid off the Dorset Coast and the Small Scale Raiding Force successfully attacked a radar station on the French coast on 14th/15th August. Dorset boats were involved in support of the foiled raid on Dieppe and Portland played an important role in the testing of midget submarines, later used with success against Germany’s greatest battleship, the Tirpitz.  The Royal Australian Air Force arrived in Poole on 31^st August to fly anti-submarine patrols over the western Channel approaches in Sunderland flying-boats, safeguarding the vulnerable but vital supply convoys.

75 years ago - 43rd Reconnaissance Regiment

Operation Blau, the German advance in southern Russia, continued in July 1942 with the capture of Rostov on Don, the gateway to the Caucasus oilfields.  In the Arctic Barents Sea most of the ships in PQ-17, a British supply convoy to the Soviet Union, were sunk by Luftwaffe planes and U-boats (one of the Allies worst Naval disasters of the war).  However, Rommel’s advance in Egypt was held at the El Alamein line and although the Japanese landed in Papua New Guinea on 21^st July they were prevented from reaching the capital at Port Moresby by Australian troops fighting over several months in appalling conditions along the Kokoda Trail.

Behind German lines in Poland the Nazis began systematic gassing of Jews in the death camps at Auschwitz and Treblinka.  In Paris on 16^th July 13,000 Jews, including children, were rounded up and sent to death camps in one of the most heinous acts of collaboration of the war.

At home in Britain sweets, chocolate and biscuits were now rationed. (This must have upset Chotie who had a sweet tooth).  The Dorset coast was under attack with bombing raids on Swanage and West Dorset and German minelaying in the Channel.  On 9^th July German e-boats (Schnellbootes) sank several ships of the convoy WP183 in Lyme Bay. A special defence for Winston Churchill’s personal plane was constructed at RAF Hurn (now Bournemouth Airport).

From 1^st to 3^rd July Dick was taking part in a Brigade exercise with 1^st Air Landing Squadron.  After a free day on the 4^th he was put on 24 hour guard and had to turn out for inspection by Major-General Frederick 'Boy' Browning, the Commander of the British Airborne Division.  He wrote to Chotie that evening, his last letter from the Airborne. He may have taken part in the 1st Air Landing's specialist training (cadres) and demonstrations before briefly meeting up with Chotie on 11^th July and leaving to join the 43rd Reconnaissance Regiment at Dover in Kent on 13^th July.

 

 

 

 

The Wyvern dragon, logo of the 43rd (Wessex) Division

Letter posted Friday 17^th July 1942

Tpr 5731671 Williams R

“A” Squadron, 43^rd Recce Regt

Recce Corps, Home Forces

My Darling Chotie,

                                                                                    As you will see from above address much water has flowed under the old bridge since I last saw you on Saturday.  About half the old squadron were transferred to this regiment which is in the same corps but non-airborne.

            I can’t tell you where I am – but I can tell you I’m in the county of my humble origin*.

            At present I’m feeling very groggy, having just had a couple of inoculations – which always set me back a bit.

            I managed to get back in time on Saturday last.  There was a devil of a crowd at the bus station and at least three fights with Red-caps**, but I managed to get on a bus and arrived back just before midnight.

            Well, Precious I’m afraid I can’t write any more, as I feel like Death warmed-up.

            I think the leave works out all right here, so I shall probably get my next 9 days on time.  I can’t see any chance of getting down before then.

                                                            Goodnight, my Darling

                                                                                God bless you

                                                                                                Dicker

*Dick was born in Orpington in Kent.

** Military police

© Chotie Darling

75 years ago - Leave at Pagham

At the beginning of June 1942 the German Army advanced on the Crimean Peninsula (in the north of the Black Sea) and battled fiercely to take the well defended port of Sebastapol.  In the Atlantic the Allies were haemorrhaging ships and supplies at the mercy of the U-boat wolf-packs.  British code breakers at Bletchley Park were struggling to decipher the Enigma upgrade, which they called “Shark” and the Germans had cracked the Admiralty code (Naval Cipher 3).  In contrast US code breakers deciphered signals from the Japanese Navy to reveal a huge task force had set sail to attack the Pacific US base on the Midway Islands.  By 7^th June the US Navy had won a decisive victory, critical to the war in the Pacific.

In Africa the Germans were again on the attack.  On 21^st June Rommel’s troops captured the critical Libyan port of Tobruk (which had been gallantly defended by Australian troops under siege for most of the previous year).  The Allies retreated as Axis forces swept into Egypt taking thousands of prisoners at Mersa Matruh.  Churchill, in America for talks with Roosevelt, was devastated by the fall of Tobruk.  However, he obtained an agreement that US troops would be involved in an invasion of French North Africa (Morocco and Algiers) called Operation Gymnast (and later Operation Torch).

 

In Dorset, where Chotie lived (and was again working at Beales department store in Bournemouth) bombing attacks continue.  This time the Royal Navy's explosives factory near Poole was saved by decoys on the heathland at Arne on the night of 3^rd/4^th June, although Poole was hit by a number of incendiaries causing serious fires.  Mr Whittaker, a volunteer firefighter (and the future father-in-law of Chotie’s bother Jack), recalled throwing a number of smaller devices off Poole Quay into the water.  There were other lucky escapes – most of the RAF petrol supplies for Dorset and Hampshire were held in the Hamworthy RAF depot and although they were blown open, the vast million gallon slick didn’t catch fire.  A large bomb hit the Sona, a Naval headquarters ship moored at Poole Quay but didn’t explode until after adjacent buildings were evacuated.  On 6^th June it was Bournemouth’s turn to receive the attentions of the Luftwaffe – almost 500 properties were damaged in an attack on the railway line.

Dorset, with its central Channel position and proximity to Cherbourg, continued playing a critical role in Britain’s war effort, despite the loss of Telecommunications Research Establishment.  RAF Hurn (now Bournemouth Airport) was used as a base to fly SOE (Special Operations executive – spies!) to France, as well as supplies for the French Resistance, while a small aerodrome established north of Sherborne was to become the Fleet Air Arm station at Yeovilton (RN Fleet Air Arm Museum website).

 

In the British Reconnaissance Corps nomenclature changed on 6^th June adopting the cavalry terms of troops, troopers, squadrons and regiments (the army’s reconnaissance role had traditionally been discharged by the light cavalry).  Already in 61^st Recce (the unit Dick fought with for most of the Western Europe campaign), Eric Postles was training in Northern Ireland for the rest of 1942.

 

Dick, still training with the 1^st Air Landing Squadron, was based at Bulford on Salisbury Plain.  He was granted 10 days leave from 10^th June and went home to his family at  Pagham, Sussex.  Ironically, 1^st Air Landing went to train on the Dorset Coast at Kimmeridge while he was away.  Back in Wiltshire Dick was sick with bronchitis.  By now he must also have been diagnosed with temporary hyperglycaemia (“sugar in the blood”) and was awaiting transfer from the Airborne. Although he was not diabetic the risk of possible problems meant he was one of the many weeded out at this early stage of training (otherwise he could have been involved in the brave fiasco of the bridge at Arnhem , which gave eternal fame to the 1st Airborne Reconnaissance Squadron.  He wrote again to Chotie on 28^th and 29^th June:

Letter written Sunday 28^th and Monday 29^th June 1942

1^st Air Landing Sqdn

Recce Corps, Home Forces 

Sunday

My Darling,

                                                                        Thanks for letter with all the news.

             I've started writing this letter without much hope of finishing it this evening. 
However, the fact that I've started it is certainly a move in the right direction.  It is such a devil of a job to find anything to write about in this God-forsaken dump.

            I went out this evening but came back after half an hour or so - there being nothing whatsoever to do.  The Garrison Theatre, although a very good show only has the one programme for the week, and once you've seen it, it's no use going again the same week.  There's a play on next week, - “While Parents Sleep”, which I've seen, - but I shall go again, as of course it will be a different cast, etc.

            I've been sick for the last week with a sore throat which developed into bronchitis or so the M.O. said.  Personally I didn't agree, but also didn't argue as it gave me a cushy time for a few brief days - no P.T. etc, of course.

            I managed to go into the nearest town (?)* on my day off, yesterday.  It boasts some very excellent pubs – the “George” Hotel and the “Bell” being very
famous in Georgian days.  The beer however tasted very flat - perhaps because you were not there with me.  I had no one to talk to about Herne Bay and the various professions which help to make the social system what it is.  Just imagine what you'll have to put up with when we are married... but perhaps you'll see H.B. for yourself and perhaps I'll have a profession...

            I haven't yet heard from home and am getting a little worried on that score.  I hope Mother’s all right - but maybe I'll get a letter tomorrow.  There seem to be so many worries that separation brings so cruelly in its wake.

            Does this letter seem very morbid, Darling?  I don't want you to think that
I'm too browned-off**.  After 2 years in this Army I think I can stand anything. 

             I'm going on a three days scheme on Wednesday, so I won't be able to write of course - so don't be over anxious if you don't get a letter for some days.

            It's nearly lights out, Chotie Darling so I'll say Goodnight my Precious, and write some more tomorrow.

            Well, Lulu, it's now Monday Lunch-time so I'm writing a bit more. 

            It's terrifically hot today - and we have to wear respirators on Monday morning. Was I exhausted!  I'm now trying to get an hour's relaxation before going on Parade this afternoon.

            I may go to the Old Garrison to-night and see this wretched play - that's if I can get out in time. That's one of the troubles here; even if there was anything to go out for, we rarely get out before Seven pm or so - which is rather late.

             Well, Darling, by the time you get this letter, I’ll be on this stunt so I hope to write again next Saturday or perhaps Sunday - and I'll say bye, bye for the present, and remember, Darling, I still love you, very very much.

                                                All my love, Chotie Darling

                                                                                 Dicker

*Amesbury

**Dick must have been disappointed to be transferred out of Air Landing after only a couple of months.  (After training in Tunisia from April 1943 1^st Air Landing Squadron went on to be involved in the invasion of Italy near Bari in September and Operation Market Garden in September 1944, when the elite 1st Airborne were sent in to defend "a bridge too far" at Arnhem with disastrous results.  (Dick was among the ground forces racing towards Arnhem.)

© Chotie Darling

75 years ago - Poole saved from bombing with Island decoy

On 23^rd May 1942 the new 'Starlight' radar system was employed successfully by RAF pilot John “Cat’s Eyes” Cunningham to shoot down the German flying ace Hauptmann Langur, whose plane crashed near Shaftesbury in Dorset.  The Telecommunications Research Establishment, however, did not stay in Dorset. In May 1942 it moved inland to the safety of Malvern in Worcestershire – the Small Scale Raiding Force and Bruneval Raids were proving how vulnerable coastal locations were to attack.

Poole was the target for a large bombing raid on the night of 24th May, involving 60 German aircraft.  Luckily one of the initial ‘pathfinder’ bombs fell on Brownsea Island setting off the pyrotechnic displays of the Elstree Studios’ decoy used to simulate burning buildings and successfully diverting the rest of the attack to the Island.  Although several people were killed in Hamworthy by other Pathfinders - and a bomb falling near Chotie’s home in Parkstone killed a Home Guard - the ingenious "Starfish" (from ‘Special Fire’) decoy was a great success, attracting 157 tons of the 166 tons of bombs used in the attack – it may well have saved Chotie’s life.

A Starfish decoy in action

 

On the other side of the world the Japanese now held all of the Phillipines and were advancing into southern China along the Burma Road but in the Battle of the Coral Sea the American Navy prevented their landing at Port Moresby (Papua New Guinea). 

Soviet forces experienced terrible losses to the German Army in the Second Battle of Kharkov (Ukraine) and the Crimea.  Reinhard Heydrich, the main architect of the Jewish Holocaust, was shot by the Czech Resistance and died a few days later.  Germany suffered its first 1,000 bomber raid on the night of 30^th May when the RAF attacked Cologne, devastating the city.  However, Rommel’s offensive in Libya in May 1942 led to his most famous victory in the Battle of the Gazala line.  This also impacted on Dick’s future since the 50^th Division’s Reconnaissance Regiment was wiped out in the Battle to be replaced shortly before D Day by 61^st Recce, the unit Dick and his comrades were to fight in.

Eric Postles was already in the 61^st Reconnaissance regiment, training in Northern Ireland but in May 1942 Dick was with the 1st Airborne  training on the Bulford Ranges near Salisbury and moved there from Shaw House at the end of the month.  On Sunday 3^rd May he had his first flight, in a glider, but seemed unimpressed (possibly slightly airsick?).  He met up with his brother Brin on Saturday 9th May and again the following Saturday.   On Thursday 21^st May he had a rather more illustrious meeting:

 

Saturday 23rd May 1942

5731671 Tpr Williams R

1^st Air Landing Sqdn

 Recce Corps

HOME FORCES

My Darling Chotie,

Hope you will excuse my writing in pencil but expect you are used to it by now...

            Many thanks for letter - as welcome as ever.

            Glad to see you managed to get a swim in - which is more than I've been able to - not that I've got the inclination - seem to have lost all interest in that direction, which is probably a good thing as I always tended to overdo it.  I rather think Brinner has also lost interest.  If ever I get out of this show alive I'm all for a life of ease – swimming’s far too strenuous.

            So Margaret has made it up with Ted to quote your own words.  Well, well...On ne sait jamais*..

            Had quite a thrill on Thursday - when we were inspected by the King & Queen and a score of Generals.  It was a demonstration of Paratroops & Gliders etc.  I hope Johnny knows what he's letting himself in for.  At any rate he'll find out sooner or later.

            Did you hear the “Barber**” this afternoon (Saturday)?  Unfortunately I was working and missed it.  I cursed my ill-luck bitterly.

            Flying all the morning - cold & cloudy.

            Lucky Diller - wish I was going down, or rather we were.

            Books: “Portrait of a Village” Francis Brett Young**, “Blood & Sand” Ibanez - though rather dull gives quite a true appreciation of the life of a Torero.

            Brinner may have moved by now - probably has.  Near Winchester I believe - couldn't be worse than Oakmere Farm - I was horror struck when I saw it last Saturday.

            Raining hard at the moment - very miserable - the weather I mean - I'm reasonably cheerful.

            Well, Precious no news as per usual.  Incidentally will you get in touch with Eric and get him to send me a GROUNDSHEET. MOST IMPORTANT!!! I'm about to be charged 18/- for one! Will you send it, Darling?  (please...) - and I'll give you a big kiss...(Hope that will do the trick).

                        Well, bye, bye for now, Darling.

                                                            All yours,

                                                                        Dicker

PS. I now drive a 15 cwt truck. It was called ‘ Evelyn’ but is now ‘Chotie’ - I painted it in Gothic’s.

                                                                        xxxxxxx

                                                                        all for you!

                                                                                    Darling.

                                                                                    Xxxxx

*French for “You never can tell”.

**Presumably the ‘Barber of Seville’, an Italian comic opera by Rossini.

***A mystery story set in the Black Mountains of Wales.

****A famous tale about bullfighting in Spain.

© Chotie Darling

75 years ago - Joining 1st Air Landing

In April 1942 Malta was awarded the George Cross for "heroism and devotion". America hit back at Japan with the Doolittle raid on Tokyo but the Japanese were close to victory in the Philippines, had landed in Dutch New Guinea (West Papua) and attacked the Royal Navy base at Colombo, Ceylon (now Sri Lanka).  In Germany the last meeting of the Nazi Reichstag gave Hitler complete power as ‘Supreme Judge of the German People') and on 24^th April the Luftwaffe began the famous Baedeker raids on English historical cities, beginning with Exeter.

In Dorset Weymouth, Hamworthy, Poole and Swanage also suffered bombing attacks in April 1942.  The Telecommunications Research Establishment made an important breakthrough with the beginning of radar ground-mapping (known as "Starlight") that could be used by bombers at night or in cloud and a new master station for the direction of RAF bombers from southern Britain was erected on Bulbarrow Hill near Hilton in central Dorset.

Combined Operations HQ at Anderson Manor, near Poole, was organising commando raids such as the abandoned Myrmidon and Operation JV and planning for the Dieppe offensive.

Prime Minister Winston Churchill visited the Lulworth ranges to see the new Churchill tanks on 6^th April. On 12^th April Churchill was shown a demonstration of glider and parachute troops by the 1st Airborne Division.  Their commanding officer Major-General Frederick “Boy” Browning was assisted by Brigadier George Frederick Hopkinson, known as “Hoppy”, who had founded the General Headquarters Liaison Regiment. . 

It is tempting to weave a thread of connection between Dick’s intelligence role in Dorset, the development of radar, the secret signals GHL regiment (known as Phantom) and Combined Operations HQ – all based near Poole.  Perhaps some personal encounter had led Dick to volunteer for Air Landing, instead of the parachute troops?

Whatever the course of events on 21st April 1942 Dick was posted to 1^st Air Landing Reconnaissance:

Pte 5731671 Williams RK

1st Air Landing Coy

Recce Corps

C/o A.P.O. NOTTINGHAM.

My Darling,

            Arrived here safe and sound on Monday Evening.

            This is one hell of a crowd. Discipline isn't in it. They're trying to break the Guards peace time standard and believe me they're doing it.  Everything has to be blancoed* up to scratch nearly every day.  I shall get little or no time off.

            The only good thing about it is the leave.  Apparently they get Seven Days every nine weeks or so - which is amazing for the Army.  I start on a course on Monday next - it's just like being a rookie all over again.

            The Company here is billeted in a marvelous old house – Elizabethan* - with hundreds of rooms, banqueting halls etc.  Incidentally you must write to the address as shown, and not the one you already know - for security reasons. You might advise Diller or Mother if you write, as I've had to give them the Nottingham address of course.

            For Pete's sake, how long's the war going to last?  I only hope your mother's right, when she says it will be over this year.

            I'm afraid I can't say anything of local interest, etc as these letters are sometimes censored for security reasons.  I miss you already, Darling - how am I going to feel in a month’s time?

            I'm afraid I must close here as I have a hell of a lot to do.  Please write soon my Darling as I feel b----- lonely.

                                                                        all my love Precious,

                                                                                    your adoring

                                                                                                Dicker

*Blanco was a cleaning compound used on the cotton of army uniforms. ‘Bull, Blanco and Brasso’ meant getting uniforms immaculate.

** Shaw House, Newbury, Berkshire - the base for 1st Air Landing Reconnaissance Squadron mentioned in their wartime diary in the National Archives, Kew. This grade 1 listed Elizabethan Building is now owned by West Berkshire Council and open to the public.

© Chotie Darling

75 years ago - Japan threatens Australia

In March 1942 the 1^st Air Landing Reconnaissance Squadron (that Dick was to join in April) was training on Salisbury Plain from their base at Shaw House near Newbury.  Dick was presumably still in Dorset where there was yet more privation on the home front as gas and electricity were rationed.

The county was still receiving occasional air attacks and there was intense activity off the coast to enforce the Royal Navy’s blockade of the Channel, although five German destroyers and a raider slipped through to the Atlantic.  Some of Poole's flying boats were commandeered to relieve the siege of Malta.  The island was critical to the interception of Rommel’s supplies in North Africa but was remorselessly bombed by the Luftwaffe.  In March 1942 all five ships in a convoy were sunk and the troops and civilian population faced starvation (from ‘The Second World War’ by Antony Beevor, published by Weidenfield and Nicolson 2012).

Lord Louis Mountbatten was promoted as Chief of Combined Operations and his commandos carried out a successful raid to destroy the dock at St Nazaire, the only eastern Atlantic dock large enough to accommodate Hitler’s super battleship the Tirpitz.

Japan achieved victory in the Java Sea at the beginning of March and by the end of the month held the Dutch East Indies (Indonesia) and Rangoon, the capital of Burma.  They bombed Port Moresby, the capital of New Guinea, and Darwin, again.  Faced by the threat of Japanese invasion Australia had begun evacuation of the north in December 1941, just as the first US troops arrived to help defend the country.  However, after March 1942 the direct threat of Japanese invasion diminished. 

75 years ago - Singapore surrenders

There are no letters from Dick to Chotie in February 1942  - he was certainly close enough to meet up with her on the 11^th and 23^rd February when he visited the dentist in Bournemouth.  Dick, who had volunteered to join the paras, may by now have known that he was heading for the new airlanding forces.  Eric Postles, meanwhile, had joined the regiment Dick would fight with in Europe, the 61^st Reconnaissance Regiment.

Dorset was a centre for secret operations in February 1942, not only David Niven's 'A' force, located near Poole and the Telecommunications Research Centre in Purbeck.  The Small Scale Raiding Force (No 62 Commando) were active in raids across the Channel and perhaps the most famous small raid, known as Operation Biting (on the German’s secret transmitter at Bruneval near Cherbourg) was  organised from Louis Mountbatten’s Combined Operations HQ at Anderson Manor, inland from Poole.

The code breakers at Bletchley Park in Buckinghamshire, received a bitter blow in February 1942 when Germany changed its settings on their Navy’s Enigma encryption machines.  It took them 10 months to crack the code – during 1942 the Allies lost 3 times more shipping than they had in 1941.   The German battleships Scharnhorst and Gneisenau managed to escape the Allies blockade in Brest, and attacks in the Channel, to reach safe harbour in Germany on the 13^th February.

 On 15^th February the island of Singapore, which Churchill had considered impregnable impregnable, fell to the Japanese.  Japan was very much on the offensive, advancing in Burma and bombing Darwin in Australia. (Australian troops were ordered to return home from Europe to fight the Japanese.)  The Battle of the Java Sea for Indonesia began on 27^th February. 

 

Singapore in February 1942.  The black smoke in the background is from the British Naval base’s oil dump bombed by the Japanese on 6^th February. (Source Australian War Memorial on 'To those who served' website.)

75 Years ago - Unity and Genocide

The 'Declaration by United Nations', a plan for a new world organisation (which led to the UN Charter) was signed by 26 governments including the US, UK, China and the Soviet Union at the beginning of January 1942.

Later that month, on 20^th January, Germany formally adopted a policy to exterminate all Jews codenamed 'the Final Solution'. This horrendous genocide is remembered every year on Holocaust Memorial Day, the 27^th January. 

In Russia there were new Soviet offensives in the bitter winter along the eastern front, leading to massive casualties and huge civilian suffering.

On 21^st January Rommel’s German forces in North Africa pushed the British back to the Gazala line, west of Tobruk in Libya.

Japanese forces advanced in the Philippines, Malaysia and North Borneo, entered Burma and attacked New Guinea.  Australia mobilised for defence and American troops began to arrive in Britain.

In Dorset, Combined Operations HQ was masterminding the Bruneval Raid and the Small Scale Raiding Force was established following the success of Operation Postmaster.

Dick was working in Intelligence, presumably in Dorset because there are no letters from him to Chotie in January 1942.  However, a new companion is about to join us....

75 years ago – The World at War

All we know of Dick in December 1941 is that he visited the dentist in Bournemouth on Friday 19th.  Perhaps he even spent Christmas at home with Chotie?

In Dorset the early radar mapping discoveries (called ‘Blind Navigation’) were encouraged to enable bombers to find targets in poor weather at night. 

Dick’s future unit, the secret 1^st Air Landing, became established in Shaw House, near Newbury in Berkshire,under the leadership of Major ‘Freddie’ Gough (later of Arnhem fame).

On 2^nd December the new National Service Bill introduces compulsory war service for single women aged between 20 and 30.

 

Hitler’s armies were in striking distance of Moscow at the end of November but a surprise counter-attack by Soviet forces on 5^th December halted their advance. 

In Libya Operation Typhoon successfully led to the withdrawal of Rommel’s troops and the lifting if the siege of Tobruk. 

In Norway Combined Operations’ newly formed commandos successfully destroyed 16,000 tons of German shipping in a raid.

However…..

On 8^th December 1941 (7th December in Hawaiii) Japanese forces successfully sprung a surprise air attack on the American Fleet in Pearl Harbour, Hawaii and the USA and UK declared war on Japan.  On 9^th December China, already at war with Japan, declared war on Germany and Italy and two days later the USA was also at war with Germany and Italy.

World War 2 was now truly global.

Japan also attacked US bases in the Philippines, destroying half the US Far East Airforce, Guam (in the Mariana Islands) and Wake Island (between Hawaii and the Marianas).  In China they moved into Shanghai.

Japanese forces landed in Malaya, launching air raids on Singapore, and sinking the great British battleship HMS Prince of Wales and the battle cruiser HMS Repulse, sent to defend the colony.  Their troops landed in Borneo and Burma and on the British held Hong Kong Island.  Hong Kong surrendered to the Japanese on 25^th December, Christmas Day.

Churchill was, by then, in America, in urgent conference with the US President and essential ally Franklin D. Roosevelt, relieved that at last the USA was entering the war.

(From ‘The Second World War’ by Antony Beevor, published by Weidenfield and Nicolson 2012)

75 years ago - Chotie's 'second best'

“After my fiasco with the Land Army I went to work at Plummers, Boscombe, where I learnt a lot about displaying fashions.  Then, as it was quite a way from home, I transferred to Plummers, Bournemouth and did a spell in the Knitwear Department.  I got friendly with a Jewish girl and was spending the weekend at her home in Mudeford when I met George.  He was sitting in the back of a car smoking a Petersham pipe, just like Dicker did.  That was the attraction.  He was motorcycle officer at Blandford Camp, very posh - in fact an old Etonian, which I found out much later on.  He used to say he was second best, as he knew that Dicker was first.  George never gave me a clue as to his swanky background and he came to our humble abode for Sunday lunch and thoroughly enjoyed my Mum’s apple pie.” (From ‘Chotie’s Story’) 

After the war Mum was with George Bainbridge for seven years (she lived on his boat off Poole Quay in the summer) but he married someone else and went to live on the Isle of Wight.

Where Dick was in November 1941 is uncertain since there are no letters to my mother during this time.

Dorset’s Telecommunications Research Establishment were just beginning to produce radar ‘maps’ using their ‘Special Duty Flights’ from Christchurch Aerodrome and RAF Hurn (guarded by Dick’s Dorset Regiment).

In November 1941 a critical reconnaissance photo was taken revealing to TRE the presence of a Würzburg transmitter (Germany’s secret radar) near Cherbourg.  This became the subject of the successful Bruneval Raid in February 1942, organised from Mountbatten’s Combined Operations HQ near Poole.

Dorset was still subject to bombing raids with three people killed in Weymouth on 2^nd November.  On 11th November a British fighter plane crash landed at RAF Warmwell hitting the station’s ammunition dump and killing two of the Dorset Regiment troops on guard there.

Paper was in short supply so Christmas cards were banned and buses were stopped from 9.30pm because of the fuel shortage.

In Poland work began on the Nazis first extermination camp at Belżec.  Stalin celebrated the Anniversary of the Revolution in Moscow, although the city was in a state of siege and, as hard frosts firmed the sodden ground, German troops were advancing on the capital.

In China the Japanese had achieved a devastating victory over the Chinese Nationalists in southern Shensai and on 14^th November the British aircraft carrier Ark Royal sank following a German U-boat attack.

However, the Allies had cracked Italian naval codes and, on 9^th November, succeeded in destroying a huge convoy carrying vital supplied for Axis forces in Tripoli. On 18^th November Allied forces advanced into Libya, ending Rommel’s 241 day siege of the key supply port at Tobruk on 27^th November.

On 26^th November Japanese aircraft carriers in the north Pacific had set sail from the Kurile Islands heading for Hawaii and the American Naval base at Pearl Harbour.

75 years ago - Invalided out of the Land Army

“I left Beales to become a Land Army girl, age seventeen, after a tiff at home.  A lovely farm at Church Knowle in the Purbecks.  Miss Grace, the farm owner, let me live in her beautiful cottage under Creech, the highest point in the Purbecks.  Walking across fields in early morning, the mist fell in between the hills like small lakes, quite awesome.  Also awesome was my cycle ride from Corfe Castle station to Church Knowle, on a moonlit and part cloudy evening.  How ghostly Corfe Castle looked.

The Land Army was not for me.  After too much rich food I suffered a bilious attack and hours of mangold pulling, milking cows and trekking across fields took its toll.  Dad took great pleasure in saying I had been invalided out of the Land Army much to my annoyance.  Beryl* joined at a later date and made quite a success of it.” (From ‘Chotie’s Story’) 

*Beryl was Mum’s younger sister, ‘a success’ in the Land Army. 

Winnie Lawes and Beryl Chalkley, Chotie's sister, in the Land Army.

 

Reputedly my mother lasted three weeks in the Land Army before she was ‘invalided out’, always a source of much amusement in our family.  Dick’s posting to a location so near to her home may have had some influence on her desire to leave the rural idyll of Purbeck.

 

There are no letters from Dick between 7th October 1941 and 20th April 1942, (the Missing Winter) when records show he was transferred from the Dorsets to 1st Air Landing in the Reconnaissance Corps.   

The British 1st Air Landing Brigade was formed on 10th October 1941.  On 27^th October Lord Louis Mountbatten became Head of Combined Operations and appointed Frederick Browning as commander of the Paratroops and Airborne Troops, which on 31^st October became the first Airborne Division.

On 15th October the Nazis initiated Operation Reinhard, the plan to systematically murder all Jews in land under German control.  In France there were large-scale ‘punishment killings’ of civilians in retaliation for the assassination of German military commanders by the Resistance.

Churchill was still hoping that the USA would enter the war in support of the Allies – on 31^st October an American warship was destroyed by a German U-boat while escorting a British convoy.

75 years ago – Somewhere in England

The siege of Leningrad, which was to last until January 1944 began on 8^th September 1941.  The Germans also captured Kiev in Russia on 19^th September, carrying out the notorious massacre of Babi Yar there.  More than 33,000 Jews were killed – the largest single mass killing of the Holocaust.  At the beginning of October Hitler began his attack on Moscow.

Meanwhile Dorset and the Hampshire border were used for the filming of 'The First of the Few', the story of the Spitfire, starring Leslie Howard and David Niven and featuring pilots from RAF Command.  Niven had left Hollywood to rejoin the  Army at the start of the war and, although he did some work for the Army Film Unit, he also commanded ‘A’ Squadron of the secret GHQ Liaison known as ’Phantom’, which specialised in front-line communications.  ‘A’ Squadron were based on the south coast behind Poole Harbour in Dorset working with ‘V’ Corps (part of Southern Command) for the defence of Hampshire and Dorset. 

Also in September Dick’s unit, the 70th Battalion of the Dorset Regiment moved to Bournemouth while its companies guarded RAF Ibsley (the main location for the film above), RAF Hurn, RAF Warmwell and the cliffs at Canford (where Chotie was later to live). 

 

Chotie, now aged eighteen, had joined the Women's Land Army.  Dick, who’s enjoying the Autumn countryside in Hampshire, writes to congratulate her but then, in his next letter, reveals that his HQ Company is moving to the Branksome Chine area in Poole on the weekend of 20^th/21^st September.  Although this must have been frustrating, with Chotie now moving out from Poole to a farm somewhere in Dorset, Dick also seems intent to “go elsewhere”.  He writes to Chotie at Church Knowle (where she’s working on the farm near Corfe Castle in Purbeck and living in Miss Grace’s little cottage at Cocknowle) saying he “should be out off this punk crowd in a month or two”.  His family also has plans to move from Poole back to Herne Bay in Kent, where they lived when Dick was a child.

On 7^th October Dick had a medical, prior to his transfer, passed in A1 condition and wrote Chotie his last letter for some time:

Intelligence Section

HQ Company

70th Dorsets

Branksome

Hants.

Tuesday

My Darling Chotie,

                                                            Just a few lines to let you know that all is well, and that I still love you, EVERYTHING.

            I'm now feeling much better and though still on the sick list, hope to be OK again in a few days time.

            I had a letter from Brinner (NO not Monica*, Darling...) who appears to be enjoying himself.

            I do little or nothing all day with Eric, which gets pretty boring after a while.  He had a parcel today and is, consequently, feeling quite cheerful, and sends his love (brotherly).

            I was medically examined this morning re transferring, and was categorised A1. - not that it makes any difference.  I'm afraid there's no news, of course, as nothing seems to happen.

            Marjory, as I hear from Diller, who still corresponds, has now found her true love (etc), and may now cease to cause me sleepless nights.  It's about time she had a change of front and policy.  That's the only snag of going back to Herne Bay**.  But at any rate we hope she's married by then and in safe hands.

            This pen’s horrible to write with.  Needless to say, it’s Eric's!  He has everything on the thin side.

            I've managed to find Cocknowle on a large-scale map - so I now know whereabouts it lies.

            As regards next Sunday, I'll borrow a bike from Somewhere in England and be around sometime about 3 pm to 5-30.  At any rate, I'll write again before then.

            Well, Darling I must close here as it's time for tea, and I must rush to post this.

            I managed to get a Dorset Brooch, which will do, I hope, until I get into a Genuine Regiment when I'll send you another.

                                                                        Bye, bye Darling

                                                                                    All my love

                                                                                                Dicker

                                                                                                Xxxxxxxx

 

* Dick’s former girlfriend – see letters of 12^th November 1940 and 31^st March 1941

** Dick’s family were planning to move back to Herne Bay from Poole

 

© Chotie Darling

75 years ago – Not much of a Birthday

The Atlantic Charter, a joint statement of mutual goals for the post WW2 world, was signed by Britain and the USA on 14^th August but America had still not joined the war.  On 25^th August British and Russian troops invaded Iran, then known as Persia.

At the beginning of September Jews in Germany, like those in Poland, were forced to wear the yellow star.  Auschwitz-Birkenau, the Nazi concentration camp in southern Poland, began the murder of prisoners using gas. By the end of World War 2 over 1.1 million men, women and children had lost their lives there.

In Dorset R.A.F. Hurn welcomed the fighter aircraft that were to become the secret Telecommunications Flying Unit (later the Radar Research Flying unit) linked to the Telecommunications Research Establishment at Worth Matravers, near Swanage.  This was the top secret centre for scientists working on Britain’s radar warning system.

By 17^th August Dick’s section of the Dorset Regiment based at Fort Brockhurst in Gosport seem to have been getting restless.  Dick’s friend Bill Ede ‘deserted’ the Intelligence unit and there were a number of court martials.  Dick appears to have been given his 7 days leave at the end of August since there are no letters until September when he sent Chotie a card for her eighteenth birthday:

 

Letter posted on Saturday 6^th September 1941

Intelligence Section

HQ Company, 70th Dorsets

Fort Brockhurst, Gosport

Hants.

Darling Chotie,

                                    Just a few lines, Precious, to wish you very many Happy Returns of your Birthday.

            I'm afraid you won't get this missive until after the sixth* as I haven't had one single moment to spare since I've been back.  Also of course it's the hell of a job to get anything posted out here in the wilds.

            Anyway, Darling, as you put it once before, “Here's wishing you everything you wish yourself”, which is, I think, easily the best way of expressing myself.

            Unfortunately I haven't yet been paid this week, as they wouldn't pay me at Brockhurst, and pay parade was over when I arrived up here. 

I had to do a 24 hr Guard at Brockhurst as soon as I was back but I hope to be able to get a bracelet in Gosport or Pompey*** when I can get there.  Brinner’s** still got the residue of my cash, but said he would send it on.

            Poor Chotie ... I'm afraid it won't be much of a birthday for you, but doubtless better times are coming.  Don't forget to tell me all the latest when you write, Honey.

            I'm dying to know what’s happened re the Land Army, etc.

            If you see Brinner, tell him to let me know all his news, (also to send some cash!)

            Well, Darling I must close here, as I have to see the Intelligence Officer.                                                                          

                                                    All my love Darling

                                                                                    ever yours

                                                                                                Dicker

PS. Don't worry about anything, Precious, - we'll pull through all right.

 

* Chotie’s 18^th birthday

** Dick’s younger brother Brian

*** A name for Portsmouth

© Chotie Darling

75 years ago - German class

On 13^th July 1941 Britain and the USSR pledged to assist one another against Hitler.

In Dorset a new Aerodrome was completed at Hurn (now Bournemouth Airport) and the Small Scale Raiding Force set forth from Poole on a mission to West Africa – Operation Postmaster.

Dick was still at Fort Brockhurst in Gosport, training for Intelligence work. Diversions included the cinema, heavy drinking with his pals in Pompey (Portsmouth) and a painful attempt at horse-riding.  He was giving lectures, practising the laying and disconnection of minefields and studying Spanish, German and French (Dick was fluent in French and found Spanish easy but thought German ‘a swinish language’).

The 11^th August 1941 found him writing to Chotie during a German class  :

Monday 11^th August 1941

Fort Brockhurst

Gosport

Hants

Monday Morning

My Darling,

                                                                                    It's not often that I begin an epistle to you at this hour in the morning - it's now only 8.30 - but as I have some time to spare, I thought I'd start anyway.

            It's been raining hard since réveillé and looks like going on all day.  I suppose it will stop by about eleven or so.  I'm meant to demonstrate sniping to the Company Commanders at nine o'clock but with this rain I suppose it will be postponed - at any rate I hope so.

            Thanks for your last letter.  I've passed on best wishes to Eric (I'm too jealous to give him your love...) who returns same.  I haven't seen Pete lately and JP is on leave.

            Incidentally my leave is down for the 22^nd of this month but we have been warned that all leave will probably be a month late, so it's not a bit of good to back on it.  It would be marvellous if I could get it, as it's only about ten days time.

            Eric and I went to the flicks yesterday and saw ‘Typhoon’ (Lamour & Preston).  It's a bit ancient but very good.  I don't know whether you saw it or not.  Don't miss it if you get the chance.  Eric & I also joined the Gosport Library - which is an excellent one in every way.

 

            We have just started a German class, but I hope to carry on with my letter.  The Education Sergeant is very ancient and could easily overlook this writing.  At the moment he’s chalking up lines and lines of German on the blackboard - I've no idea what - I never do.

 

Well, I just had a break for lunch so am once again at it.

            Hell!  I wish I could get my Seven Days... and don't you start talking about going Russian either*, or I'll start…

            We are now having a lecture on mopping-up paratroops - a lot of bloody rubbish…  They are under the impression that a section (one Lance Corporal & nine men) could easily finish off 18 paratroops, which is ridiculous as a British Army section has only one Bren Gun, possibly a Tommy gun and seven or eight rifles, whereas paratroops have each a light machine-gun, and bristle with Mills bombs**, grenades etc.  That's the Army all over - mass slaughter.

            I'm just going to dinner, so I'll probably feel better after that.

 

Well, Darling I've had dinner and do feel considerably better for it.  Excuse the ink (unusual for me) but as there appears to be a pen here I thought I may as well use it, perhaps it helps to make my writing legible.

            It has cleared up and the sun is shining once again - think of the time when it will always be shining, Sweetheart, when there shall be ‘no wars nor rumours of wars***’ ...  That little cottage with the thatched roof and glorious roses...And a Queen Anne bed... (?)

            This nightmare of separation will soon be over Darling, and then we'll start to live again.  That's if you'll still love me then.  All I ever do is hope & pray that you will. Please tell me you will, Darling, and I'll get some sleep at night...

            Well, Precious I must close here as I have to go on parade at 2 o'clock.

                                                            All my love, Darling,

                                                                        Your loving,

                                                                                    Dicker.

* Dick and Chotie appear to have used ‘Russian’ as a euphemism for intimate matters.

** kinds of hand grenade

*** Mark Chapter 13 Verse 7 “And when ye shall hear of wars and rumours of wars, be ye not troubled: for such things must needs be; but the end shall not be yet…” from Authorized King James version of the Holy Bible (Matthew Chapter 24 Verse 7 is very similar).

© Chotie Darling

75 years ago - The Intelligence crew

By June 1941 the Allies were on the attack again – bombers from Dorset Warmwell aerodrome raided German held Cherbourg in France.  America (still not yet in the war) froze all German, Italian and Japanese assets in the US and evicted all the Axis consulates.  Hitler, however, was looking in another direction. On 22^nd June 1941 he launched Germany’s surprise attack on Russia, Operation Barbarossa.

Meanwhile Dick, now a Private once more, was in the Mechanical Transport Section of HQ Company at Fort Brockhurst, Gosport.  On 19th June he narrowly missed seeing Chotie during a brief visit to Bournemouth and Poole. He was restless and keen to volunteer for a new elite corps - the parachutists (the Special Air Service was founded on 1^st July 1941 and the Parachute Regiment on 1st August 1942).

Dick seems to have been granted his seven days leave at the end of June and, thanks to Operation Barbarossa, which had removed some fear of an imminent German invasion, may have been able to go bathing with Chotie again on the re-opened section of beach at Sandbanks. The West Dorset coast, though, was far from peaceful with air attacks on Chideock and West Bay and, on 9^th July, the Battle of Lyme Bay.  German schnellboots attacked an Allied convoy sinking a tanker, four freighters and an armed trawler that was acting as escort in the Bay.

Dick didn’t join the SAS or the Paras - at least there is not record of this.  By 7^th July he had moved to the Intelligence section:

Saturday 12^th July

FAREHAM SERVICES INSTITUTE

Intelligence Section

HQ Company

70th Dorsets

Gosport

Hants.

My Darling Chotie,

                                                                                    Having just been to the flicks and finding myself at the above address, I thought I’d write you to let you know what news there is and that I arrived back safely but very late.  The trains were all over the show at So-ton and I had to go all the way to Romsey, from Totton, and then back on the same train to So-ton.  When I got to Fareham the last bus had just gone, and consequently in the company of several others I had to walk (!) to Brockhurst - about six miles!

            And not one car passed me all the way.

            In the interests of National Economy I am using both sides of this note paper.   

This Intelligence game is proving to be a cinch, ---- all to do and plenty of time to do it in.  It is in fact, just my vocation.

            We've just been to see ‘ Honeymoon for Three’ - quite amusing.  I was going to see ‘Rebecca’ again but it was on in some vague suburb of Pompey*, and consequently I changed my mind.

            I went to the Coliseum again last night.  Annette was there again – strip-tease.  I regret to say I got hopelessly tight afterwards.  There were four of us, and I've no idea how we got back again and believe it or not, I was by far the most sober of us all.  After an hour's steady drinking, it developed into a competition, and we started on Brandy and Chablis.  Gertie (Kirkwood) was crawling about under the table before long, and Welsh, a bloke from Plymouth Grammar, looked decidedly ill. Billy Ede has lived most of his life in France & Germany and is consequently rather hardened. After that we got split up and Bill and I later found the others in Gosport trying to climb a pile of sandbags.  I managed to get to bed, but got up again about midnight and had a cold shower which sobered me up considerably. 

            I'll never forget that night.  We're all on Intelligence.  What a crew. I had the devil of a hangover this morning, but luckily it's Saturday so there's ---- all to do.        

            Well, Darling, there's no news as usual.  I hope you managed to get back all right.        

            I've written with some pens in my time, but I've never seen the likes of this one.  The ---- nib keeps getting crossed.        

                                I must say bye bye now Darling as I have to get a bus back to Brockhurst.                                                                                   

                                                                                    All my love,

                                                                                                Darling,

                                                                                                            Dicker

Je t’aime encore de tout mon coeur**.

*Portsmouth

**French - "I love you always with all of my heart"

© Chotie Darling

 

75 years ago – Reverting to Private

On 24^th May the popular Picture Post magazine predicted that Poole, where Chotie lived, would be one of the main landing areas for the still anticipated German invasion. Dick sent a telegram to Chotie on 24^th May and they managed to meet up in Southampton the next day. 

On Tuesday 27^th May Dick wrote to Chotie while guarding prisoners on Southampton Common.  Rumours that he’d heard about moving proved true and, as Allied troops were evacuated from Crete (following the German paratrooper  invasion), Dick was preparing for a move to Fort Brockhurst at Gosport near Portsmouth.

In June rationing was extended to clothes – Chotie found this increasingly miserable.  She was an avid fashion fan and trained as a window dresser at the Beales fashion store in Bournemouth (later bombed).

The move to Gosport on 3^rd June found a very disgruntled Dick comparing the place to a chicken coop and fed up with his duties as a Corporal.  On 7^th June he reverted to Private at his own request:

Letter posted Monday 9th June 1941

 ‘D’ Company

Fort Brockhurst

Gosport.

My Darling Chotie,

                                                                        Thanks a million for the letter.  I've only just got it as I suppose it was held up at Soton.

Well, Honey, I've got some news this week!  I'm now a private again.

            I got so utterly fed up with this Battalion, that I sent in an application to the Old Man to revert to the ranks.  He refused, saying he considered me better as an NCO, than as a private.  He then asked me why I wished to revert, so I let him have it!

I told him I'd sooner serve as a Mess Orderly in a fighting unit than a Sergeant-Major in this. That shook ‘ee!

            He asked me whether I'd like to go on MT*, driving, probably on a motor-bike, should there be a vacancy.  I told him I would, so may start there soon.  At any rate I'll get a transfer.

I told the Old Man that all the NCOs did here was to wet-nurse a lot of kids who should be in the Boy Scouts.

            So here I am.  Being a Private will give me a wonderful chance to swot up, which I intend to do.  Besides, driving is more fun than fooling about in barracks, etc.  I shall probably break my neck, but that's how it goes.

            (Don't forget to address all correspondence to Private name & number)

Will you still love me as a private, Darling?  That's all I'm worried about.

            George was going to chuck his in, but he's got some sick leave, so I don't know much about it.

            I went to the Coliseum at Portsmouth, yesterday, and saw a Strip-Tease Act.  The compere said “The more you applaud, the more she takes off.”! Did the boys give her a hand!  I went with John and Ted Rendall, - we nearly killed ourselves laughing.

Later   The only good thing at this place is the showers.  They're hot almost always.  I've just had one, after dinner, and do I feel ‘in the pink’!  I could kill an ox.

            Well, Darling I must close here, with all my love.  Please write and tell me you still think of me now & then.

                                                                        Bye, bye, Darling

                                                                                    Your own loving hubby,

                                                                                                Dicker.

*M.T. = Mechanical Transport

© Chotie Darling

75 years ago - the Intelligence Course

In May 1941 rationing was beginning to bite in Dorset as both Viscount Cranborne (the Lord Lieutenant of Dorset) and the Earl of Shaftesbury (Member of Parliament for South Dorset) were taken to court for buying black market butter.  Chotie’s family were relatively comfortable since they ran the Creekmoor Farm Dairy in Parkstone.

Creekmoor Farm Dairy, on the corner of Chapel Road and Commercial Road, Parkstone c.1932. The children are Chotie's younger sister and brother, Beryl and Jack.

 

The first ‘Bailey Bridge’, later to play an invaluable role in the Normandy landings and liberation of North-West Europe, was tested on the River Stour in Christchurch.  Bombing went on in Dorset with significant attacks in Weymouth and the loss of the famous Maia flying-boat in Poole Harbour. 

A number of Poole men lost their lives when the battlecruiser HMS Hood was sunk in the Battle of the Denmark Strait on 24^th May.  Revenge was swift with the county’s cruiser, HMS Dorsetshire, finally sinking Hitler’s prize battleship the Bismark and ending the battle on 27^th May.

Southampton’s Blitz produced its last casualties at Hedge End in the air-raid of May 1941. 

Dick was able to take his seven days leave at the beginning of May so was home in Poole for a while with his family and Chotie.

Corporal Richard Williams of the Dorsetshire Regiment with his father, Dudley Williams, in home guard uniform and his younger brother Brin, a cadet.

On 13^th May Dick was back in Southampton on sick leave, writing to Chotie from a hut on Southampton Common on Church Army paper.  The week’s Intelligence course he’d heard about on 25th April was in Winchester (where Ordinary Ranks were recruited for the Corps) from 18^th to 24^th May.  Dick was confirmed as a full Corporal while he was on the course.

 

Wednesday 21^st May 1941  

Winchester

Wednesday Morning

Darling,

                                                                        Sorry I haven't been able to write before. I've been on the course for 2 days now and so far haven't had a spare moment.

            I don't mind that so much, but unfortunately I won't be able to receive any mail whilst I'm here. This means I won't hear from you until Saturday night at the earliest.  Rather a blow, but these things can't be helped.

            The course is very interesting to a bloke who knows sweet ---- all about Intelligence.  I don’t suppose I’ll know much more about it when I’ve finished but still....

            Incidentally, I get back on Saturday night, which means the CSM will try to jump on me for guard on Sunday.  If, however, I can evade this, I’ll send a telegram on Saturday night to let you know whether I can get the day off.  I’ll probably have to go on Church but still, we get back about 11.30. I believe.

            I’m afraid I can’t write any more, Darling as it’s now nearly 0900 hrs.  We have to be in the Lecture Room by 0930 and it’s a fair way to walk.  (I’ve just had a marvellous breakfast!)                   

                                            Bye bye Darling,

                                                                Your adoring

                                                                                    Dicker

© Chotie Darling

75 years ago - the Quartermaster

The worst bombing in Poole was on 27^th March 1941 when two bombs blew up the stores and canteen at Branksome Gas Works.  34 were killed and another 23 injured.  A few days earlier a bomb hitting the railway embankment blew out all the windows on the Poole 'Glamour Puffer' transporting women working in the Royal Navy Cordite factory at Holton Heath.  Poole had a special role to play in combined operations – in April the secret Small Scale Raiding Force, a forerunner of the Royal Marine Commandos, began life with a HQ set up in the Antelope, Poole. 

Fighting continued in the skies above Dorset with further attacks on the Spitfire fighters at Warmwell who intercepted bombers heading for the northern cities.  Southampton, where Dick was stationed, was also receiving considerable attention from the Luftwaffe. On 21^st March he wrote of his frustration at all the hours spent in shelters as the bombs rained down every night. Returning from home on 23^rd March he got lost at the docks. After three days instructing on the rifle range he was complaining of losing his student skills and on 31st March of his ghastly THB inoculation, which put him under the weather for a week or so.  He was cheered by the chance of a commission, although it meant delaying his seven days leave, but was unsuccessful because his time in PT meant he didn’t have enough military knowledge.  On 24^th April we find him unhappily covering the Quartermaster’s duties for a week:

Thursday 24^th and Friday 25^th April 1941

IMMEDIATE

Southampton

Thursday.

24 APRIL 1941

Darling Tootsie,

                                                                                    Well, Sweetheart to get it over quickly, I can't get my seven days this week at any rate.  Lieutenant Thomas, the Company Commander, came to me this morning and casually said, “Oh, Corporal Williams, do you think you could take over the Quartermaster’s job for a week?  I literally shuddered (!), and said “not b----y likely!” but unfortunately he wouldn't take no for an answer, and consequently here I am for 9 days altogether.

            I've been at it all day and have just finished.  It's now after eleven!  What a game!  As far as I can see I shall be at it every night like this.  The C.Q.M.S.* never finished before eight or nine, and I know nothing about the job.  However, it may be the chance of a lifetime.  We shall see.

            I seem to be getting all the rotten luck lately - but if you still love me a little I don't give a damn. That's all I care about anyway.  I can't write any more darling as I'm nearly asleep.

            Bye bye, Darling

                                                                        Don't lose hope,

                                                                                    Your loving

                                                                                                Dicker

                                                                                                XXX

                                                                                                XXX

PS Thanks for letter received this morning.

 

“D” COMPANY

No....................

25 APR 1941

70^th BN. THE DORSET

 

                            RKWilliams   Capt.    Commanding D Coy

                             70^th Bn. The Dorsetshire Regt. 

 

 

                   URGENT!

Southampton

          CONFIDENTIAL!                                                         

Friday

25 APR 1941

My Darling,

                                                                        I wasn't able to post your letter yesterday, so I'm writing a few more wads whilst I've got a chance.

            I've just seen some good news in Battalion Part II Orders.  I've been selected to attend the 4th Division Intelligence Course at HQ 4^th Div. wherever that may be.  There are two of us going – 2^nd Lieutenant Wallers (that hot bloke who we saw going into the flicks at Soton).

            It's a marvellous chance.  It's only a week's course, but should be very good.  It's on the 18th of May, and lasts until the 24th.  The only thing is, I don't know where it is. However, I shall be able to get my Seven Days before going.

                        Well Darling once again bye bye for the moment.

                                        Lots of love

 

                                                    Dicker

 

* C.Q.M.S – Company Quartermaster Sergeant, the non commissioned officer in charge of supplies for a company. (Hence the stamps on the letter….)

© Chotie Darling

 

75 years ago - bombing raids in Southampton

In March Dick moved back to south Hampshire from Southbourne and was stationed in Southampton. The city was subject to regular air-raids, the Luftwaffe having resumed their bombing campaign (which had been hampered by the winter weather following the terrible attacks of November and December).

Poole, where Chotie lived, suffered 88 air raid alerts in March and April as incendiaries, high explosive bombs and UXBs were dropped on the area (from  ‘Poole and World War II’ written by Derek Beamish, Harold Bennett and John Hillierand published by Poole Historical Trust in 1980.)

 

Dick wrote this letter while on guard in Southampton:

‘D’ Company

70th Dorsets

Southampton

Hants.

My Darling Chotie,

                                                                        As I’m on guard once again I thought I’d write as I have a few moments all to myself!

        I have to go on guard every three days or so – far too often - a 24 hrs guard, mounting at 6 pm and dismounting at 6 pm the next day. 

        It’s a regimental guard over the main entrance to the Battalion Headquarters.  Needless to say everything is just so-so or the RSM* wants to know why.  However, there’s a stove in the guardroom which helps matters not a little.  There’s also an orderly attached to the guard who gets the meals and anything from the NAAFI.

        The guard consists of one Corporal and three men, each man doing two hrs on duty and then four hrs in the guardroom.  The main snag is that we have to wear full equipment and are not allowed to take it off during the 24 hrs, except for reasons too obvious to mention!

        That’s enough of guards – they’re pretty depressing things anyway. To turn to a more cheerful subject, I hope to get home next weekend for a few hours – either on Saturday or Sunday.  It all depends on when I have to go on guard again.  If it falls on Saturday evening it ruins me, as there wouldn’t be time to get home and I would be on guard all the Sunday.  I believe, however, that I go on again on Friday, which means I come off Saturday night and could get home on the Sunday.  We must trust to luck as usual.  I think I can make it all right.

        I’ve been to the flicks twice lately – saw ‘The Great Dictator’ and ‘Black Fury’ (Paul Muni).  How anyone could see anything in the ‘Great Dictator’ I don’t know.  I thought it was chronic.  ‘Black Fury’ was quite good but nothing up to the usual Muni standard.  The place we go to (the only place we are allowed without a pass) is Shirley.  I’ve no idea where it lies on the map but it’s inland from Southampton.  It’s a pretty dull place; reminds me of the East End on Sunday – all 50 shilling tailors and patent leather.

        There’s nothing to go out for anyway, as we have a first rate NAAFI and a good Corporals’ Room.  The boys say there are plenty of women here but I haven’t seen any – except a couple of old bags, doubtless engaged in plying the oldest of professions. I’m afraid that’s rather crude. Almost Russian**…

        Incidentally, I don’t know whether I told you I had an interview with the ‘Old Man’ and he’s recommended me.  It will mean some months, as I have to wait for the recommendation to go through to the interview board.  They’re the b----rs to get past and even if I get past them (which I very much doubt) I’d still have to wait to get posted to an O.C.T.U.***  Still it’s a start, I suppose.

        I’ve just paused to make out the Guard reports – a wretched job as everything has to be reported – even the minutest detail.

 

            Later

                                    Well, Precious, it’s now just after midnight and still the sirens haven’t gone.  It’s really rather odd as we seem lost without them here.  I expect Jerry’s stocktaking this evening…  the raids lately have been almost continuous and pretty vicious. About six houses in a row, 200 yards from here came down on Saturday night.

        When there’s a night raid on the shrapnel comes down like rain, from the Anti-Aircraft Barrage.  There’s not a house in the whole place that hasn’t got some windows out or half the roof gone.  It’s certainly more interesting from that point of view, as there’s seldom a dull moment at night.  It makes the guards a lot more fun when you can hear the shrapnel on the roof.

        I’ve done very little reading lately as I don’t get very much time.  I read, or rather re-read, Hitchins’ ‘The Garden of Allah’, and quite an interesting little book called ‘I’ll tell you Everything’, written by Priestley in collaboration with some one else****, which, although very light & sometimes puerile, was really rather good.

(Every now and then I light my pipe and march up and down outside in an effort to keep awake.  The stove in here makes me wish for my dear little bed…).

        There’s a piano here in the Assembly Hall, on which I manage to amuse myself occasionally if no one else.  If I can find a piano anywhere where I can play without fear of being interrupted I’m really happy for hours – which only goes to prove what a simple minded soul I must be.

Well, my precious baby, I must close here as I don’t want to put an undue strain on your eyes (?) reading all this rubbish, so I will say ‘Good Morning’, Darling,

                                                            Your ever loving,

                                                                                    Dicker

P.S.  Please look after yourself, Darling, as you mean just everything now.

 

* RSM – Regimental Sergeant Major

** ‘Russian’ was a romantic code between Dick and Chotie.

“Dicker and I, so young, played wonderful games. We pretended to be ‘Russian’ and he taught me to love the ballet as he did.  Having always wanted to be a dancer we pretended I was.  I wore my long blonde hair in the style of a ballerina. He was a brilliant pianist and played Chopin by ear. He had a very good physique having exercised with weights and things – very muscular.  How I adored him.  Our lovemaking was very pure by today’s standards.  Just to kiss and hold each other close was very thrilling.”  From ‘Chotie’s Story’.

*** O.C.T.U. – Officer Cadet Training Unit

****Robert Smythe Hichens’ ‘The Garden of Allah’, a tale of adventure in the Sahara Desert written in 1904, was made famous by the Marlene Dietrich film of 1936.  ‘I’ll Tell You Everything’ written by J.B.Priestley in collaboration with Gerald Bullett is a light-hearted crime thriller.

© Chotie Darling

75 years ago - moved to Southbourne

After long lonely nights on guard at Lee-on-Solent Dick did get home on 18^th January and met Chotie again for the first time since October. He got caught up in a blitz in Southampton while returning to his unit. Towards the end of January he writes to Chotie about peace as 'something to be fought for' but also seems determined to marry her when the fighting is over.

Compulsory fire-watching was introduced in January 1941 and as an employee of Beales, the Bournemouth department store, Chotie took her turn as ‘Roof Warden’.

On 1^st February the BOAC flying-boat service in Poole Harbour expanded with a route to Portugal – the only safe staging post in Europe to reach the African front. On the same day Project Fougasse or ‘Sea Flame’ successfully set fire to the sea off Studland, lighting up the East Dorset night sky so brightly you could read a newspaper in Bournemouth.  (From ‘Poole and World War II’ written by Derek Beamish, Harold Bennett and John Hillier and published by Poole Historical Trust in 1980 and ‘Dorset’s War Diary - Battle of Britain to D Day’ by Rodney Legg, Dorset Publishing Company 2004.)

 

On the first weekend in February Dick wrote:

Rye Cottage

Marine Parade W

Lee-on-Solent

Hants.

Darling Chotie,                                                                              

                                    Thanks for the letter. As I'm on Guard again I thought I'd write. It's about the only time I get. I'm on the Beach Hut Guard with no stove and only a candle for light and heat, and is it cold!

            It's now just eight o'clock Saturday evening, and I'm faced with the pleasant prospect of staying in this wretched hut, awake, ‘till ten o'clock tomorrow morning. It's so damn cold now that I can hardly write - Heaven knows what it will be like by about midnight.

            There was an inspection of these guards by a General a few days ago. From what I can gather from various sources, he condemned the conditions and I believe there is the chance of moving again. I don't know where it will be, of course.

            Everyone's fed up with this place as, apart from the food, there's nothing to be said for it. It's one long Guard - up to our necks in mud and only one wretched cinema, when we get any time off.       

            Anyhow, Darling, I still love you so much that even Guards become a pleasure when I think, of the glorious time we're going to have when I get back. And I don't mean maybe...        

            About every ten minutes someone, some clumsy ---, knocks over my candle, and if it were not for my lighter, Darling, I don't know what I'd do. I'd certainly have used a good few matches tonight.

            I'm afraid as usual there's very little news - if any. Nothing of any real interest ever seems to happen.         

            I hope to meet Eric again soon. He's at Gosport (about 5 miles from here) and I'm trying to arrange a reunion. The snag is that it's difficult for us to both get the same night off duty. I expect we'll manage it soon - Eric's a born wangler.

 

Sunday Evening

            I came off Guard and after a bath and some din-din, felt a lot better.

            I'm afraid I can't write any more, Darling as it's just on Supper Time, and I must post this in the NAAFI as it's the only chance I’ll get.     

                                        Bye, bye Darling,

                                                            All my love

                                                                        Dicker

 © Chotie Darling

 

Soon after this letter Dick’s unit was moved to Southbourne in Bournemouth – near enough to see Chotie regularly so there are no letters until 12^th March.

He may have seen some action from the coastal battery at Hengistbury Head firing on German Schnellboots close to the shore on 12^th February.

On 20^th February Dick was again promoted to full Corporal.

75 years ago - Changes

January 1941 brought changes for Dick. On 1^st January he was demoted to Lance Corporal for “not having control over the men”. He was also transferred to ‘C’ company at Battalion Headquarters in Corsham, 10 miles from the aerodrome.

Soon after this the 70^th Dorsets were moved to Lee-on-Solent on the Hampshire Coast, presumably as part of Lieutenant-General Montgomery’s V Corps in Southern Command. Monty was responsible for the defence of Hampshire and Dorset from July 1940 to April 1941.

And then Dick ran into a lorry:

January 1941

“Rye Cottage”

Marine Parade West

Lee-on-Solent.

Hants.

My Darling,

            Just a few lines to let you know how I'm getting on and to give you the new address. Did you get my P.S.?

            I wrote about a week ago, telling you of my demotion etc - I also wrote home but they don't appear to have got it. I don't know whether you did.

            I'm afraid I've been laid up for some time as I had a bit of an accident and nearly managed to lose my left eye. I was blind in it for three days - but the MO says it's OK now – I only hope he's right. I was running pretty fast (Olympic Games Standard!) in the Black-Out early one morning, when I collided with a lorry. I thought I was tough, but I rather think the lorry had it all the way. I got a slight concussion and a deep cut under my eye - but it's all right now.

            In case you didn't get my last letter, I'm now a L/Cpl having been busted by the Colonel (bless him). Pete is now a full Corporal in ‘D’ Coy my original Company. Eric has also been made up again. The fortunes of war....

            However who cares? I've still got my Tootsie (I hope..) and that's all I have to worry about.

            Well Darling I'm afraid I'll have to close here as this wretched NAAFI is closing.

                            Still loving you every bit Cho Dear,

                                                                        your devoted

                                                                                    Dicker

 

© Chotie Darling, 2010

*The Blackout ensured that there were no outdoor lights, or lights that could be seen from outside. This was to prevent enemy aircraft from identifying targets at night.

There were still plenty of air attacks on the south coast – Poole suffered from incendiary bombs on 6 of the first 12 days in January 1941 with c.250 houses damaged on 9^th January and two men killed by high explosive bombs.

Portsmouth, near Lee-on-Solent, sustained an enormous Blitz on 10^th January 1941.

At Lee-on-Solent the Royal Naval Air Station Dick may have been guarding (HMS Daedalus of the Fleet Air Arm) was packed with underground pipe bombs to make the site unusable in the case of enemy invasion. Rediscovered in 2006 this led to probably the largest peace time evacuation in Britain while they were removed.

 

75 years ago – Christmas Deserters from Corsham

Air warfare continued over southern England and in Dorset German planes and spitfires came down on land and at sea. By December the Warmwell Dorset airbase had lost 26 pilots.  On 13^th December Poole’s heathlands were set ablaze by incendiary bombs on Hamworthy but when Montgomery came to view ‘Project Fougasse’ on 20^th December, 'Operation Sea Flame' was less successful at setting the sea alight at Studland.

Fights among the Young Soldiers in Wiltshire also continued, although discipline was apparently tightened up.  Dick, continuing to ‘try for a Commission’, was the youngest Corporal in the battalion. He was badly lovesick but there was to be no leave to see Chotie in December. The company (he was now in 'A' company of the 70^th Dorsets) left Chippenham to guard Corsham aerodrome – a miserable place. While changing the guard,after a raid on the aerodrome, Dick walked into a spitfire in the pitch black but at least he wasn’t shot by one of the guards – a recent "morbid" accident! By Christmas many of the Young Soldiers had made a bid for freedom:

 

Wednesday 25^th December 1940

Corsham, Wilts

Christmas Day

My Precious Darling,

            I had to write straightaway, to try to thank you for the lovely lighter you sent for the 25th. Darling, it lights! Nothing can stop it lighting - not even a young hurricane. I've used it on guard - and believe me the wind howls round here - and it lights first time every go!

            Darling, it's just what I've wanted for years. You know how many matches I use! Thank you ever so much Cho, Dear. Remind me to give you a big kiss when I get home. When.………..But I'm still hoping.

            I thought about you all over Christmas Darling. It made me so mad to think that I couldn't send you anything, not even a Christmas card. Poor Eric's in the same boat and Pete. We haven't seen a shop of any sort for nearly three weeks. I've been to Bath twice since we've been here but each time the only thing open were the pubs.

            The latest is that all passes to Bath have been stopped as the Chief-of-Police has banned us from the town! The same applied to Chippenham. The Boys beat up every town we get near!

            I've been on guard all day (Christmas) and come off tomorrow morning. It's now about 9.30 pm., and as usual I'm writing this by the lamp in the Guard Hut. I managed to wangle Eric on this guard so I've had his company all day, which is a relief. We had quite a good dinner, which included Beer & Cigarettes.

            Pete has been in bed for 2 days with a so-called gastric stomach! He's really no more ill than I am, but you know what he is! Needless to say however, he made a rapid recovery on Christmas Eve.

            Owing to present conditions I can't say just what's going to happen to me. Let me explain. Out of the whole battalion (A,B,C,D & E Companies.) which is approx 850 men, there have been over 250 deserters in the last fortnight! Which only goes to show what the conditions are like!

            Now, everyone over 20 can get a transfer to another Regiment - and believe me, there are plenty over 20 who have put their age down to 18.

            Lieutenant White our Officer in Charge is being replaced as from tonight by a Captain. This means I have to start all over again as regards a commission! What a life!

            The Orderly Officer has just come up with Beer & fags (!) so I have altered my opinion of the Army since writing the last sentence.

                        Well, my precious, I must close soon as the Ord has to be accompanied around.

                                                            Darling, I must see you soon as I love you so madly that I just can't go on without you.

                                                                            Goodnight, Cho Darling

                                                                                Your adoring

                                                                                                Dicker

© Chotie Darling, 2010

75 years ago - Choosing Friends

At the beginning of October Dick had his 7 days leave at home in Parkstone (Poole, Dorset) and met up with Chotie.  On the 3^rd October he’d been appointed a Full Corporal and he was already angling for a commission.

Parkstone was seeing plenty of action - enemy planes would have been frequent by day and by night, heading inland over the Dorset coast or occasionally bombing Dorset ports and towns. The Battle of Britain was also frequently fought in Dorset skies and many German and British planes crashed into Dorset’s land and sea in autumn 1940. (See David R. Privett’s account of a wartime childhood in Poole on the BBC People's War website .)

 

Back in Bemerton Dick was still with his Dorset friends, Eric Kessler and Pete (despite rumours of a move to Basingstoke and even joining up with the Hampshire Regiment!) but since they were privates and Dick was an NCO (non-commissioned officer) this friendship was not encouraged:

 

Tuesday 22nd October 1940

Bemerton

Tuesday evening

My Darling Cho,

                                                            Thanks for the letter which I got this morning.

            Well Darling to get down to business, I find that with reasonable luck I’ll be able to get home on Sunday.  The point is Honey, that if I can get a pass all day in Salisbury I may just as well come home, and it will save you a look of trouble & expense.  Also I don’t like the idea of your travelling back all that way in the dark.

            There is some truth in what Mummy warns you about, even if you don’t believe it… Mind you, I’m not saying you can’ take care of yourself, but after all you’re only a lickle baby although you’re the most adorable chubby baby that ever lived.  I tremble to think what could happen to you, Sweetheart, and I hate taking those kind of risks.

            I was doing Battalion Orderly Sergeant all day last Sunday which is some job, & I don’t mean maybe.  It means being on all day from réveillé until about 11pm, with one worry after another – but for all that, it’s good experience.

            Incidentally, I was choked off the other day, pretty severely.  I bet you wouldn’t guess what for? (No, Precious, it wasn’t women!)  It was for associating with private soldiers vis. Eric & Pete.  I’m no longer able to go out with them, and should I meet them in the N.A.A.F.I. or anywhere, they have to address me as Corporal and not the now familiar ‘Dicker’. What a life!

            The latest news as regards moving is back to Dinton which suits me admirably – that is, it’s b…..y awful but much preferable to Basingstoke.

            We had a dance here last Monday.  I’d had nine pints at the Conservative Club before I got there, so had a pretty good time on the whole.  The women were a little better than usual but have no fears, Darling, as there isn’t a woman living who could take me away from you, (and that includes Bergman*…)

            Well, Chubby, I must close now, loving you more than ever.

                                     Je suis à toi pour la Vie,**

                                                                Your adoring,

                                                                                Dicker

P.S. I terrible sorry about you’re cold. It’s just like me to forget all about it until the end.  I hope you’ll forgive me Darling and get better soon.

            all yours

                    Dicker

                    xxxxxxxxxxx

                    xxxxxxxxxxx

                    xxxxxxxxxx

                    xxxxxxxxxx

                    All for you! (when I come home)

 

* Ingrid Bergman, the Swedish film star.

** “I am yours for life.”

© Chotie Darling, 2010

75 years ago – “Birmingham Urchins”

At the beginning of September 1940 Dick was back at Bemerton, a Lance Corporal and a PT Instructor but without friends.  Toni, who was in ‘D’ Company with Dick, had moved to Dinton when Dick went on the PT Instructor course at Tidworth and by the end of August George and ‘Hughes’, who were in ‘G’ Company, had also gone to Dinton.  On the night of 4th/5th September Dick was woken by ‘a veritable rain of bombs descending around’ on Salisbury Plain – the London Blitz started two nights later on 7^th September.   Later that month Dick was hearing of 'a lot of action around Parkstone' where Chotie lived.

Having made two new friends, Lance Corporals du Rose and Gammage, he also made an enemy – Company Sergeant Major Gurd – and they narrowly escaped trouble on a few occasions.  Dick was already fed up with PT and pinning his hopes on a commission.  In these September letters Dick begins to mention his close friend Eric Kessler.  There were also some interesting acquaintances from Brum…

Posted on Wednesday 18th September 1940

Bemerton

Wiltshire

My Darling,

                                                                                                       What’s happened to you!  Haven’t heard from you for ages.  I thought you must at least be pushing up the daisies by now.

     Well Darling, I’m still fed up (as usual) and trying hard to get a transfer.  Du Rose, Gammage and myself are still being chased by the RSM.  My God, what a life we get.  It’s just an existence.

            He managed to get du Rose on two charges in the same day last week, but Eric, who is almost a BA put up a lawyer’s defence and the cases were dismissed.  It was a narrow shave, though.

            I’d rather hoped that we would have been stripped, in which case I should have reverted and gone back to the ranks.  At the moment none of us care either way.  If du Rose would, I know I should.

            I’ve been reading rather a lot, having enjoyed immensely Adrian Bell’s ‘Corduroy’ and having fought, I think rather unsuccessfully, with James Cabell’s ‘Jurgen’.  I also read a Penguin (these are all penguins) entitled ‘Murder at the ‘Varsity’ ’* in which the murderer, an elderly scholastic University Lecturer, has a passion for Rabelais! – which I suppose only goes to show what Rabbi can do for you.              

        I hope you will excuse this scrawl but as I write less, so my écriture** depreciates.  I’m afraid I get duller and duller in my present company.  My former touch with ‘Les Belles Lettres’ now seems to elude me.  I often misquote Shakespeare.  An unpardonable sin.  However, I rival University Dons on the ‘Immortal Bard’ when half tight; so perhaps it’s not as bad as I make it appear.              

            At present I’m sleeping in du Rose’s tent with six Birmingham urchins – and what amazing blokes they are.  Nothing seems to get them down.  They grumble about everything one moment, and are exceptionally cheerful the next.  Their language is amazing.  They all appear to live for “tabs” (cigarettes) and kypher (skirt) and come back to the tent late at night and recount all their luck and experiences until the early hours.  Needless to say it’s all very interesting.

        Du Rose is something of a swimmer.  He is the present Midland Champ and has swum against Wainwright*** a score of times. 

 

        It’s now Tuesday afternoon & I still haven’t heard from you.  Mother wrote on Tuesday last but I only received the letter on Monday.  It had gone all the way to Warmwell although it had the Bemerton address. 

        Well Darling I must close now, still loving you more than ever    

                                                    Your devoted

                                                                        Dicker

PS Write soon.

PPS. I’ve just received your letter.

                        All is forgiven!

                                                            Dicker

* Adrian Bell was an English rural journalist and farmer – ‘Corduroy’ recounts his early experience of farming.  James Cabell was an American author of fantasy fiction.  His best known book ‘Jurgen’ was the subject of an obscenity trial soon after publication.  ‘Murder at the ‘Varsity’ ‘ is by Richard Wilson Webb, and English detective writer.

**French for handwriting.

***Norman Wainwright was a British Olympic swimmer.  At the 1938 Empire Games in Sydney he was in the gold medal winning freestyle 4 x 220 yards relay team.

© Chotie Darling, 2010

 

19^th September 1940 – the German Fleet assembled to bring their troops to Britain for the invasion was dispersed.

An Eventful Journey

Letter from Chotie written Tuesday 20^th March 1945

W/242328 Pte. Williams B.E.,

‘B’ Troop. O.F.C. A.T.S.,

462 Hy. (M.) A.A. Bty. R.A.,

Fort Godwin,

Co.  G.P.O. Easington,

Nr. Hull, Yorks

 

Tuesday.  20.3.45.

My darling husband,

                                      This is my first opportunity of writing since I reached camp.

           

I had quite an eventful journey.  Starting at 8 in the morning, I arrived at Waterloo half past 11.  As I had 2 hours before catching the train northbound at Kings Cross, the thing to tie up was some lunch.  Went to a Spanish sort of place, just off Piccadilly, called 'Martinez'.  It was pretty expensive but I felt pretty ‘B.. so a nice lobster salad (loads of mayonnaise), and an ice afterwards, cheered me up no end.  Had some sherry, that was really good, too.  The lounge in this place was all tiled very colourfully and bags of wrought iron painted black.  Every tile had a picture on it, besides many paintings hanging on the walls.  All senoritas and flowers and fruit, - very gay.

            I had a rush to get back to Kings Cross and just managed to miss my train by 5 minutes.  Had my pass signed by R.T.O.* so I was covered.  Then I had another 2 hours to wait, so I just went for a walk and made sure of getting back in time to catch the 4 p.m.

            The train arrived in Hull about 10.30. so it was impossible to reach camp that night.  A very kind lady in my carriage asked me to go home with her for the night as she lived in Hull.  Well, I did strike lucky, - her husband was at Sandhurst and she had just been down to see him.  At present she lives with her mother and has a little girl, aged 3.  They, insisted on cooking me supper and I had bacon and egg for breakfast, a smashing comfy bed - what luck!  I can go to visit them anytime I am off, which I certainly will.

            This morning, the bus back to camp, went at 8.30 so I had to get up early.  Got into camp about 10 o’clock.

           

Everyone is so excited about us apparently, it shook ‘em.  Nan was at the other site but I should see her tomorrow.  I seem to have told my ‘tale’, about hundred & one times, today.  My tongue quite aches, so many people want to know so much.

            Well, my darling, I am here safe and sound and I hope you are too.  Take care and God bless you Precious.

            I must write home now, so must close.

            All my love, dearest,

                                    Your loving wife,

                                                            Chotie

                                                XX

 

*Rail Transport Officer

 

On 20^th March Chotie received a letter from her friend Marion in Glasgow (255, Ashdale Drive, Glasgow, SW2) which includes the following:

‘I know you have passed your medical for overseas, so in case you are on the move at all I’m sending this to Betty and she will know best where to send it.’

Chotie seems to now have no intention of serving overseas.

© Chotie Darling

Returning to Hull

On the night of 17^th/18^th March 1945 the city of Hull was under attack for the first time since 1943. A lone Heinkel dropped fragmentation grenades (with inbuilt fuses, detonating on impact with the ground) and opened up with machine guns killing 13 people and injuring 22. (See BBC News for 17th March .)  

Chotie, however, was still in Parkstone….

Letter written Sunday18^th March 1945

Sunday March 18^th 45

My darling husband,

                                                This is going to be short, because I feel pretty ‘B…..’ as I am going back to camp tomorrow.  Have to start at 8 o’clock in the morning – unearthly hour.

         

While cleaning out, this last week I found this tie, which I have enclosed.  Is it light enough?  If it is not wearable send it back and I will dye it or something.

           

Don, Ted’s brother, has been down and we went to Church* this morning. Everyone was congratulating him thinking he was my husband.  Poor Don.

            Margaret, Beryl & Don & I went down to 'The Sloop' last evening.  Poor Marg had to have shandy because of feeding Roger.  None of the ‘old crowd’ were there, except the ‘man from Kent.’

            Don & I sneaked down after Church, this morning, for a quick one.

           

We have had another present, darling.  Three pre-war tea-cloths (what you wipe up with) from Mrs Johnson.  Jolly useful.

            I phoned up Ethel & Cyril, my cousins, today.  They wished us all the best and are going to dish out something when we get our home – when?  They both wished you all the luck in what you are doing out there.

           

I must finish now, my dearest and get on with my packing.

            Will write when I reach camp.

            Take care, darling – God bless,

            All my love & kisses,

                        Chotie.

XX

 

*Parkstone Congregational Church opposite the Hollies in Commercial Road – now Parkstone United Reformed Church.  Dick and Chotie met at the Congregational Church Youth Club. The Hollies, including the dairy, was knocked down in the 1960s and replaced with a tyre shop.

 

 

Enclosed with this letter was a small notice from a newspaper:

A ‘Special Licence’ enabled couples to get married without waiting the usual three week period for ‘calling the banns’ – giving notice of the proposed marriage for three successive Sundays in church.

Chotie and Dick had evidently decided to get married while he was on leave and could not have done so in the time without special licence.

 © Chotie Darling

 

 

WAR DIARY of 52^nd (Lowland) Recce Regt RAC March 1945

– Lt Col J.B.A. Hankey OBE

Date 18^th Place MENZELEN:            2 casualties                          Weather – Fine

Strength - 905 men, 188 tanks/armoured cars/guns             

‘Regiment less ‘A’ Sqaudron ordered to do Traffic Control for Operation PLUNDER. Two casualties in ‘C’ Squadron from shelling.’

‘A’ Squadrons detached.

(From the War Diary of the 52nd Reconnaissance Regiment held by the Archive and Reference Library, the Tank Museum, Bovington, Dorset.)

 

52^nd Recce Roll of Honour includes the following who died on 18^th March 1945:

Trooper Jack Weston (age 22) of ‘C’ Squadron

who is laid to rest in the Reichswald Forest War Cemetery, south-west of Kleve in Germany.         

(From  ‘The Fighting Fifty-Second Recce’ by Carl Shilleto, Eskdale Publishing 2001.  See photo.)

We will remember them.

Safe and Sound and Soon

Letter from Chotie written Friday 16^th March 1945

Friday 16^th March 45.

My darling,

                                    Must thank you so much for your letter*, which was really quite quick coming.  I did not expect to hear from you for quite a while.           

Thank Goodness! Bryn approved - I do hope he writes to me.  It is a shame he got posted  just when you could be with him.  I was pleased that your trip over was not too deadly and I do hope, precious, that you continue to get good food.  That’s an important thing.

            Actually darling I think it is you, making the sacrifice so nobly, and if you come back safe and sound and soon I will be the happiest girl in the world.

 

We have had some more money, darling.  2 guineas from Auntie Nellie & Alice & £1 from Auntie Ethel – Mummy’s sister.  We also had lots of promises.  I hope you have managed to write to some of those people, darling, if not send the letters etc. to me & I’ll write them.

           

Well, I have been very fortunate about leave.  I phoned the unit up and spoke to Mrs Wilkie, luckily.  She told me to await instructions.  Yesterday, I received a wire granting me 7 days, so I’ll have to go back next Monday.  No C.B.** or anything – thank goodness!

           

Have just received a letter from your Mum with some photos enclosed – also some negatives.  The photos of me are ‘chronic’ – you don’t look too bad, one is quite good.  Beryl is getting some negatives developed so I’ll send you some on as soon as possible.

           

I have been taking the baby out quite a bit.  In Poole yesterday I bumped into Sas & Johnny; they thought it was “very quick work”, until I explained, of course.  They walked back through the park*** with me, getting quite 'paternal'.  Sas had schemes of weaning him on beer.

            This afternoon Margaret & I walked nearly to Sandbanks with him.  She was in the best of spirits as she had just had a letter from Ted and he should be home April 6^th, 7^th or 8^th – isn’t it thrilling?

            Roger is a bit fretful – we think some teeth are coming, or something.  Ted’s brother Don is coming tomorrow, I have not seen him for ages.  He will be the first of the ‘Lewises’ to nurse Roger.

          

I have opened a banking account at the National Provincial – so that’s all settled.  I think you have to enquire about my allowance, or something.****

 

Later

Beryl came rushing in from work and wanting me to go to the flicks.  We went to the ‘Grand’ to see Ronald Colman & Marlene Dietrich in 'Kismet'.  All Baghdad and thieves and things.  Not bad.  We had to walk home, so I’m pretty well on my knees.

            Must close now and go to bed,

            Take care, my precious,

                        All my love,

                                    Chotie. XXX

 

*Dick’s letter of Monday 12^th March 1954 –  'A Noble Sacrifice'. 

**’Confined to Barracks’?

***Poole Park – not far from Chotie’s home.

****A married man in the services could get a ‘Married Women’s Allowance’ for his wife.

 © Chotie Darling

 

WAR DIARY of 52^nd (Lowland) Recce Regt RAC March 1945

– Lt Col J.B.A. Hankey OBE

Date 16^th Place MENZELEN:                                                Weather – Rain

Strength - 907 men, 188 tanks/armoured cars/guns              

‘No change in situation except that ‘A’ Squadron less Assault Troop ordered to go to VENRAIJ to come under command of Commando Brigade.  ‘B’ Squadron also to supply 9 19 sets to report to HQ, 15(S) Division in area HASSELT.  Regiment also warned that elements may be taken for Traffic Control.  Slight shelling in area.’

 ‘A’ & ‘C’ Squadrons were still detached. ‘B’ Squadron were at Helenhof 1225.

(From the War Diary of the 52nd Reconnaissance Regiment held by the Archive and Reference Library, the Tank Museum, Bovington, Dorset.)

 

Dick’s 1945 diary for March:

16th Fri – Supper with Peter Evans. Wrote Poll.

17th Fri – Wrote Averil.

Ginderich, Germany

Dick’s 1945 diary for March:

13th Tues – Gilderich (Ginderich) resting.  Letter from Ronnie.

Photo labelled Ginderich March 1945

(See The Daimler Fighting Vehicles Project for more information on the car).

 

Second Letter written Tuesday 13^th March 1945

Tuesday 13^th Mar.

My precious,

                                    I do hope you find the enclosed alright.  Margaret sent the Ovaltine tablets*, for you, with lots of love.  That T.C.P.** is awfully good for cuts or spots and anything – I always use it.

Just now, I feel pretty wretched – specially as it’s our Wedding Anniversary.  This afternoon I had a tooth out - it took two dentists about half an hour to do it.  Mr Harris & Mr Dunman – I think you know them.  You see, last night I had some of Mummy’s home-made toffee, unfortunately, and it removed half this wretched tooth & its stopping, so I had to have the rest extracted.  Cost me 6 shillings too!

            When I returned from the dentist, there was a letter from my unit.  My leave is granted providing I can send a certificate of confirmation from your Officer in Command that you will be in England for 14 days and I can be with you.  So I’ve had that.

            What I intend doing now is to make out I received the letter tomorrow afternoon and ring them up, just to see how things are.  Probably get charged or something in any case.  They have enclosed a terrific sheet of ration coupons - I think I’ll use them.

          

Ted’s brother is coming down for the week-end.  He has been moved to a factory near Southampton so it’s quite handy for here.  I was hoping to see him, maybe I will - -

            Poor old Mary & Dil, going back tomorrow.  I should by rights too.

           

I do hope, my darling, you are quite well.  Have a good time with Bryn, if possible.  Take care of yourself, & eat up all these pills & things – then I’ll send you some more.  I could not get any glucose, but those halibut things are pretty smash!

            All my love, precious, for ever & ever,

                                                Your loving wife,

                                                            Chotie

P.S.     I was going to enclose this with the parcel I hope you will soon receive, but Margaret says you must not put letters in with parcels.  She should know!

 

*made from milk, malted barley and wheat flour

**an antiseptic

***probably halibut liver oil, a fish oil product taken for vitamins A and D.

 © Chotie Darling

A.W.L. in Parkstone

Letter written Tuesday 13^th March 1945 and embossed ‘THE HOLLIES, COMMERCIAL ROAD, PARKSTONE.’

13^th March 45

My darling husband,

                                                I have been hanging on before writing you in case I heard from my unit - but I haven’t so really I am A.W.L.*  What an awful wife you have?

           

Received a letter from your mother yesterday with £1 enclosed from Hilda**.  Apparently her husband decided that £2 was not enough for us – don’t forget to thank them, darling.  I am enclosing with this  a letter and cheque from Rita, some more to add to our little store.  Would you endorse it?

            I have managed to get you some stuff to take, darling, so tonight I will pack it all up & send it.  Hope you get it alright.

           

Yesterday afternoon, Mary  & I were doing some shopping in Poole and who should we bump into but SAS & Johnny Jones.  They had just crawled out of 'the Antelope', pretty well gone, and were going to the flicks to sleep it off.

            Johnny’s moustache just covered his face – awful.  SOS looked pretty smashed up, poor chap, but quite cheery.  They thought our marriage was a terrific cause for celebration.

            Right now, Mary & I are supposed to be in 'the Sloop' – boozing with them.  But really they are shocking types and Mary can’t stick Johnny Jones – never could.  We are dreading that they might barge in here or something.  God only knows what Mum would say.

            Anyway, they both heartily wished us every happiness.

           

Daddy took Beryl****, Mary & I to the Palace Court, last night.  We saw Terence de Marney*** in “The Crime of Margaret Foley” – Quite thrilling, & very well acted.

INK SMUDGE

(The dog has been walking over this.)

           

Have just washed my hair, so Mary & I are sitting in the garden – it’s quite warm and sunny.

            Mummy is shouting about dinner being ready, so I must close.

                                    All my love, darling,

                                                            Chotie xx

 

*Absent Without Leave.

** This letter came from Aunt Hilda of ‘Cairo Cottage’ 14 Broad Oak End, Bramfield Road, Hertford.

***The British actor, theatre director and writer – he was the author, as well as the star, of ‘The Crime of Margaret Foley’.

****Chotie's younger sister

 

© Chotie Darling

Married

Richard Kelner Williams, a bachelor of 23 years,

marries Barbara Elizabeth Chalkley, a spinster of 21 years,

in Chichester Register Office on 6^th March 1945.

Richard (‘Dicker’) is resident at ‘St Margarets’, 9 Sea Lane, Pagham, near Bognor Regis and his occupation is Lieutenant Reconnaissance Corps (previously Public School Student).  His father is Dudley Kelner Beresford Williams, a retired Master Mechanical Engineer.

Barbara (‘Chotie’) is resident at “The Hollies”, Commercial Road, Parkstone and her occupation is W/242328 Private A.T.S. (previously Drapery Store Window Dresser).  Her father is William James Chalkley, the Managing Director of a Dairy Firm (Creekmoor Dairies).

The marriage is witnessed by Elizabeth Chalkley (Chotie’s mother), Alice Maude Williams (Dick’s mother), J. Dilys Williams (Dick’s sister) and B.H. Hall (Betty Hall, Chotie’s eldest sister).

 

Dick’s 1945 diary for March:

6^th Tues –  Married at Chichester.  Left for Spreadeagle* Midhurst.

*The Spread Eagle is a lovely historical hotel in Midhurst, West Sussex where Dick and Chotie spent the one night of their honeymoon.

 

Telegrams were received saying:

 “Wishing you both all the luck in the world and every happiness” from Margaret, Ted and baby Roger in Parkstone (Chotie’s other elder sister and her family),

“Congratulations all best wishes” from Jack in Parkstone (Chotie’s brother),

“Congratulations and best wishes” from Mary in Poole (Chotie’s best friend at home) and Ethel & Cyril from Christchurch, Pat & Douglas from Parkstone

 “Heartiest congratulations and best wishes love Nan” (Chotie’s best friend in the ATS) from Hull,

“Congratulations and very best wishes” from Nellie and Alice in Parkstone (sisters of Chotie’s father)

“Best wishes for the future” from Mr & Mrs Johnson, Margaret and Leslie in Parkstone

 “Congratulations best wishes for the future” from Mr & Mrs Gladdis of Wimborne (the parents of Margaret’s fiancée Tom LINK who was killed early in the war)

“Congratulations and all good wishes” from Auntie Mary & Robert of South London

“Just heard great news heartiest congratulations” from Cyril & Dora,

“Best wishes for complete happiness” from Fred, Hilda, Audrey and Alison of Hertford,

 “All the best for future happiness” from Dutton and Gillespie of Pagham

“Congratulations best of luck” from Joan and Tony of Pagham

“Congratulations and good wishes for future happiness from all at Cheltenham”.

Letters of congratulations were sent by Aunt Hilda (of ‘Cairo Cottage’ 14 Broad Oak End, Bramfield Road, Hertford) and ‘Rita’ and a card from Donald and Mary Hoare (of 15, Grasmere Road, Purley, Surrey). 

 

On 8^th March another telegram was sent from Parkstone:

“Good Luck and God Bless You love Mum Dad and all”.

Margaret's Baby

Telegram to Chotie from her brother Jack announcing the arrival of Margaret’s baby, Roger Lewis on Sunday 10^th December 1944.

Dance, Opera and remembering the Dorset Regiment - Wednesday 8th November 1944

As Usual

Wednesday Nov 8^th

Chotie Darling,

                                    Still have some time to spare so here goes once again.

            Been doing nothing much all day – except some work on the cars, etc. and tying things up generally.  Weather hasn’t been too kind lately – high winds (which I don’t mind) and plenty of rain (which I heartily dislike).

            I’ve been going for walks along the dykes which is very pleasant when the rain holds off – especially now when all the trees are at their best.

            I’m hoping to hear Eva Turner sing ‘Turandot’* tonight at 7.30.  She is I think the greatest ‘Turandot’ ever, and she’s in great voice lately.  It’s not often I get the chance to hear a complete opera so you can imagine it’s quite a thrill.  The only snag is that the light (& power) usually fails about this time, so I’m sweating on it staying on – tonight at least.  They couldn’t manage, of course, without any of the Welsh contingent so I see that Powell Lloyd & Roderick Lloyd** are also in the cast.

            We (the Armoured Car officers) ran a dance last night.  Refusing to have anything to do with the dancing side of things I ran the bar, consequently having a very successful evening.  The unhappy people who preferred to dance had a miserable time, as the women were few and far between, and generally a pretty scrappy lot.  Needless to say the bar side of things was very well organised.

            I still haven’t contacted either Brinner or Ted – and don’t see much chance of doing either.  It’s pretty difficult to get about these days as the roads are rather deadly.  Still, we must keep trying, I suppose.

            I expect Ted’s getting himself in a state – or isn’t he the type***?  I wouldn’t know.

            Did I tell you I met a bloke called Gideon when I was on my 48hr?  He used to be an old mate of Eric and myself in the Lee-on-Solent days.  He’s been through the desert campaigns since then and is now an Army Lieutenant in the same Division as I am.  We had a long chat on old times over a whisky or three in the Officers’ Club.  Apparently quite a few of the originals were killed in the desert after they had left the Dorsets.  He’s the first bloke I’ve met from the old crowd & I was the first he’d met.

            I’m now writing this by candlelight as the lights have failed – hope they come on again before 7.30 ….

            Hope you got the magazine I sent you some ten days ago.  I don’t yet know how near that standard the German women keep, but the stuff looks OK by me.

            I’ve also sent off a rough sketch that ‘Junior’ made of me, when reading a little Shaw.  It was by candlelight – a tricky light to draw by – and was rather hurried.  He’s always wanted me to sit for a ¾ portrait in oils – which he hopes to get hung in the Academy**** – but I’ve always staved him off….In any case he’s sold his oils now which has relieved me intensely.  I could never sit still for hours on end looking at nothing in particular.  I might manage it if I could smoke, but that’s not ‘on’.

            Hope the weather isn’t too cruel for you, where you are in Cornwall.  I expect it can be pretty miserable at times.  Never mind – it’ll be over any Xmas now….

            I’ve had two long letters from Monica – cynical and disillusioned, and generally full of woe for her unhappy lot.  I knew at the time that her marriage could never be successful.  Her husband – although meaning well, is hopelessly dull, and seems to have no interest outside of her – which is fatal.

            She was soon bored with him – now she thinks him a fool.  Being a staunch Catholic she won’t divorce him – but plans a separation as soon as circumstances permit.  At present he’s in hospital in the North suffering from battle exhaustion – though she will have it that he’s OK.  There I’m sure she’s wrong as you have to be pretty clever to work that one! Anyhow, enough of Monica – I won’t reply. 

            I’ve just received ½ lb of Sobranie***** but don’t know who it came from a there’s nothing in the parcel in the form of a name or address.  It came just in time –as usual.

            I’ll send you the three little books I bought – if you’ll keep them for me.  It’s no good sending them home as mother always throws my books away when she gets a spring clean mood.  They’re practically valueless but it’s not so easy to get them these days.  I don’t know whether they’ll ever reach you or not.  I would keep them myself but I simply haven’t room to accumulate stuff – much to my regret!  As it is, I’m carrying an extra pack full of books and a radio….

            I’ve been reading Hulton’s new efforts ‘The Leader’***** *(allied to Lilliput, Picture Post, News Review and Housewife) which seems rather a fair effort.  It’s 3 pennies weekly and well worth reading.

            Strangely enough I’ve got some beer left from the dance. This wouldn’t surprise you if you knew what calibre the beer was.  The brewers call it “hop-less” – the boys - ‘hopeless’.  It’s a chemical synthetic stuff and you can drink something like 20 pints without mental troubles.  Of course there are other troubles – but we won’t deal with them here….

            I’m hoping my two mates go out this evening for their usual game of Bridge with the Burgomaster and his wife.  They’re a charming couple but their Bridge is deadly.  This will mean that I can listen to Eva in comfort and quiet.

            I seem to be rambling on without rhyme or reason so I’ll close here, Darling.  Let me know when/if you receive the mag. and portrait.  There’s nothing I can do about it if you don’t – but I should like to know.

                                    All my love, Chotie

                                                Dicker.

 

* Dick had seen Eva Turner in Turandot in Scotland in May 1944. 

**Harold Powell Lloyd was an operatic tenor and Roderick Lloyd, a bass.  Dick’s family were Welsh.

***Ted’s wife Margaret (Chotie’s sister) was due to have their first baby soon.

****Dick and Eric Kessler were based in Lee-on-Solent with the Dorset Regiment in January and February 1941.

****The Royal Academy of Arts – probably the Summer Exhibition.

*****Sobranie tobacco (and cigarettes).

******a weekly pictorial magazine published by the Hulton Press.

© Chotie Darling

 

 

The Belgian Liaison Officer , Capitaine Commandant B del Marmol, who had joined the Regiment on 7^th September 1944 left on 8^th November.  He had done particularly valuable work at Oolen (south-west of the Gheel Bridgehead), Oeffelt (south of Nijmegen) and Dreumel.  He was subsequently awarded the Military Cross for his bravery, zeal and efficiency.

(See  61st Battle Honour.)

 

 

Divisions, Brigades and Battalions

30^th September 1944 - ‘The whole of 50th Division was now tasked with guarding the bridge and bridgehead north of Nijmegen called the Island. The first serious German counter attack came when seventy tanks and the equivalent of an infantry division was unleashed on the division. 69th Brigade and 5th Guards Brigade were holding the line, while another attack was put in against 43rd Division across the Lower Rhine. The intensity of the attack on the 69th Brigade and the intensity of their defence can be judged by the fact that 124th Field Regiment Royal Artillery fired a total of 12,500 25-pound shells during the action and 'B' Company of the 2nd Cheshires fired 95,000 rounds of medium-machine-gun fire. For nearly two months static warfare was the norm on the Island. The forward troops rotated regularly. The great bridge at Nijmegen was under constant shellfire and journeys over it were made at full speed. The 50^th Division casualties in the battles on the island in early October were severe: almost 900 including 12 officers and 111 other ranks killed in action, 30 officers and 611 other ranks wounded and another 114 missing.' (From TT 50th Infantry Division.)

 

Colonel Brownrigg describes 61^st Recce’s role:

“After Arnhem we had a long spell of line-holding, as the war began to settle down for the winter.  We had considerable variety, sometimes watching long stretches of river or very open ground, for which our mobility and communications were ideally suited; sometimes supporting our friends the American 101^st Airborne Division:  but eventually in November we had a series of ordinary infantry positions in the ‘Island’ between Arnhem and Nijmegen.  By the time that floods drove us out of our forward positions with water washing the hubs of our vehicles, we had held the line on the extreme west of the ‘Island’, but it was a miserable place, and one’s heart sank every time one crossed the Nijmegen bridge going north.  We started by taking over a battalion position, and finished by relieving a brigade*.”  (From ‘A Reconnaissance Regiment in the B.L.A.’ by Lieutenant-Colonel P.H.A.Brownrigg D.S.O.)

 

*battalions typically consist of 300-800 soldiers under a Lieutenant-Colonel.  Brigades may consist of three to six battalions led by a Brigadier while a Division eg 50^th (Northumbria) Division, has three or more brigades (ten to thirty thousand soldiers) under a Major-General.

A Corps is either a large military formation of two or more Divisions eg XXX Corps, or a professional branch of the armed forces such as Recce Corps.

Regiments are permanent (and often historical) units of various sizes although many British regiments have now combined to make larger regiments eg 'The Dorsets' were merged to become 'the Devonshire and Dorset light infantry regiment' in 1958, which in turn became part of the large regiment of ‘The Rifles’ in 2007.

 

Eric Brewer reveals that the squadron shifted to Mill (south of Graves and Nijmegen) on 30^th September.  “Out on recce saw the right Ark car that the O/C of a squadron got killed – his name was Major Alexander – also his grave.” (From ‘Beaten Paths are Safest’ by Roy Howard, Brewin Books 2004)

 

Dick, in ‘B’ Squadron like Eric, would have been located east of Mill,

north-west of Boxmeer in the Netherlands

and west of the River Maas.

 

Eric had found some camera film in a German tank a week or two earlier and borrowed a camera, sending the film home to be developed at the beginning of October 1944.

Eric Brewer on half-track vehicle, in centre (photo courtesy of Derek Brewer who has copyright)

 

 

Casualties

24^th September – Urquhart’s wounded are evacuated under medical truce leaving him with 1,800 troops of the 10,000 that landed.  315 men of the Dorsetshire Regiment (Dick's first regiment ) cross the Lower Rhine and briefly hold part of Westerbowing, near Heveadorp (south-west of Oosterbeek). 200 are captured but two reach Urquehart with the plans for evacuation the following night.

At nightfall on 25th September Urquhart’s men are evacuated crossing the Lower Rhine in little boats under heavy fire (Operation Berlin - Arnhem).  Many of the Airborne who made it to the other side of the river were met by former comrades who had, like Dick, joined 43rd Recce from the Airborne Reconnaissance Squadron.  (From From ‘Operation Market Garden, Netherlands 17th – 25th September 1944’ and ‘Only the Enemy in Front Every other beggar behind…’ The Recce Corps at War 1940-1946’ by Richard Doherty, Tom Donovan Publishing Ltd 1994)

Eric Postles records that 61st Recce's 'B' Squadron was supporting the 43rd Division Infantry in this rescue: "When it became clear that the Arnhem Bridge was beyond 30 Corps reach our squadron was moved to join 43 Division infantry where we protected their right flank as they advanced to the Waal, crossed it and helped the Airborne survivors back from the Osterbeek area.  The crossing place was just downstream from Driel and the attack took place at night using moonlight (searchlights on cloud) and Bofar gun tracer to mark the boundaries.  43 Division crossed the river and surviving Airborne troops were brought back but the cost in lives of the 43 Division infantry was heavy.  I remember seeing a field full of parachutes of different colours used to identify the contents of the containers, which had been dropped on the wrong side of the river."  (Extract from ‘My War Years’ by John Eric Postles ISO used by kind permission of the author.)

 

Of the 10,000 British troops that had landed in Market Garden that ‘bridge too far’ had lost almost 8,000.  Only 2,163 were safely evacuated in Operation Berlin (1,741 from British 1^st Airborne and 422 from the Glider Pilot Regiment) with 160 Polish paratroopers and 75 Dorset infantry men. 240 escaped later with the help of the Dutch resistance.  1,485 were killed in action or died of wounds while 6,525 were captured or missing. Less than 8% of the supplies intended for the British Airborne had reached them.

The American airborne had approximately 3,200 casualties (2,100 for the 101^st and 1,100 for the 82^nd).

Market Garden had involved over 20,000 paratroopers and more than 13,500 glidermen.  862 aircraft crew were lost.

On the ground XXX Corps had taken 1,480 casualties.

 

On 24^th September Roy Howard of ‘A’ Squadron notes that 61^st Recce were on the south bank of the Rhine, west of Arnhem, and kept up continuous patrols on ‘the Island’ until 17^th October. 

Eric Brewer, who had been in the section of 61^st Recce left behind when the Germans intercepted the XXX Corps salient, recorded that 61^st Recce “shifted to the flank, plenty of mortar shelling and spandos.  A few Gerry prisoners taken today. Also woman.”

(From ‘Beaten Paths are Safest’ by Roy Howard, Brewin Books 2004)

 

61^st Recce Roll of Honour includes the following who died on 24^th September 1944:

          Major Stanley George Alexander (age 34) of Tetbury, Gloucestershire     

who is laid to rest in the Mierlo War Cemetery, east of Eindhoven. (See 61st Recce Roll of Honour, courtesy of Recce Mitch.)

We will remember them.

 

There were other 61^st Recce casualties from Arnhem – Major Rayor lost a leg when he stepped on an anti-personnel mine on ‘the Island’ during the advance towards Arnhem.

Tony Macotta, who had been Colonel Mount’s Adjutant planning for the invasion, took over Major Alexander’s role as commander of 61^st Recce’s HQ Squadron (see Colonel Brownrigg’s obituary for Tony in ‘Beaten Paths are Safest’).

Across the river

 23^rd September – Urquhart’s paratroopers and airlanding men at Oosterbeek are increasingly pressed by the surrounding Germans who are held off by the guns of XXX Corps across the river. Another 200 Polish paratroopers join the beleaguered troops north of the Lower Rhine. (From From ‘Operation Market Garden, Netherlands 17th – 25th September 1944’)

 

50^th (Northumbrian) Division were tasked with capturing Bemmel, a village on the ‘Island’ between the Lower Rhine and the Waal, south-east of Elst, where the Guards were still embattled.  By 25^th September they had achieved this but were kept under heavy artillery fire by the Germans.  (From TT 50th Infantry Division.) 

 

Anthony Rampling remembers watching Germans north of the river:

Attics at Arnhem

“When we got near Arnhem we got up into the attics of houses on the side of the river and took some tiles off the roof and could see the Germans the other side, scuttling around.  We didn’t obviously fire at them because that would have drawn fire back onto us – just observed from the attics.  I always remember in the attics there was tobacco leaves hanging up.”  From Anthony Rampling’s account of 61^st Recce (pers comm).

 

According to Roy Howard the supply line for XXX Corps had again been cut, this time at Sint Oedenrode, south-west of Veghel.  Eric Brewer records: “Shelled to where Gerry broke through but not much doing, plenty of shelling through the night.” (From ‘Beaten Paths are Safest’ by Roy Howard, Brewin Books 2004)

Dick’s future regiment, 52^nd (Lowland) Recce, now east of Grave near Oss, were also engaged in heavy fighting to defend the corridor as the Germans pressed in hard from both sides.

‘This latest Airborne effort’ - Monday 18th and Tuesday 19th September 1944

On 18^th September XXX Corps continued their advance, liberating Eindhoven, then linking up with the US 101^st Airborne Division and starting work on a Bailey Bridge* over the Son.  They were now 18 hours behind schedule.  (See Market Garden 1944-2014.)

82^nd Airborne had secured all its bridges except the Nijmegen road bridge where the Germans held firm.

Although more British airborne troops landed the Germans held their drop zone on Ginkel Heath (north-west of Arnhem), by the end of the afternoon so they could not be re-supplied.  Those airborne troops already landed were engaged in fierce fighting and gradually being surrounded.  Colonel Frost’s isolated troops on Arnhem bridge successfully stopped German vehicles from crossing.

*the British portable, pre-fabricated truss bridge invented during WW2 and developed in Christchurch, Dorset.

 

61^st Recce’s ‘A’ Squadron were involved in finding routes from Valkenswaard for the tanks and Roy Howard mentions that it was the Household Cavalry that first met up with 101^st Airborne Division at Woensel, between Eindhoven and Son. (From ‘Beaten Paths are Safest’ by Roy Howard, Brewin Books 2004)

 

 

Letter written on Monday 18^th and Tuesday 19^th September 1944

 61^st Recce Regt RAC

BLA

Monday Sept 18^th

Chotie Darling,

                                    Many thanks for your letter received a couple of days ago.  There’s nothing much of any real interest to tell you – no current news, anyhow.

            We’ve been much luckier of late in getting into some towns instead of the old perpetual fields and orchards.  Have spent several days recently in or near a small town (Wimborne* size) and been able to get a harbour and several other necessities.

            There are plenty of pubs here, and although they are still called cafés, they correspond much more to our conception of a pub.  They also have the excellent idea of having the barbers inside the pub itself so that you can have a pint or two whilst waiting your turn.  Altogether a very happy solution to this queueing problem.

            A lot of my troop have bought scent and powder with enticing Paris labels – but personally I’ve avoided buying any as I don’t trust them.  One of my blokes bought three bottles which cost him 1000 f (£5) which is obviously Black Market stuff.  Maybe I’m sceptical – as usual.

            I’ve been trying to read my Mozart, which is pretty heavy going, being in French.  It’s an excellent book, however, so I’m persevering.  I also have a copy of ‘Gentlemen prefer Blondes**’ in French, which is quite amusing but less instructive.

            Have met a lot of Ted’s crowd*** but haven’t yet contacted him.

            Brinner is still at Base as far as I know – he’ll probably still be there when we get the final ‘cease firing’. 

             I imagine Johnny Jones is with this latest Airborne effort.  Did you hear anything of him when you were on leave?  I haven’t heard a thing.

            We now manage to get a better variety of food, than hitherto – eggs & tomatoes**** (hundreds of them) instead of the endless run of sausage-meat.  We also get a few mushrooms from time to time.  Must close here to do some work.

                                    All my love

                                                Darling

                                                            Dicker

Will write some more tonight.

 

Well, Darling, I couldn’t finish this letter last night because we moved during the evening.

I’ve found out where Brinner is but as he’s some 60 miles from me at the moment there seems no chance of contacting him. 

I’m afraid I can’t write any more as I have a full day ahead fitting new wireless sets to my cars.

                All my love Precious

                                                Dicker.

 

*a small town in Dorset.

**the American novel by Anita Loos published in 1925.

***the Guards Armoured Division.

****Uncle Ted told me he once had to hide out in a tomato field behind enemy lines and just lived on tomatoes for a couple of days - he couldn't bear to eat them after that (Chotie’s Daughter).

© Chotie Darling

Big Battles to Come - Monday 28th and Tuesday 29th August 1944

28^th August 1944 – the ports of Toulon and Marseilles in the south of France are liberated by French forces who take more than 50,000 German prisoners after heavy fighting.  US 3^rd Army enters Épernay, the capital of champagne country, east of Paris and south of Reims.

 

On 28^th August Eric Brewer recorded that they “Moved to near Seine* getting ready for a push toward the Belgium border.  Think we shall move tomorrow.  Went down village along the Seine.  Got asked into a house by a man and his wife; had champagne cognac, and also a few eggs from her.  She told us to come and see her again - hope to go tomorrow.  Came across big German military barracks”.

*Regimental HQ was based at Bonnières-sur-Seine, a small industrial town upstream from Vernon, before 61st Recce crossed the river (Regimental HQ location list on re-union dinner menu 1946).  

The next day he: "Went to see the people near the Seine again; we had some champagne. They have a business in Paris. Told us to come and spend our leave there if we get any; also we could spend a holiday there after the war.  She gave me her address and wanted us to stay the night but could not as we are moving tonight across the Seine."

In his letter home on 28th August Eric wrote: "Today I have been in a French woman’s house and she woke her husband up to come and have something to drink with us.  We had a couple of nips of Cognac and a glass of cider, also she gave us an egg each and a souvenir which I am sending on.  The pattern is supposed to be the Eiffel Tower.  She was a very nice woman to speak to: she even wanted us to stay to dinner but we had to refuse as the French people don’t even get enough for themselves let alone anyone else.  She did not like the idea until we told her the reason, then she tried to tell us that she ha sufficient for all of us, but anyway we left and she asked us to return and see her which we hope to do tomorrow."  Writing again two days later he continued:  "The other day I went and saw that lady who gave me the souvenir.  She told me that her business was in Paris - they were in the clothes trade - and she told me we could come and see her whenever we want to.  As she could speak English we had a good talk with her.  Before we left her house she gave us a few eggs and while there we had two bottles of champagne between four of us.  We have been invited to come and stay for a while whenever we have the time off; she said that if it was not while the war was on she would like to see us after." (Extracts from Eric Brewer’s diary and letters included by kind permission of Derek Brewer and his family.)

 

 

61^st Recce RAC,  BLA

Monday Aug. 28^th

Chotie Darling,

                                    Many thanks for your letter dated the 23^rd which I’ve just this moment received. 

            Glad to hear you’re home at last if only for six days, and the prospect of a month’s course is quite a pleasant one to look forward to.  Don’t do anything too strenuous will you?  The first course I had was a P.T one and they gave me a bending all right….

            I’ll send this to your home address and they can forward it as soon as they hear from you in Scotland.

            I imagine it’s pretty crowded at Parkstone at the moment now that the coastal ban has been lifted – mother says it’s pretty bad in Bognor.

            Sorry to hear about the pubs* – especially the Sloop.  It’s Dad’s pet grouse, of course, at present, though you’d better be in training for Scotland.

            Very sorry to hear about Adrian – I didn’t realise he was over here.

            I may have a chance to contact Ted in the next few weeks though it’s very difficult.  I spent over two hours trying to find Brinner today but without success.  Apparently he’s still at Base, Somewhere.  At any rate it’s safer there.

            I’ve had a fairly quiet time lately but can’t guarantee it will last.

            I’ve been in many villages first hand and have had a great welcome from the people.  We’re lucky this way of course – it’s one of the few compensations of being in front all the time.

            I’m very fit and still very happy here – I suppose the ability to chat with the people wherever you go helps a lot.

            I wish I could see you again, Darling, but I’d sooner get this business over, than go on leave and have to come back again.

            I think we’ve got the worst of it over but I can’t pretend there aren’t big battles to come.  We’ve beaten a complete army now, but we’ve had precious little time to rest on our laurels.  They still have armies left, but I think we can beat them also.

            I’ve just heard the good news of a day’s rest tomorrow so I’ll write some more then.

            Goodnight, my Darling.

 

Well, Precious, Tuesday has arrived after a wretched night.  I’ve never experienced such a storm as we had last night – simply torrents of rain with added accompaniment of thunder and lightning.  I got soaked through and haven’t yet dried out.

            It’s rather a pity as we’re in very fine country, as I heard it aptly expressed – country that was never meant to hear more than the song of the birds or the pop of a Champagne cork….

            Aren’t the radio programmes wretched?  We have a radio on all day (in harbour) and the stuff they pound out is chronic.  I get heartily sick of the whole thing.

            I’m writing this in a barn full of new-mown hay, very pleasant indeed.  The rain outside is pretty steady and doesn’t look like stopping today at any rate.

            I don’t suppose I can write another letter to reach you before the 6^th, so here’s wishing you all the very best for your 21^st.  As soon as you can give me the address of an account you can use I send on a cheque – ‘fraid it’s all I can do out here.

            Must close here but will try to write you again tomorrow

                                   All my love, Darling

                                                Dicker

           

P.T.O

P.S.  Found the enclosed mags. in Villers Bocage some long time ago.  The magazines were quite indifferent so I just cut out the best.  The rest of the stuff were third-rate patterns.  I thought the kiddies stuff the best.  Am I giving you ideas?                     

                                  R.

*Not sure what was happening to the pubs around this time but alcohol was at it’s scarcest in Christmas 1994/45 on the home front (see Christmas under Fire).

This letter was forwarded to:

W/242328, Pte Chalkley B.E.

Primary Course, No 2 T.J. Wing

New Battle Abbey, Dalkeith, Mid Lothian, Scotland.

 © Chotie Darling

Chotie attended a P.T. course at Newbattle Abbey from 30^th August 1944.

 

 

29^th August 1944 – Slovak resistance forces began an armed insurrection against the collaborationist government.  Initially successful the German counter-offensive in late September and October eliminated the rebel gains and perpetrated many atrocities.

 

John Wayne

10^th July 1944 - British 8th Corps (part of 2nd Army) began new attacks toward Evrecy - a village south-west of Caen, across the River Orne from Grainville.  This was to pave the way for Operation Goodwood"a plan to employ massed armour in break through the German defences constructed on the Orne bridgehead" (From ‘Overlord’ by Max Hastings, Macmillan 2016 edition, and Chronology of World War II.)

 

Dick's former unit, the 43rd (Wessex) Division, suffers 2,000 casualties in Operation Jupiter, trying to rest Hill 112 (see First In, Last Out) back from the Germans.  The Division also his included his first regiment, The Dorsets (see 43rd (Wessex) Division Memorial). The battle was of "shattering intensity, even by the standards of Normandy" (Hastings).

61st Recce's 50th Division was involved in fierce fighting around Éterville and Maltot south-west of Caen.  Eric Brewer was still at Grainville-sur-Odon, only a few kilometres north-west of Hill 112.  His diary records “have taken up a position in front of slit* trenches” (from Eric Brewer’s Diary by kind permission of Derek Brewer and his family).

* 'slit trenches' - a very shallow excavation allowing one man to lie horizontally while shielding his body from nearby shell bursts and small arms fire.

 

Sometime in July, when Sandy Handley was still in a Bren carrier, he was involved in an assault action that may have been this one:

                                                               “I remember one little action we took part in with 4 Bren carriers.  We had to charge across to the corner of a field. I was flat on my stomach firing away, no question of taking aim.  With the motion over the bumpy field, the bullets went everywhere but the corner of this field. 

We got closer and saw a white surrender flag come up.  One German Officer and six troopers were made prisoner, fortunately for them no one killed.  Our officer* was pleased.  The Officer, Captain Truman**, got an M.C. (Militiary Cross) for a similar action.  Our officer questioned the captured German Officer*** and asked if he had any more troops in the wood.  He replied indicating he wasn’t obliged to tell us. 

However, Captain Truman ordered all the Bren Gunners and the N.C.O.s to get off our vehicles with tommy guns, to spread out and walk through the wood and keep firing. This meant walking through this wood Bren guns and tommy guns all firing, the bullets bouncing off the tree branches - pretty frightening.  I had used the Bren gun quite a lot from our armoured car since we landed but now from a Bren Carrier (which I had never had training for) and walking through a wood firing from the hip, like John Wayne, was something new. Any minute we expected a burst coming at us. 

When we were well in the wood another dirty white rag went up - six more frightened Germans, hands up.  Let’s face it, I was frightened too and I’m sure the other lads were as well. 

We now had 13 more prisoners who seemed glad it was all over for them anyway.  I hoped I wouldn’t have to go through that again but that was only July ’44.  We had a long way to go, how long no one knew."

*Presumably Lt. Dick Williams, Sandy's troop commander.

**In his account of 61^st Recce, Colonel Brownrigg describes Lieutenant Truman carrying out impressive reconnaissance manoeuvres with his troop later in the Normandy campaign at  Amayé-sur-Seulles (for which he received the MC).

*** Dick had learnt to speak German while training for Intelligence work in 1941.  He also spoke fluent French.

(From Ex Trooper S Handley’s ‘61 Recce - Memories of Normandy 1944 – 1945’, unpublished)

 

Chotie's 'little circle' - Saturday 6th May 1944

Sorry no ink!

61^st Recce Regt RAC

APO

England

Dearest Chotie,

                                                Well I’m Orderly* Officer again, Darling so here goes.

            Received your letter this morning – and very welcome it was.  Seems ages since I’d heard from you.

            Was glad to hear you’d managed to get home – if only for a short while, and that your little circle are OK.  I bet you’re excited about your sister Margaret** – ‘fraid I haven’t any reciprocating news re Diller, and as far as I know Brinner isn’t likely to do anything in this particular line.  Though you never know with Brinner.  You’ll notice I’m keeping quiet about myself….

            There’s simply no news from this end at all.  The chances of getting a pass all very thin – too thin to entertain – at present anyhow.

            At the moment I’m engaged in the worst part of this Orderly Officer racket – viz. sitting in the Orderly Room (Tent) all the evening and sleeping there at night – during which time I have to pay the Guard a visit – usually at about three in the morning.  A particularly thankless job.

            I’ve been reading ‘The Bridge of San Luis Rey’ for the umpteenth time.  If you haven’t read it yet, I’ll send it on in my next.

            It’s been very hot here lately though we’ve had a few showers today which have freshened things all round.  I managed to take a party to the local baths (indoor) yesterday and had quite a good swim myself.

            I’ve got a little pub teed up here.  It’s about three to four miles away cross-country – there’s no other way of getting to it, and I try to get out there whenever I get time off.  It’s a very pleasant evening walk and the quality justifies the effort.  I’m still running the Squadron though I’ve got a grip on things now and manage to de-centralise most of the work in true Army fashion.

            There seems no chance of your leave starting again?  I haven’t heard a thing.  I’ve no desire to see ours start again as it only means postponing the attainment of our ultimate goal.

            I hope you’re still being a good girl, Darling.  I’m being very good myself as there exists no opportunity of being anything else….

            I think I’d better go to bed now, Darling as I have to be up with the proverbial lark. 

                                Wish you were here with me ….

                                                    Goodnight Chotie Dear

                                                                                    Dicker

 

*Orderly as a military term means a soldier assigned to attend and perform various tasks for a superior officer.

**Chotie’s elder sister Margaret was expecting her first child.

 © Chotie Darling

  Chotie's 'little circle':

 

 

That night Eric Brewer went absent without leave from midnight to 7.00am.  His service record shows he was caught out and fined three days’ pay, possibly by Dick (RW).

(Eric Brewer's Service Record, copyright of Derek Brewer and family)

 

7^th May 1944 – US Air Force launches a 1,500 bomber raid against Berlin. (From WW2-net Timelines.)

On 8^th May Eisenhower made the decision that D Day would be on 5^th June 1944.  The original target date in May had been shifted because of the need to provide sufficient landing craft.

9^th May 1944 –With the surrender of the remaining 25,000 German and Rumanian troops the Russians capture the Crimean city of Sevastopol, a major port on the Black Sea. (From ‘The Second World War’ by Antony Beevor, published by Weidenfield and Nicolson 2012)