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 - 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 - defending Bristol

At the beginning of March 1944 Dick and 61^st Reconnaissance Division , now attached to the 50^th (Northumbrian) Division, were at Whittlesford, near Cambridge.  Training for Operation Overlord kept them very busy – Eric Postles recalls they were given new vehicles and drove over central England running them in.  On one excursion Dick visited Bawdsey Manor, home of the top secret pre-war research on radar that became the Telecommunications Research Establishment in Dorset. 

His letter of 5th March also includes plans to meet up with Chotie during his next leave, although she hadn’t written for some time…...  When they met Chotie confessed to an infidelity, which Dick, though hurt badly, blamed on life in the services.  “It is in this state, of being so completely fed-up that you don’t give a damn what happens, that these things happen.”  Back in Whittlesford on 18th March he wrote: “You don’t need to ask me to forgive you, Chotie.  I shall always be prepared to forgive you anything – except leaving me entirely.”

By Tuesday 21^st March Dick was up in Scotland on one of the hastily arranged training courses to prepare for amphibious landings in France:

Letter written on Friday 24^th March 1944

Ayrshire, Scotland

Friday

Chotie Darling,

                                    Have just received your letter of the 19^th inst. which has been forwarded up from the unit.

            I was very pleased to see that Eric had replied to your letter and that I now have Eric’s address once again.  No excuse now, eh?

            Having a very pleasant time here doing absolutely nothing, as there seems no organisation of any sort here, and nobody worries about you.  I’m in a very cushy mess of practically every Regiment in the Army, though I’ve only met one bloke I knew before.

            I took the afternoon off and walked to Irvine* some three miles along golden sands** in glorious sunshine.  (I omitted to say that I had some three hours sleep in the afternoon on the beach.)  I then had a beer or two in Irvine and bussed back.

            Went skating on Tuesday and a dance in Ayr last night so I thought I’d have things a little quieter this evening, as I spent this morning up to my neck in the sea.***

            I’ll enclose some coupons in this letter.  If I remember that is.  What are they worth to you?

            All the pubs up here close at 8.30 pm except one in Ayr.  Unfortunately the barmaid there became much too friendly for my liking so I stay clear now.  She was a very charming little thing but obviously didn’t know her own mind.  So now I have to drink in the mess – very unsatisfactory. 

How are you behaving these days?  Being a good girl I hope.  Write and tell me all about him won’t you?  If he’s under forty I’ll be jealous, and if he’s over forty I’ll spank you.

            Must close here, Baby

                                                            All my love

                                                                                    Dicker

 

*Irvine is a town in North Ayrshire on the west coast of Scotland. A couple of Combined Operations WW2 camps were situated to the south of Irvine – HMS Dundonald trained all three services in signalling procedures to and from landing craft and the use of navigational aids to assist small landing craft find their way to designated landing places on hostile beaches.  HMS Dinosaur focused on tank landing craft training. (From the Combined Operations website.) 

**Barassie beach

*** “For the landings to be successful and for breakout from the bridgehead on the French coast to be achieved the men of all three services not only had to be equipped they also had to be trained.  It was to be training like no other, rigorous, realistic and relentless and much of it took place in Scotland.”  (Originally from the website www.scotsatwar.org.uk but this link no longer works.  Can anyone help me credit the source?)  

 © Chotie Darling

Meanwhile Chotie’s job was to help defend Bristol and the Severn Estuary ports from German air attacks.  The city received its first bombing raid since 1942 on 27^th March 1944 with 139 Luftwaffe planes targeting the harbour.  13 of those planes were lost and the ‘Baby Blitz’ was unsuccessful due to Bristols’ excellent defences (my mother was always prepared to take full responsibility for this) and poor target marking by the Germans.

German planes on bombing mission

The Allies’ strategic bombing of Germany was now achieving important results, not just through the impact on targets (although cities had been devastated and much infrastructure disabled) but particularly through the loss of Luftwaffe planes and experienced pilots.  This success, due to the deadly long-range fighter planes that now escorted the bombers, was to prove critical to the eventual outcome of Overlord and the Battle of Normandy.

The United States Army Air Force attacked Berlin with a huge force of bombers and fighters on 4^th and 6^th March and the RAF followed up with a thousand plane raid on the 24^th.  Stuttgart and Nuremberg also suffered heavy air attacks by the RAF and Bomber command began strategic attacks on northern France in preparation for the Allied invasion.

The National Council for the French Resistance published its plans for the future of a free France after the war on 15^th March.  On 26^th March in Haute Savoie 10,000 German troops and French militia attacked the 465 Maquisards gathered on the Plateau de Glières , now maintained as an important monument to the Resistance.

In the Ardeatine Caves near Rome the Germans executed 336 Italians in revenge for partisans killing 35 German police.  The Allies were struggling in their attempt to reach Rome - a third attack on Monte Cassino failed on 23^rd March and the forces landed at Anzio were still held in the beachhead.  However, airfields in southern Italy were now used to support Tito’s communist resistance in Yugoslavia.

On 19^th March the Hungarian leader, Miklos Horthy, who had been secretly negotiating with the Allies, was arrested and German troops marched in to occupy Hungary.  The SS immediately began deporting Hungarian Jews to Auschwitz.

The Russians were now very near (see Atlas of the World Battle Fronts).  On 15^th March in Poland they reached the Bug River, the boundary agreed between Russia and Germany when they invaded in 1939, and on 28^th March Soviet troops crossed into Romanian territory near the Black Sea.

Burma (Myanmar) was another critical zone in March 1944.  On 7^th March 100,000 Japanese advanced from north-west Burma into India in Operation U-Go.  Behind Japanese lines the airborne British Chindit expedition, Operation Thursday, had landed near Indaw in central northern Burma on 5^th March and the American ‘Merrill’s Marauders’ were fighting for control of Myitkina in the far north near China.  Allied forces in the far western Arakan, near the port of Muangdaw, continued to advance the southern frontier against the Japanese.  However, the Chindits lost their unconventional leader, Orde Wingate, in a plane crash on 24^th March.

75 years ago - 61st Reconnaissance Regiment

Dick joined 61^st Reconnaissance Regiment at the Medieval Lympne Castle in the second week of November 1942.  Before starting work as an officer he had nine days leave with Chotie at his home in Pagham, Sussex.  His first letter to her as a 2nd Lieutenant is "rather sketchy but the security angel cuts out everything worth writing – almost …."  We know from Eric Postles that 61st Recce were on coastal defence duties, patrolling between Folkestone and Romney in Kent. 

Managing to get back to Pagham on a 24 hour overnight pass on Wednesday 17^th November Dick was re-united with his brother Brin and his sister Diller, both home on leave (Diller from the pay Corps and Brin from Officer training).  He nearly got stuck at Brighton station on his way back having lost his wallet but was helped out by the local YMCA.  Around this time he also met up with Don Johnston, his old friend from 43^rd Recce (later killed in the sinking of the Derrycunihy soon after D Day).

61^st Division was also a training unit and Dick was involved in a week’s exercise in the Kent countryside in mid November.  He wrote to Chotie on his return:

Letter written on Sunday 28th November 1943

2/Lt R K Williams

‘B’ Sqdn. 61^st Recce Regt

Recce Corps, Home Forces

Sunday 28^th

Chotie Darling,

                                                I’m now back again and settled down after the scheme, which lasted for its original duration much to everyone’s disgust.

            On the whole I had quite a happy time, as I either stayed at, or passed through, several old haunts well known to the family in the old Morris Cowley* days, and coupled with the opportunity so often missed of worming my way into a vast number of period farmhouses and the like.

            The weather was excellent, cold but dry and as we stayed in one little village for three days without doing anything of military importance, we managed to get sufficiently well organised to hold ABCA*** periods and run a football tournament.  I evaded these two popular pastimes however, and mooched about a local farm until the daughter of the house asked me in for coffee and CHOCOLATE Biscuits!  Her undoubted charms left me cold, but I took a lively interest in the biscuits.  Lovely old house, with a massive oak beam over the fireplace marked 1600.

The major** came back yesterday.  He appeared quite a good type – reads Balzac, so I’m well in.

Nothing much happens here.  I’ve just finished a 48 hr spell of Duty Officer, rather a cushy appointment.  I get another 24 hr next Wednesday so I may go up to ……….. (word inked out).  There’s nothing to do here, or locally, but the snag is the fare.  It will be the second day I’ve had off in three weeks, which isn’t so good, to my way of thinking.

Many thanks for your letter, Darling, most welcome at the conclusion of an exercise.  Glad to hear you’ve got, or rather you’re getting, a rise****.  I bet you’re getting more than me after all.  After I’ve paid income tax, messing***** etc, I get the equivalent of Lance Corporal’s pay….

Must close here for dinner.

                                    All my love precious

            Dicker.

*presumably the family car from his childhood at Orpington in Kent.

**Army Bureau of Current Affairs – an organisation set up to educate and raise morale among British servicemen in World War 2.

***possibly the Regimental second-in-command, who was a Major, or maybe the Major commanding ‘B’ Squadron. Dick was one of 23 to 30 subalterns in the Regiment – commissioned officers below the rank of captain, generally comprising first and second (junior) lieutenants. Dick, as a newly commissioned officer, was a second lieutenant.

****due to her new qualification as Operator Fire Control?

*****Commissioned Officers were required to eat in the Officers’ Mess and pay a subscription fee for supplies and upkeep. They would also be expected to wear formal attire for evenings in the mess.

 © Chotie Darling

Dick, of course, was now in the regiment of the Recce Men we’ve been following.  All were in ‘B’ Squadron: a reconnaissance regiment consisted of the Regimental HQ with HQ Squadron and three Reconnaissance Squadrons (‘A’, ‘B’ and ‘C’) of about 150 men each.  Every Squadron had its own HQ, three Scout or Recce Troops consisting of one Recce and two Carrier sections - and one Assault or Infantry Troop.  (From ‘The British Reconnaissance Corps in World War II’ by Richard Doherty, Osprey Publishing 2007).  In 1943 Anthony Rampling and Eric Brewer were in the Assault troop (lorried infantry called in to overcome enemy resistance) while Dick and Eric Postles served in Scout Troops. 

 
Dick's Recce officer lanyard

Although Home Defence was still important (particularly Anti-Aircraft response) Britain was becoming more relaxed about the possibilities of invasion.  The fascist leader Oswald Mosly was released from prison, on grounds of ill health, on 17^th November 1943.  The next day the RAF began a series of very heavy raids against the German capital of Berlin, killing thousands of civilians.

In Poland as Operation Reinhard (the plan to exterminate Polish Jews) reached its culmination, 42,000 Jews working in forced labour camps were murdered by the Germans in the so called ‘Operation Harvest Festival’.  The world was waking up to the horror of the Holocaust when the dreadful atrocity of Babi Yar - the ravine where Nazis had shot and buried about 100,000 men, women and children - was revealed soon after the Soviet Army took the Ukrainian city of Kiev on 6^th November.

Wet and wintry weather was hitting both the Eastern and Italian Fronts.  In Italy the Allies advance slowed as General Mark Clark’s 5^th Army reached Monte Camino, the mountain ridges defending the main route to Rome.  The failed British attempt to take the ridge on 5^th November resulted in its nickname of ‘Murder Mountain’.  Montgomery’s 8th Army was now approaching the strategically important port of Ortona on the Adriatic coast but the Germans fiercely defended the town for another month.

In the Mediterranean Sea, Germany’s sinking of HMS Rohna, with the loss of 1,138 of the US troops she was carrying, would have been such a blow to Allied morale that it was kept secret until 1967!

Americans were engaged in terrible conflict with the Japanese in the Pacific.  1,000 US Marines were killed in the 3 day battle for tiny Tarawara Atoll in the Gilbert Islands - as well as 5,000 Japanese and Koreans - and on 1^st November the battle of Bougainville Island, east of Papua New Guinea, began and lasted until August 1945 (the end of war in the Pacific).  On 25^th November US planes based in China started to bomb the Japanese Island of Formosa (now Taiwan), contributing to a massive Japanese offensive against the airfields in early 1944.

Chiang Kai-Shek, the Chinese Nationalist leader, met Roosevelt and Churchill at a conference in Cairo http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/ww2peopleswar/timeline/factfiles/nonflash/a1140364.shtml (BBC History website) on 22^nd November to confirm their strategy against Japan.  Russia had not declared war against Japan and so did not attend but the two western leaders met Stalin together for the first time in Iran, at the Tehran Conference on 28^th November, where he agreed to join the  fight against Japan once Germany had been defeated.  Roosevelt and Churchill promised that they would invade France in a second western front by May 1944.  This was to be Operation Overlord and the beginning of Dick's war in Europe....

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 - 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 - 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 - 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 - 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 – 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 – 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 - 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 - 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 - 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

Last Days Together

Dick’s 1945 diary for March:

7^th Wed –  Came home again for last day of leave.

8th Thur – End of leave.  Left Bognor for Dover via Victoria.

 

Photos taken at St Margaret's, 9 Sea Lane, Pagham on 8th March 1945:

Dick and Chotie

Chotie, Dick, Ma and Pa Williams

Chotie, Dilys, Ma and Pa Williams

Dick and Chotie with Pa Williams and dog

Chotie 8th March 1945

Dick 8th March 1945

 

 

On 7^th March US forces managed to take and hold the bridge across the Rhine at Remagen (between Bonn and Koblenz) and establish a bridgehead on the east bank.  Hitler had ordered that all the bridges across the Rhine should be destroyed but a rush attack by the Americans on the still intact Ludendorff bridge was successful and thousands of Allied troops were able to cross here.  (See World War II: The Bridge at Remagen)

 

52^nd (Lowland) Reconnaissance Regiment:

52^nd Recce was ordered to move to the centre of the Rhineland taking over from 53rd Recce. ‘B’ and ‘C’ Squadron assumed positions with ‘B’ maintaining contact with Americans forces now on the right flank of the regiment. RHQ and ‘A’ Squadron moved to Geldern.

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

 

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”.

Leave!

Dick’s 1945 diary for March:

2^nd, 3^rd, 4^th and 5th – Leave!

 

52^nd (Lowland) Reconnaissance Regiment:

The Regiment at last left Afferden.  ‘A’ Squadron, after difficulties on the road due to craters and mines, reached high ground early on 3^rd March. ‘B’ Squadron pushed on through in front of them achieving their own objective and then ‘C’ Squadron; who arrived at Twisteden (now in Germany, between Afferden and Geldern) without opposition. Six prisoners of war were taken.  The Regiment then remained at Langstraat unable to move because of unpassable roads.

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

 

 

On March 3rd 53rd Reconnaissance Regiment, on the central axis of the Rhineland offensive, made contact with the Americans reaching Geldern from the south. Canadians Divisions advanced through the Hochwald Forest and took Xanten, a town close to the Rhine.  Allied troops closed in on west bank of the Rhine opposite Wesel but were met with fierce enemy resistance.

 

 

Reunion at Bognor Station

On 1^st March 1945 Dick and Chotie were together again

 for the first time since 20th May 1944. 

 

Dick’s 1945 diary for March:

1 Thurs – Met Cho Bognor Station for leave.

 

52^nd (Lowland) Reconnaissance Regiment:

52^nd Recce went into attack on enemy positions pinpointed east of Afferden on 1^st March. A dawn attack was rebutted by the enemy and resulted in the death of Corporal Duncan Simpson but the second attack led by ‘C’ Squadron Sergeants (the officers being on leave!) was successful in taking a bridge over the anti-tank ditch, revealed by the receding flood waters, and 49 prisoners of war. The Commanding Officer of ‘B’ Squadron, Major James Stormonth-Darling received the Regiment's first Military Cross for the planning and execution of the attack. (He was later knighted for his work as a Director of the National Trust for Scotland).  The advance could now continue.

(From the War Diary of the 52nd Reconnaissance Regiment held by the Archive and Reference Library, the Tank Museum, Bovington, Dorset and ‘The Fighting Fifty-Second Recce’ by Carl Shilleto, Eskdale Publishing 2001)

 

52^nd Recce Roll of Honour includes the following who died on 1^st March 1945:

Corporal Duncan Brown Simpson (age 24)

who is laid to rest in the Milsbeek war cemetery near Gennep.       

(See Roll of Honour for Milsbeek and Ottersun and photo.) 

We will remember them.

Romantic Meeting

On Friday 19^th May Dick and Chotie met again.

Chotie was A.W.O.L.* for the first time. 

They stayed for one night in the Haunch of Venison**, Salisbury, Wiltshire. They would not meet again until 1945.

“Come D day, the invasion to France was about to take place.  He phoned me to break Camp and meet him in Salisbury.  We stayed in an inn – separate rooms but he wanted us to be together before he went to France.  It was very romantic, our young hearts breaking.” From ‘Chotie’s Story’ (unpublished autobiography).

*Absent without Leave

**Curiously the ‘Horsebox’ bar of the Haunch of Venison was reputedly used by Churchill and Eisenhower when they were planning D Day.

61st Reconnaissance

 

Chotie Darling

 Dedicated to the memory of my mother

and all those who hold the forever young of war in their hearts.

 

 Part 3        Lieutenant Williams   

 

Chapter 9            61st Reconnaissance

 

From 30th October 1943 and for the rest of his war Dick was back in the Reconnaissance Corps. He’d served as a Trooper in 43rd Recce from July 1942 to March 1943 and before that was briefly in the legendary 1^st Airlanding Reconnaissance.

The Recce Corps had two official mottos “From One Learn All” (Ab Uno Disce Omnes) and “Beaten Paths are Safest” (Via Trita, Via Tuta).  Their unofficial motto “Only the Enemy in Front…..Every Other Beggar Behind” was going to prove only too true for the 61^st Recce in NW Europe (see ‘Beaten Paths are Safest’ by Roy Howard, Brewin Books, 2004). 

 The Recce Corps' role was “that of the cat’s whiskers – armoured, mechanised transmitting whiskers. Those who served had to be intelligent, enterprising, brave, enduring and highly skilled” (Arthur Bryant on the 1940 Bartholomew Committee: PRO WO106/1741).  It also helped if they were slightly short – like the riflemen of old (‘A Dorset Rifleman’ edited by Eileen Hathaway) they were less conspicuous and could also fit into their rather small vehicles (Anthony Rampling pers comm.).  Dick was only 5ft 6½ inches when he joined up at the age of 18 in June 1940.

Unfortunately almost all the official war records for the 61st Reconnaissance Regiment have been lost so we have to rely on personnel accounts and diaries, such as this blog, to tell their story.  See also ‘Memories of the 61st Reconnaissance Regiment’ assembled in ‘Beaten Paths are Safest’ by Roy Howard, Brewin Books, 2004.

 

 Anthony Rampling was already in 61^st Reconnaissance when Dick joined the Regiment - and has kindly agreed to help me tell their story.

 

 

Joining Up & 61st   

 Coming from a little village called Tendring, not far from Colchester in Essex, Anthony had never even travelled as far as London before he joined the Army.  He was sent to Norwich – quite a big adventure! – but that autumn Norwich Barracks were like a prison. “You had to take paper and string with you to post your belongings home”. So began 6 weeks of square bashing and inoculations.  “Everything had to be so neat.”

 Posted to Barnard Castle in the north of England (County Durham) Tony learned to use a Bren machine gun with the Royal Armoured Corps and passed out after 6 weeks at the beginning of 1943.  He was sent to the Royal West Kent holding regiment but soon joined the 61st Recce.

 

61st Reconnaissance Regiment was camping in a field between Chalfont St Giles and Chalfont St Peter in the Buckinghamshire Chilterns, not far from Tring.  Anthony was placed in the Assault Troup of ‘B’ Squadron – Dick’s squadron to be. 

 He remembers the Regimental commander, Lt-Colonel Sir William Mount (grandfather to the former Prime Minister David Cameron), sent them off on a 100 mile route march, sleeping out and living rough. Many men ‘cracked out’ with blisters, etc.  Tony finished the march but collapsed when they got back to Chalfont St Giles. They were at Chalfont St Giles for some time - there was a dance there with about two girls and hundreds of troops - then they moved around, settling eventually at the Medieval Lympne Castle in Kent for coastal defence duties. Tony remembers  “It was very eerie on guard there at night."  (Lympne Castle is said to be haunted.)

 

Dick hadn’t arrived at the Castle yet

 - after receiving his commission he had 9 days leave

and met up with Chotie at Pagham.

 

1^st November 1943 – US Marines begin Operation Cherry Blossom to regain Bougainville from the Japanese, who occupied the island since April 1942.  Bougainville lies between the Solomons and Rabaul, the critical Japanese base on Papua New Guinea’s New Britain island. Bougainville was defended by 40,000 Japanese troops and supported four airfields. By the end of March 1944 the Japanese had retreated to the remoter parts of the island but, although US forces handed over to the Australian Army at the end of 1944, combat operations on Bougainville only ceased with the Japanese surrender in August 1945. By then thousands of Japanese had been killed or died of disease or malnutrition.
 

3^rd November 1943 – in Operation 'Harvest Festival' the Germans kill 42,000 Jews working in forced labour camps in the Lublin area of Poland.  The plan to murder all the Jews in Poland had begun in autumn 1941 and was codenamed ‘Operation Reinhard’ after the Nazi leader Reinhard Heydrich.  It was now approaching its culmination.  Over 3 million Polish Jews lost their lives during the Holocaust - 90% of the Jewish population.

 

5th November 1943 – British X Corps, fighting with the US 5^th Army in Italy, attempt to seize Monte Camino, the mountain ridges guarding the route to Rome.  After several days of German mortar fire they fell back from what they now dubbed ‘Murder Mountain’.

6th November 1943 – the Russian Army recapture Kiev, the largest city in the Ukraine. Soviet forces had advanced at night, bursting out of two bridgeheads on 3^rd November to encircle the capital. 

Soon after the liberation of Kiev the ravine burial site of Babi Yar was discovered, 4 miles from the centre of Kiev.  Here more than 30,000 Jews had been shot by the Nazis in three days at the end of September 1941.  The site continued to be used by the Germans to murder and bury Jews and other persecuted groups until by August 1943 there were about 100,000 bodies in the gravesite, probably 90,000 of them Jewish.  With the Red Army approaching hundreds of prisoners were put to work digging up and burning the bodies to hide evidence of the massacres, before being killed themselves –see 28th September 1943.

 

Together in Parkstone

Top: Beryl and Jack Chalkley, Margaret Lewis (Chotie's brother and sisters)

Middle: Beryl, Chotie's father, Margaret and ? with cats and dog at the Hollies

Bottom: Chotie's father, ?, ?, Chotie and Dick with Jack in foreground in 1943.

 

 

Dick and Chotie met up for the first time since December

on 7^th to 9^th August 1943

at Chotie’s home, the Hollies in Parkstone, Poole.

Left: Margaret Lewis and dog, at the Hollies in Parkstone in 1943

Right: Mr William Chalkley and Mrs Elizabeth Chalkley, Chotie's parents

 

11th August 1943 – the Germans organise an effective retreat from Sicily across the Messina Straits, eventually evacuating 110,000 troops. (From ‘The Second World War’ by Antony Beevor, published by Weidenfield and Nicolson 2012

Swimming - 31st July 1943

By the end of July 1943 Chotie’s Royal Artillery Anti-Aircraft unit

had moved back to the Bristol area, this time to the north of the city

-      her address was

W/242328 Pte Chalkley

O’s FC ATS ‘B’ Tp

462 Hy (M) RA AA

Cribbs Causeway

Nr Henbury

Bristol.

 

 

 Letter written on Saturday 31st July 1943:

Same Address

Saturday

My Darling Chotie,

                                                Sorry, this will have to be in pencil but Chunky has pinched our only table and chair and is very inauspiciously writing to his wife.

                                    Received your two letters, for which many thanks.  I was surprised to see you are once again in the Bristol area.  If you remember, Eric was convalescent at Westbury for some months.  At any rate you’re a little nearer home, which I suppose is something, if not very much.

            As regards next week-end I’m afraid I won’t be able to get down before Saturday Evening, as our leave doesn’t start until the afternoon, and it’s a fair journey.

            I shall have to leave again on Monday afternoon as we change squadrons on that day and I’ll have about six months accumulation of kit to move to the New Buildings, which are some half mile or so.

            Been swimming all the afternoon at the ‘Blue Pool’, the nearest baths (apart from the college baths) and am now beginning to get brown.  I’m already pretty browned off as they’re chucking out Recce cadets right and left as the corps is already too full.  The trouble is that in most cases they’re not even giving infantry commissions!  So I’ll probably be RtU’d* in the near future.

            These things run in cycles – one minute they’re clamouring for officers and the next they’re full up.

            Read Linklater’s short stories entitled “God likes them plain”, which are very good.  Haven’t had time to read anything else.  Heard from Diller (still browned off) but haven’t heard from Brinner, needless to say.

            Swam in an inter-squadron competition and managed to win my event the net result being we won the whole show easily.  Rather funny really, and that’s the first swimming event I’ve been in.  On the 28^th** too!  Hell of a fluke – the other 3 were U.S.***

            I’ll close here Darling, as I’ve exhausted my mediocre letter-writing talents.

                                                                        All my love, Darling

                                                                        (until Saturday)

                                                                                    Dicker

 

*RTU – Returned to Unit

**Dick’s 22^nd birthday on 28^th July.

***Slang for useless?

© Chotie Darling

 

Dick's future comrades in 61st Reconnaissance Regiment were still in the Chilterns:

“Every Saturday morning we had a 10 mile run/march/route march after which we could go out.  I sometimes went down to London, Tring or Berkhamsted to see a film.  We did troop exercises on the Common and Ashridge Golf Course.”  (Extracts from ‘My War Years’ by John Eric Postles ISO used by kind permission of the author.)

This photo of B Squadron's Assault Troop, including Anthony Rampling, was taken in August 1943 (Tony is third from the left at the back):

 Eric Brewer joined the Assault Troop soon after this photo was taken and continued to fight in the Assault Troop until December 1944.

 

1^st August 1943 – Japan proclaims an independent State of Burma, led by Ba Maw. He declares war on Britain and United States while Aung San, head of the Burma Defence Army, begins negotiations with the communist and socialist parties. By November 1943 Aung San is making plans with the British to turn his forces against the Japanese occupants. (From Chronology of World War II and Wikipedia.)

1st August 1943 - American bombers attack the Ploesti oilfields of Romania from North Africa in Operation Tidal Wave but suffer devastating losses.  The Germans had broken their codes and were ready for them. (From ‘The Second World War’ by Antony Beevor, published by Weidenfield and Nicolson 2012)

 

2^nd August 1943 – more than 300 prisoners escape from the Treblinka extermination camp in Poland  in a break out organised by the Jewish inmates - although two thirds were eventually captured and killed.  The bodies of the thousands who had been gassed or shot at Treblinka were being exhumed from the mass graves and burnt, removing the evidence of genocide.  Deportation of Jews from the ghettos to Treblinka had ceased in May 1943 and the camp was to be dismantled.  All the remaining prisoners in the camp were killed. (From United States Holocaust Memorial Museum and WW2-net Timelines.)

2^nd August 1943 – a Japanese destroyer in the Solomon Islands rams a US Torpedo boat, which catches fire.  The commander, J F Kennedy dives in to rescues his crew from the burning oil.  Abandoning ship after 12 hours clinging to the upturned hull he helps them reach the isolated Plum Pudding Island and then Olasana Island, which has coconuts but no water. On 8^th August they were found and rescued with the assistance of local islanders who were coast watchers and a message written on coconut shell. JFK kept the shell on his desk in the Oval Office when he became President of the Unites States.

 

3^rd August 1943 – the Russians launch Operation Rumyantsev, a vast offensive south of Kursk taking Belgorad on 5^th August.  North of Kursk Soviet forces reclaim Orel, following the German retreat.  (From ‘The Second World War’ by Antony Beevor, published by Weidenfield and Nicolson 2012)

 

5^th August 1943 – US troops at last take the airfield of Munda on New Georgia, in the Solomon Islands, from the Japanese.

6^th August 1943 – American destroyers in the Solomon Islands sink 3 Japanese destroyers carrying 900 troops in a night-time ambush.

6^th August 1943 – German troops pour into Italy as Italian and German government leaders meet near Venice. 

Leave next Wednesday - Thursday 26th November 1942

Same Address

Thursday

My Darling,

                                    Just a few lines to let you know that my leave definitely comes off on the second inst. ie next Wednesday.  This is of course subject to cancellation for a hundred and one reasons, but if all goes well, as I expect it will, I can’t see why it should not come off.

            Will you write as soon as you can fix up anything definite – I’m supposing, as usual, that you are able to… 

            I’m very busy at the moment, or would write more.  In any case there’s no real news – nothing at all with which to pad this missive.

            I got really wet through this morning – still am in fact (it’s now dinner-time) so will have to find something to change into.

            Sorry this is so short Darling, but I thought I’d write as soon as my name appeared on detail for leave.

                                                            all my love precious,

                                                                                    Dicker

P.S.  Write as soon as possible…

 © Chotie Darling

 

27^th November 1942 – German troops occupy the French Naval base of Toulon. The Vichy Admiral de Laborde (who had refused to deliver the French Fleet into Allied hands) gave orders to scuttle the French fleet and they succeeded in destroying 77 warships, preventing them from falling into German or Italian hands. Four submarines managed to escape. (See Operation Lila.)

 

29th November 1942 – Churchill warns Italy that the bombing of Italian cities will continue until Italy abandons the war, encouraging them to revolt against Mussolini. (From WW2-net Timelines.)

By the end of November the Japanese on Papua New Guinea, without reinforcements or supplies, had given up trying to take Port Moresby and retreated to their bridgeheads at Buna and Gona where desperate fighting with Australian and American forces continued.

 

43^rd Recce’s List of Officers for 30^th November 1942 includes the following for Regimental Headquarters:

Commanding Officer – Lt.Col.A.W.E.Crawford

Second-in-Command – Major H.G.Mason*

Adjutant – Capt.J.Day

Technical Officer - Capt.G.D.A.Hunter

I.O. (presumably Intelligence Officer) – Lieut.C.E.J.Leaphard**

 

Dick’s Headquarters Squadron included the following:

Squadron Commander – Major A.O.Swayne

Second-in-Comd. – Capt.C.G.Nuttall

O.C.A.Tk.Tp (Officer in Command of the Anti-tank Troop) – Capt.F.R.Henn

O.C. Mortar Troop (Dick’s Troop) – Lieut.S.J.Moreland

Signal Officer – Lieut.W.H.Moreland

Asst. Mortar Tp.Comd – Lieut.D.E.R.Scarr***

Adm.Officer – Lieut.T.A.Parry

2 i/c A.Tk.Tp – Lieut.D.Rigby

M.T.O. – Lieut.W.R.Falconer

Quartermaster – Major B.V.J.Vigrass

(From the papers of the 43^rd Reconnaissance Regiment held by the Archive and Reference Library, the Tank Museum, Bovington, Dorset.)

*Major Herbert George Mason had served with the Glosters since 1927. In 1943 he was posted to the Allied Military Government in Italy and rejoined the Glosters T.A. in 1947.

**Lieut.C.E.J.Leaphard – transferred to and saw action with No 6 Commando (see Small Scale Raiding Force).

***Liet.D.E.R.Scarr – the National Army Museum hold an account of his service with the Recce from 1941-46 (inventory number 10561).

(From WW2 Unit Histories and National Army Museum.)

 

Dick was in the Mortar Troop under Lieutenants S.J.Moreland and D.E.R. Scarr with probably about 44 NCOs and other troopers.  Mortar Troop initially served a pair of 3 inch mortars, carried by 15cwt trucks but by the end of 1942 their strength was increased to six 3 inch weapons, now each transported by an adapted Universal carrier with 15cwt trucks carrying extra ammunition. (See WW2 Battalion Organisation.)

In December 1942 43^rd Reconnaissance Regiment were still in Dover. Individual training took place on most days up to and including the 19^th December.  The Regiment took part in the 43^rd’s Divisional Skeleton Exercise Wyvern on 4^th, 5^th and 6^th December.

(From the War Diary of the 43^rd Reconnaissance Regiment held by the Archive and Reference Library, the Tank Museum, Bovington, Dorset.)

 

 The War in Dorset - December 1942

In December 1942 the 3^rd Special Services Brigade was formed from No 5 Commando and Royal Marines.  Billeted in Bournemouth, with an HQ at the Broughty Ferry Hotel in Boscombe, they practiced night landing exercises at Shell Bay and Brownsea Island and shooting on the Canford Heath ranges. The novelist Evelyn Waugh was then Staff Officer for Combined Operations and often monitored their exercises.

On 4^th December Barnes Neville Wallis unsuccessfully tested two spherical bombs, flown in from RAF Warmwell, on the Fleet lagoon. They failed to bounce and exploded on impact. He was again unsuccessful on 15^th December. By the seventh attempt in early January his team had achieved a skim across the water and on 24^th January the bomb bounced 13 times and jumped over a barn intended to simulate the wall of a dam. Trials in Dorset, codenamed ‘Upkeep’, continued into March and then moved to choppier waters in Kent. The bouncing bombs were used in May 1943 to destroy dams in the Ruhr area of Germany releasing industrial water supplies but drowning 1,294 people including several hundred Russian prisoners of war.

On 13^th December over 100 houses at Chiswell, Portland were flooded by a natural incursion of the sea breaching the Chesil beach.  Gas, road and rail links were put out of action.

The Armoured Fighting Vehicle School at Lulworth Camp came under air attack on 14^th December.

A single Dornier bomber dropped 5 bombs near Poole Quay on 16^th December. Two people were killed, twenty-six injured and several buildings destroyed as well as a Naval Patrol vessel.  Another bomber in Bridport killed 3 people and hit a bank leaving £1,000 in bank notes spread over the street.

On 21^st December the Free French navy gunboat Chasseur capsized and sank off Durlston Head near Swanage.

Church bells rang for Christmas for the first time since the beginning of the war, following the El Alamein celebration in November.

On 31^st December 1942 another Dornier raider attacked Poole Quay (destroying Bradford’s Store, which had just been repaired following the earlier bomb damage) but crashed into the Harbour while taking evasive action from Lewis gun fire.

(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)

 

In December 1942 43^rd Reconnaissance Regiment were still in Dover. Individual training took place on most days up to and including the 19^th December.  The Regiment took part in the 43^rd’s Divisional Skeleton Exercise Wyvern on 4^th, 5^th and 6^th December. (From the War Diary of the 43^rd Reconnaissance Regiment held by the Archive and Reference Library, the Tank Museum, Bovington, Dorset.)

2^nd December 1942 – the first self-sustaining nuclear chain reaction is achieved by a team of scientists in America working under the name of “Manhattan Engineering District”. (From WW2-net Timelines.)

 

Dick was on leave from Wednesday 2^nd to c.9^th December 1942.

Chotie and Dicker were together for a week during Dicker’s leave

 

3rd December 1942 - the British First Army's advance on Tunis from Algeria is pushed back by German Panzer forces (from ‘The Second World War’ by Antony Beevor, published by Weidenfield and Nicolson 2012).

4^th December 1942 – the first US Air Force raid on Naples, flying from North Africa, kills nearly one thousand people.  Naples was the most bombed Italian city of the war. 

 

7th December 1942 – ten Royal Marines set off in canoes from a submarine near the east Coast of France for Operation Frankton. Paddling 70 miles up the River Gironde they successfully laid charges to destroy enemy shipping in Bordeaux Harbour.  Two men survived, two were presumed drowned and six were captured and executed under Hitler’s Commando Order.  They became known as the ‘Cockleshell Heroes’ after their canoes codenamed cockles. (See Combined Operations WW2 website and update on Wikipedia.)

8th December 1942 – German troops occupy the Vichy French port of Bizerte in Tunisia, capturing French destroyers and submarines. (From WW2-net Timelines.) 

9th December 1942 - Australian troops take the Japanese bridgehead at Gona in Papua New Guinea.

 

11th December 1942 - Montgomery's Eighth Army attacks Rommel's forces at the Battle of El Agheila in Libya.  The German Panzerarmee Africa resume their withdrawal west towards Tunisia.

12th December 1942 – Germany counter attacks with Operation Winter Storm at Stalingrad, as their Army Group Don attempts to rescue the besieged and starving 6th Army. This had been defeated by the Soviets by 23rd December. (See The Battle for Stalingrad website.)

 

Nine Days

Telegram – 12^th September 1942

 

LEAVE WEDNESDAY 16th LOVE = RICHARD + +

 

Dick had nine days Privilege leave from 17^th to 25^th September 1942

and met up with Chotie.

 

Copy of Record

SERVICE AND CASUALTY FORM

17.9.42         Priv. Leave    17-25.9.42 (9 days) 

Army Rank Trooper              Place Home Forces

 

 

12th September 1942 - a Japanese attack on Guadalcanal,'the Battle of Bloody Ridge', is defeated costing the Japanese half their forces on the Island.

12^th/13^th September 1942 – Major March-Phillips, the founder and leader of the Small Scale Raiding Force (insert link), based in Poole, was killed in a raid (Operation Aquatint) on the Normandy coast near St Honorine des Pertes (the beach later known as Omaha from the D Day landings). (From Combined Operations WW2 website.)

13th September 1942 - a major German assault in Stalingrad pushed Soviet forces back to the banks of the River Volga but was met with fierce resistance.  In the heavily bombed city the Russians became adept at street-fighting, or 'Rattenkrieg' ('the war of rats') as the Germans called it, with crack snipers hiding among the derelict buildings.  Women played important roles in the defence of the city, as bomber pilots, firing anti-aircraft guns and as medical orderlies, retrieving the wounded under fire.  (From ‘The Second World War’ by Antony Beevor, published by Weidenfield and Nicolson 2012)

 

18th September 1942 – British forces landed on the East Coast of Madagascar and by the 23rd occupied the capital Tananarive (now Antananarivo). The Vichy French government signed a peace treaty on 5th November 1942.

 

The Divisional Commander - Monday 6th July

The War in Dorset - July 1942

On 2^nd July air attacks on coastal defences in West Dorset damaged buildings and electricity supplies.

In Lyme Bay on 9^thJuly German E-boats (called Schnellboots for their speed) attacked Allied Coast Convoy WP183 sinking a tanker, four freighters and an armed escort trawler.

An air attack on Swanage on 13^th July caused injuries and damage to buildings.

From 19^th to 22^nd July German mines were being laid in the Channel off the Dorset coast. The people of Poole adopted a minesweeper on 29^th July, which became HMS Poole. At the time 35 vessels were being financed by warsavings from Dorset.

During July, a VIP air hanger, with specially built blast walls, was constructed at RAF Hurn to house Prime Minister Winston Churchill’s personal plane and other special aircraft.

(From ‘Dorset’s War Diary - Battle of Britain to D Day’ by Rodney Legg, Dorset Publishing Company 2004)

 

July 1942 - 1^stAir Landing Squadron were based at Carter Barracks on the Bulford ranges of Salisbury Plain, Wiltshire.

From 1st to 3rd July 1942 two 1^st Air Landing Squadron Troops took part in Brigade Exercise, one Troop operating on each side.  They were led by Captains G.L.Falkim and G.C. Roberts, Lieutenants D.M. Freegard and L.A.W. Hayes and 2^nd Lieutenant A.J. Waterman.  The exercises lasted 3 days and on 4^th July 1^st Air Landing Squadron had a Free Day.

On Sunday 5^th July 35 officers and men took part in a Glider Flying day. 3 sorties were made from Netheravon Aerodrome with flights of one hour each and the men practiced deplaning drill on landing.

(From the War Diary of 1^st Air Landing Reconnaissance Squadron, National Archives, Kew)

 

1^st July 1942 – As Rommel advances into Egypt British officials in Cairo begin burning official documents (so many that the day was nicknamed ‘Ash Wednesday’) and desertions rose rapidly in the British Army of the Nile. However, Rommel’s attacks on the British positions at El Alemein were unsuccessful; the line held and Rommel was put on the defensive.  (From ‘The Second World War’ by Antony Beevor, published by Weidenfield and Nicolson 2012)

 

4^th July 1942 – Sevastopol, a strategically important port on the Black Sea and capital of the Crimea, is captured by the Germans after a siege of 250 days.

German aircraft and U-boats attack PQ-17, the largest supply convoy Britain until then to be sent to the Soviet Union.  24 out of the 33 vessels were sunk in the Barents Sea east of Svalbard – one of the greatest Naval disasters of the war.

The German authorities begin systematically gassing Jews at Auschwitz near Krakow in southern Poland.

 

 

1st Air Landing Sqdn

Recce Corps, Home Forces 

Monday Eve.

My Darling Chotie,

                                                                        Thanks for letter received a few days ago.  I'm now back from this scheme, and would have written before but have only just come off a 24 hr guard.

            Just as luck would have it, the Divisional Commander* decided to pay us a call this morning so of course the Guard had to turn out for inspection.  Rumour has it that
he was once married to Daphne du M**, but I'm sure I don't know for certain. He’s a Major-General and by repute the best dressed man in the Army.

            I understand from Home that the Bryn is now a Lance–Jack - which makes him my senior, curse him!  He hasn't yet been home on leave - so it's probably all for the best that we took ours when we did.

            I met a very decent chap here - Philip by name, who is the image of Richard Dix.  He happens to be rather well-read so we have much in common... (Conceit of the man!).  He was a Glider Pilot but was thrown out in company with some fifty others and posted here.  Quite a good crowd but very R.A.F.ish.  You know - such nice little boys. 

            I went down as far as the Town where Strongs brew their xxxx*** and went all over the forest on the scheme.  We slept out in the open each night – 3hrs a night.  Pretty rough but quite good fun on the whole. 

            I've just had a letter from Mother - who appears to be much better now, after having had rather a bad time of it. Dad also wrote a few days ago - a sure sign that Mother was not up to par.  (That pun, wasn't intended, Darling!).

            I'm afraid there's no chance of my seeing you Precious, as we're working seven days a week.  If I do ever get a Sunday off though I'll come straight down. 

            I've done a bit more flying - but I'll tell you about it when next we meet.

            Well, Darling, there's nothing new, only that I love you Chotie, Darling and miss you more than ever.  All we seem to be able to look forward to is the time when we’ll never have to worry about the scourge of separation, - or having to be over careful about things...

            Goodnight my Darling,

                                                                        All my love

                                                                                    Dicker

PS       I wish you could see the sun set over the Plain*** tonight.  Turner would have revelled in it.

PPS. Brinner's had a letter from Pete! He's in Leicester.

 

* Frederick Browning, Commander of the 1^st Airborne Division consisting of the 1^st Airlanding Brigade and the British 1^st Parachute Brigade and from July 1942, the 2^nd Parachute Brigade (which brought it up to strength as a division).  He later became Deputy Commander of the 1^st Allied Airborne Division and was knighted in 1946.  He had married the novelist Daphne du Maurier - the author of Dick’s favourite novel 'Rebecca'- in 1932.

** Romsey – so presumably the New Forest in Hampshire.

*** Salisbury Plain, Wiltshire.

 

 © Chotie Darling

 

On the 6th July 1942 a party from 1^st Air Landing Squadron were fined and then grounded – they appear to have received a visit from Major-General Browning, the Commander of 1^st Airborne (see above).

From 7^th to 15th July 1942 the Squadron held Unit Cadres* – N.C.O., Fieldcraft, Weapon training and M/C (motorcycle) riding - with demonstrations by Paratroops & Air Landing Troops to High Officers and members of the Ministry of Production on 9^th and 10th July. 

*Cadre = A nucleus of trained personnel selected to train others or develop and build an organisation around which a larger organisation can be built and trained eg a cadre of corporals who train recruits. 

(From the War Diary of 1^st Air Landing Reconnaissance Squadron, National Archives, Kew)

 

10^th July 1942 – Rommel’s Afrika Corps again attack the El Alamein line but an Australian Division breaks through the Italian formation and captures Rommel’s signals intelligence unit.  Without this and deciphered messages from the American military attaché in Cairo (the Germans had cracked his code in December 1941 but Bonner Fellers returned to the US in July) Rommel could only guess Allied intentions.  Conversely the British were now aware of Rommel’s plans through Ultra, their Enigma decrypts of German messages.  (From ‘The Second World War’ by Antony Beevor, published by Weidenfield and Nicolson 2012)

 

 

Dick met up with Chotie,

returning late on the night of Saturday 11^th July.

 

Dick’s service record shows he was posted

to the 43^rd Reconnaissance Regiment on 11^th July 1942

(see "Transfers" - letter of 26th June 1942)

Copy of Record:

SERVICE AND CASUALTY FORM

11.7.42      Posted to 43^rd Recce Regt.   Army Rank Trooper  Place Field

 

Dick left first Air Landing on 11^th July

with “about half the old squadron”.

 

On 17^th July the 1^st Airborne Division was brought up to full divisional strength with the formation of the 2^nd Parachute brigade. Browning was determined that the Airborne would not be sacrificed in "penny packets" and had urged the formation of a third brigade (see Just Ordinary Men ).

Pagham - Thursday 11th June 1942

 “St Margarets”

Lea Lane, Pagham, Sussex

Thursday

My Darling Chotie,

                                                            Received your letter this morning, and also your telegram of course, which was already here by the time I arrived.

                I'm just penning these few words, to let you know that I'll meet you on Chichester Station on Saturday.  The train should get in somewhere about 7.30 I suppose.  Remember, Chichester - not Bognor.

                                         Bye, bye ‘till Saturday Darling –

                                                                                    love

                                                                                                Dicker

 © Chotie Darling

Chotie and Dick met up at Pagham.

Chotie, Dilys (Dick's sister) and Pa Williams

Brin and Pa Williams

 
Pa Williams, Dilys (Dick's sister) and Chotie

“…and when they moved to Pagham, Sussex, to a pretty chalet-like house, I went to stay with them.

            That house was full of singing and music – so happy. We walked round a lagoon , ending up with a beer in a Selsey pub. I did so like his family. There was no
serious religion, which I was subject to at home. Dicker did not have much time for the church, saying “Why do Bishops live in Palaces?”

 From ‘Chotie’s Story’.

© Chotie Darling

 

While Dick was on leave 1^st Air Landing Squadron were training on the Vickers MMG (Medium Machine Gun) Range on Saturday 13th June 1942 and on beach bomb Ranges for field firing on 14^th June.

They were  moved by rail to Kimmeridge Bay* (Dorset) for field firing training on 15^th June.  On 18th June the squadron marched 25 miles from Kimmeridge Bay Firing Range back towards Bulford. Unit transport picked them up for the last 20 miles on 19^th June.

20^th & 21st June 1942 – 1^st Air Landing Squadron were Tiger Moth flying at Shrewton in Wiltshire.

(From the War Diary of 1^st Air Landing Reconnaissance Squadron, National Archives, Kew)

* Kimmeridge is on the south coast of the Isle of Purbeck, ironically close to Chotie’s home town of Poole and near where she was (briefly) stationed in the Land Army at Church Knowle in October 1942. The lovely bay became England’s first voluntary marine nature reserve, managed by the Dorset Wildlife Trust, and in later life was one of Chotie’s favourite places to visit.

 

14^th June 1942 – German saboteurs landed on Long Island near Jacksonwille in Florida, USA. They were quickly picked up and executed after trial.

 

19th June 1942 – Churchill and Roosevelt met to plan Allied offensives against the Germans for the rest of 1942.  They agree that American troops will join their Allies to invade French (West) Africa in Operation Gymnast (which became Operation Torch).

 

21st June 1942 – Rommel’s Afrika Corps capture the key port of Tobruk in Libya after a 4 day assault following the Battle of the Gazala line.  (The Australians had defended Tobruk under siege for more than 7 months in 1941). Rommel found more than 4,000 tons of oil had not been destroyed in Tobruk – vital supplies for his planned advance into Egypt.  Churchill, who had ordered that Tobtuk was to be held at all coasts was dismayed and wrote “Defeat is one thing, disgrace is another”.  (From ‘The Second World War’ by Antony Beevor, published by Weidenfield and Nicolson 2012)

 

20^th & 21st June 1942 – Dick appears to have been granted his 1^st Long Service and Good Conduct (L.S. & G.C. badge - one chevron on lower arm) retrospectively. It was due on 21^st June 1942 and although this date appears on the record of his Service and Casualty Form it follows records from September 1942.

Copy of Record

SERVICE AND CASUALTY FORM

21.6.42  Granted 1^st L.S. & G.C Badge  Army Rank Trooper  Place Home Forces

 

Leave Today - 9th June 1942

The War in Dorset - June 1942

On the night of 3rd/4th June 1942 decoy fires and explosions on the Purbeck heathland (see HH1 and HH2) saved the Royal Navy cordite factory at Holton Heath, near Poole, from 112 high explosive bombs and 5,000 incendiaries.  No bombs hit the cordite factory and there were no casualties on the decoys.

Poole also suffered a heavy bombing attack on the 4th of June. Early incendiaries started fires on the heathland west of the town, diverting many of the 50 Luftwaffe bombers. However, they also caused numerous fires in the town and several buildings were hit by bombs. Dedicated effort by the fire and civil defence forces (presumably including Chotie’s father, an ARP* warden) meant that only three people were killed.

An underground petrol tank at the Hamworthy RAF depot was blown open and a huge slick of petrol covered the adjacent land and harbour.  Fortunately these highly inflammable lakes didn’t catch fire and the petrol gradually evaporated (the explosion would have destroyed all the RAF petrol supplies for Dorset and West Hampshire).

One of the 139 tons of bombs released over the town hit the Sona, a Naval Headquarters ship moored at Poole Quay. It went through the ship and lodged unexploded in the mud below until 7th June when it destroyed the Sona and several evacuated buildings on the Quay.

On 6^th June bombing aimed at the railway track in Bournemouth damaged 454 properties although only one bomb hit the track.

Whitley planes arrived at RAF Hurn (now Bournemouth airport) in June 1942 to fly Special Operations Executive agents and supplies for Resistance groups across the Channel. They also supported Airborne training on Salisbury Plain.  A satellite aerodrome for the Fleet Air Arm station at Yeovilton was established at Sigwell’s Farm, north of Sherborne.

(From ‘The Book of Poole Harbour’ edited by Bernard Dyer and Timothy Darvill and published by The Dovecote press Ltd 2010,  ‘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.)

*ARP = Air Raid Precautions

 

 

June 1942 - 1^st Air Landing Squadron were based on the Bulford ranges of Salisbury Plain, Wiltshire.

1^st Air Landing Squadron Officers listed for June 1942:  Major C.J.H. Gough;

Captains: A.S.Baker, G.L. Falkim, G.C. Roberts, J.P. Royle, C.W. Suter;

Lieutenants: D.Allsop, R.W.Clough, D.M.Freegard, T.J. Firbank, M.W. Grubb, J.A.Hay, L.A.W.Hayes, F.D.E.Imes (Quartermaster), R.W.Jahren, G.L.Millar and F.D.Slater;

2^nd Lieutenants:  R.J.Clark, Kindersley, H. Poole, and A.J. Waterman

 

On Monday 1^st June the Squadron had lectures and training at Bulford and on 3^rd June they were on night operations – a compass march.

On Sunday 7th June 1942 1^st Air Landing Squadron were training on Ogbourne St George Mortar Range, Wiltshire and on 8^th June were flying in Tiger Moth (biplanes).

(From the War Diary of 1^st Air Landing Reconnaissance Squadron, National Archives, Kew)

 

2nd June – The German Army 11th Army advances in the Crimea and attacks the port and fortress of Sebastapol.  The fierce battle ends with German victory on 9th July.

 

4th-7th June 1942 – the battle over Midway Atoll, the US base in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, near Hawaii, was won by the US Navy. This crucial battle turned the tide and the Allies took over the offensive from the Japanese in the Pacific.  Again US codebreakers had intercepted signals revealing that Japanese invasion fleets were heading for the Midway Islands , enabling timely launching of US Naval task forces from Hawaii to defend the base. Four Japanese aircraft carriers were sunk and 250 Japanese planes destroyed with the loss of only one US aircraft carrier, the Yorktown.

 

 

Dick visited the dentist again on Friday 5th June 1942, attending Dental Centre 363.

Dental Treatment Card –  5/6/42

 

5^th June 1942 – an SS (Shutzstaffel – Nazi paramilitary and police) report states that 97,000 persons have been “processed” ie killed, in mobile gas vans. (From  WW2-net Timelines)

 

 

Telegram - 9th June 1942

CHALKLEY KNITWEAR DEPT BEALES* BOURNEMOUTH =

= = =  LEAVE TODAY 9 DAYS WIRE PAGHAM = RICHARD

++ CT9 QKP  BEALES + PAGHAM +

*By this time Chotie had transferred from Plummer’s Knitwear Department back to Beales.

 

 

 

On 10^th June 1942 Dick was granted 10 days leave.

Copy of Record

SERVICE AND CASUALTY FORM

10.6.42        Granted 10 days leave       Army Rank Trooper        Place Field

 

10th June 1942 – After the gallant defence of Bir Hakeim in the Battle of the Gazala line , most of the Free French escape to the British lines.  General de Gaulle hails Bir Hakeim as the start of the resurrection of France.

The Missing Winter

There are no letters from Dick between 7th October 1941 and 20th April 1942, when records show he was transferred from the Dorsets to 1^st Air Landing in the Reconnaissance Corps. The obvious reason would be that he was stationed near Chotie and seeing her regularly so there was no need to write. He had dental treatment in Bournemouth in December 1941 and twice in February 1942.

Presuming he continued in some part of Intelligence (he refers to a potential transfer in his letter of 7^th October), there are a number of interesting activities in the Poole area where he may have been involved, including the planning of the raid on St Nazaire and the Bruneval raid by Louis Mountbatten’s Combined Operations Command.

Mountbatten became Advisor on Combined Operations on 27th October 1941 .  Churchill summed up his job in one sentence “I want you to turn the south coast of England from a bastion of defence into a springboard of attack”.  His duties included planning commando raids across the English Channel and inventing new technical aids to assist with opposed landing.

 The Bruneval Raid was intimately connected to the secret radar work of the Telecommunications Research Establishment in Dorset and carried out by a company of paratroopers from 1^st Airborne Division who trained with the Royal Navy on the Dorset coast in February 1942.

Poole was also the base of the ‘Maid Honour Force’ of marine commandos, which Combined Operations and Special Operations Executive developed into the 'Small-scale Raiding Force', establishing an HQ at Anderson Manor in the Poole hinterland during this period (see posts for 1st April 1941 and 2nd February 1942).

All of these operations were conducted with the utmost secrecy and may possibly have involved the services of Trooper R.K Williams, Intelligence Section.

In addition, the activities of a squadron of the elite signals and reconnaissance unit known as ‘Phantom’ were centred on the area behind Poole Harbour. Commanded by the actor David Niven, ‘A’ squadron of the General Headquarters Liaison Regiment was attached to General Montgomery’s Fifth Corps and responsible for the rapid relay of information on coastal defences or invasion to Army HQ.  Since Dick later had to learn morse and wireless it seems unlikely that he worked directly for ‘Phantom’ at this time.

However, in joining 1st Air Landing (the glider-borne troops of 1^st Airborne Division), Dick would have come under the command of Brigadier G.F. Hopkinson, the founder of ‘Phantom’.  Dick had his first experience of flying in the 1^st Airborne so, if he did go to France during the ‘Missing Winter’ (as my mother seemed to remember), it was not by plane.

 

(From ‘Poole and World War II’ written by Derek Beamish, Harold Bennett and John Hillier and published by Poole Historical Trust in 1980, ‘Dorset’s War Diary - Battle of Britain to D Day’ by Rodney Legg, Dorset Publishing Company 2004,  ‘Phantom at War – the British Army’s Secret Intelligence & Communication Regiment of WW2’ by Andy &Sue Parlour, Cerberus 2003 and Combined Operations.)

 

To Branksome - Friday 19th September 1941

HQ Company, 70^th Bn Dorsets

Fort Brockhurst, Gosport, Hants.

My Darling Chotie,

                                                                                    Many thanks for letter.  I'm replying at my first opportunity, even though I'm afraid it's a little late.

            Well, Sweetheart, there's some news at last.  We're moving to the Branksome Chine* Area.  Now don't get too excited - it won't be for long.  HQ Company is moving but I may not stay in it, in which case I shall go elsewhere.  I should see you in a few days time with luck.

            If you manage to get a farm in Dorset, I should be able to see you fairly often as I may end up somewhere in our fair county.

            It won't be any good to you to go to Pompey as we are moving this weekend, I'm afraid.  Still, I'll be able to come and see you, instead.

            I've been fearfully busy this morning, having hiked 15 miles or so.  (It's now just after Dinner time).  I haven't yet written home, since I've been back!  Terrible isn't it?

            Well, I must close here Precious, hoping to see you very soon.

                                                                                    all my love

                                                                                                Dicker

                                                                                                Xxxxxxxx

* Branksome Chine is on the coast in the suburbs of Poole.

© Chotie Darling

 

Dick was stationed in Branksome, Poole, Dorset from September 1941, possibly until he joined 1^st Air Landing.

Dick and Chotie were presumably able to meet up again easily so there are no letters until Chotie started work in the Land Army.

 

19^th September 1941 – Germany captured Kiev, the capital of the Ukraine, then in Russia.

29th and 30th September 1941 – Massacre of Babi Yar. Nazi paramilitary death squads, the SS Einsatzgruppen, murdered 33,771 Jews at in a ravine near Kiev. This is considered the largest single mass killing of the Holocaust. In the following two years more than 100,000 Jews, Gypsies, Ukrainian nationalists and Soviet Prisoners of War were massacred at Babi Yar.

Too many Court Martials - Sunday 17th August 1941

Fort Brockhurst, Gosport, Hants.

Sunday.

My Darling,

Many thanks for letter received a few days back. I have passed on “sisterly” love to Eric & JP, who's now back from leave - looking rather worn out. I wonder why?

        Eric is still moaning about his leave - he hasn't had one for nine months! (apart from sick leave, which doesn't count). I'm one of the luckiest, if the truth be known. However, I'm still trying hard for my Seven Days - if anything unexpected happens I'll send a telegram but it's very unlikely.

        Hope your sniffles are better by the time you get this letter.

        What's the weather like at home? It's alternately sunny & rainy here, and has been for some time - rather more like April than August.

        The ‘I’ section has lost a large number of its members. Bill Ede the “brains” of the section, deserted a week or so ago, one is in hospital, and another is in ‘Clink’ (cooler). We've also got two on leave. What a life!

        I had a letter from Marjory* a few days ago. Full of the usual bunkum. However they don't come more than every 6 weeks to two months so there's no need to worry (?) (I bet you're throwing things about already ...) Never mind, Darling, your little Dicker still loves you, more than anything in this wide world. Does that convince you? I hope so, because it's really true sweetheart.

        I'm still doing plenty of German + Spanish, but on your intimation have given up using it in letters! There's no need to worry - it's the same in any language, anyhow.

        I believe we’re moving on the 22nd (Friday), when I should be getting my leave - what a hope! We're coming back here after a month, though, which isn't too bad. At any rate I'm a lot better off than Eric.

        Do you remember that time I went on exeat to Birmingham**? Well, the kid who went with me, Private Currey (he's only about 17), has just got 56 days detention by Field General Court Martial. He started getting tough with the RQMS(WOII)***, yelling “I come from Brum, and it's about time you bloody well knew it!” etc. He‘s now at the Glasshouse at Aldershot. There's been a lot of Court Martials lately. Far too many for one Battalion.

                    Well, Honey, I'd better close here,

                                                            all my love,

                                                                            Dicker

                                                                                    Xxxxxxxxxxx

* Dick’s former girlfriend

** See ‘Bombs in Birmingham’ letter posted 5^th November 2010

*** RQMS (WOII) Regimental Quartermaster Sergeant (Warrant Officer 2)

© Chotie Darling

 

18^th August 1941 – local fire brigades were replaced by a National Fire Service.

 

Possible that Dick got his 7 days leave on 22^nd August as hoped for.

 

25th August 1941 – British and Russian troops invade Iran.

Come tomorrow

Telegram on Saturday 24th May 1941 from Southampton

 

BARBARA CHALKLEY 51 COMMERCIAL ROAD PARKSTONE = DORSET

 COME TOMORROW DICKER

Dick and Chotie met up in Southampton

on Sunday 25^th May 1941

 

25th May 1941 – Germany warns US that convoying of British war supplies would be considered an act of war.

In a hut on the Common, Southampton - Tuesday 13th May 1941

May 1941 - cheese rationing began in Britain. The Earl of Shaftesbury and Viscount Cranborne were both in the Dorset courts this month, charged with buying black-market butter.

An observation minefield, controlled from Brownsea Island, was laid near the entrance of Poole Harbour to defend it from German E boats. 

1^st May 1941 –Donald Coleman Bailey tested his prefabricated steel bridge across the River Stour at Christchurch.  Bailey was later knighted for his design of the indispensable ‘Bailey Bridge’ and eventually retired to Southbourne, Bournemouth.

4th May 1941 – a German Junkers aircraft crashed on Winfrith Heath, the decoy ‘airfield’ (rigged with flares and moving lights) for Warmwell aerodrome in Dorset.

(From ‘Dorset’s War Diary - Battle of Britain to D Day’ by Rodney Legg, Dorset Publishing Company 2004 and  ‘Poole and World War II’ written by Derek Beamish, Harold Bennett and John Hillier and published by Poole Historical Trust in 1980.)

 

 

Dick had seven days leave from 4^th to 11^th May 1941

 

Top photo: Dick and Chotie at 'Fairhaven', Orchard Avenue Parkstone, Poole

Above: Dick, Chotie and Brin, Dick's younger brother.

 

 

6th May 1941 – Axis aircraft begin to land in northern Iraq.

 

8th May 1941 – HMS Bulldog and HMS Aubretia captured a German U-boat with intact secret code books and equipment enabling a breakthrough in deciphering the German Enigma code at Bletchley Park. Picking up coded German radio messages became particularly important for revealing German war plans.

 

9th May 1941– six people killed when a bomb hit their family home in Weymouth, Dorset.

10th May 1941– attack on Christchurch aerodrome.

(From ‘Dorset’s War Diary - Battle of Britain to D Day’ by Rodney Legg, Dorset Publishing Company 2004).

 

10th May 1941 – last raid of the Blitz in London.

 

12th May 1941– sinking of the Maia in Poole Harbour. This famous flying-boat had completed the first British commercial flight across the Atlantic with it’s passenger flying boat the Mercury, before the war.  The attacking Heinkel bomber was brought down by fire from ships in the harbour and anti-aircraft guns.  Railway line north of Bournemouth and Christchurch aerodrome were also attacked in the early hours.

(Extracts 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).

 

 

 

CHURCH ARMY CENTRES FOR H.M. FORCES

From Southampton

Date 13/May/41

Supplied gratis to Men of H.M. Forces for personal correspondence only.

 

My Darling Chotie,

                                                            I'm writing as we promised on Tuesday Evening.  I hope you got back all right - it was far too late for little girls to be travelling alone, but I won't argue about that, at any rate not until I see you again.

            I went sick this morning and have got off all duties so far and hope to for the next few days.  I'm also getting treatment twice a day, which can't be grumbled at.  There is, however, no hope of sick leave.

            I'm in the Hut on the Common* at the moment trying to drown my sorrows in tea (without sugar...)  I've also just had a supper so I'm not feeling too bad on the whole.  I slept all day in the Corporals’ Room, and hope to do the same tomorrow.  They're very good at this place (Church Army) - the old boy has just come round with free fags - two for every one in the place.

            There doesn't seem anything for me to write.  I haven't yet got over the shock of having to come back again.  It nearly kills you after seven days of freedom - but as usual I expect to get over it OK. 

            Well, Sweetheart, I'm afraid there's no news of any sort to tell you.  Hope your mangy sniffles are all better.

                                                                        Bye, bye Darling

                                                                                    Your loving

                                                                                                Dicker

* presumably Southampton Common

© Chotie Darling

 

14th May 1941 – the RAF attacked Syria, which was pro-Axis and governed by the Vichy French.

 14th May 1941– bombing of Swanage, Dorset, including Wesley Cottage where John Wesley stayed on a preaching trip.  (From ‘Dorset’s War Diary - Battle of Britain to D Day’ by Rodney Legg, Dorset Publishing Company 2004).

Lost at the docks - 24th March 1941

 Dick and Chotie do seem to have met up on Sunday 23^rd March 1941

 

Southampton

Monday Eve

My Darling Chotie,

                             Just a brief, brief note to let you know that I did arrive back safely, at about 2.30 this morning.

      I went to sleep and failed to get out at the central, and had to get out at the Docks!  I had no idea of the way back and there was of course no one about.  I wandered for hours around the most terrible dockside areas but eventually made it.

         Well, Honey, I haven’t a minute to spare, so I’m afraid I must close here.

            Incidentally can you get hold of anyone of the family and get them to send my birth certificate per return.  It’s rather important.

                                                                   Bye bye Darling

                                                                             yours for ever

                                                                                      Dicker

PS.  Hope you got back OK.  I thought about you all the time.

© Chotie Darling, 2010

 

24th March 1941 – British Somaliland now restored to the Allies.

25^th March 1941 - Yugoslavia signed the Tripartite Pact to join the Axis powers but two days later their government was overthrown and left the Pact.

On Guard again - Saturday 1st and Sunday 2nd February 1941

1st February 1941– a flying-boat service to neutral Portugal was established from Poole Harbour. Lisbon was the only safe staging post in Europe and became vital in supplying air support to Africa as well as Egypt and the Middle and far East via the Free French colonies in West Africa – the famous ‘Horseshoe Route’. This was a vital artery for the Western Desert campaigns.

The BOAC flying-boats had been moved to Poole from Hythe, near Southampton, in August 1939. Water runways known as ‘the Trots’ were marked out in the Main and Wareham Channels and operated from Salterns Pier (Poole Harbour Yacht Club, now Salterns Marina Hotel). Poole Harbour became the main UK civil airport during the WW2.

(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 Tel. 01963 32583).

 

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

 

Dick appears to have been stationed at Southbourne (in Bournemouth)

for the rest of February and into early March. 

 

There are no letters between 2^nd February and 12^th March 1941

so he presumably met up regularly with Chotie.

 

9th February 1941 – Churchill’s broadcast to the nation ended:

“We shall not fail or falter; we shall not weaken or tire. Neither the sudden shock of battle, nor the long-drawn trials of vigilance and exertion will wear us down. Give us the tools, and we will finish the job.”

The Churchill Centre and Museum

 

11th February 1941 – German forces arrived in Africa for ‘Operation Sunflower’, reinforcing the remaining Italian forces in Libya after the destruction of the Italian Tenth Army in the Allies' 'Operation Compass'.

 

Dick was promoted to full Corporal again

on 20th February 1941.

He also appears to have been moved to ‘D’ company of the 70^th Dorsets

Copy of Record

Statement of Service Army No. 5731671 Richard Kelner WILLIAMS

THE DORSETSHIRE REGIMENT

Order 55/41 70^th Y.S. Bn Appointed Paid Army Rank A/Cpl 20-2-41

 

25th February 1941 – British forces captured Mogadishu, the capital of Italian Somaliland.

26th February 1941 - following Hitler’s appeal for Spain to enter the war General Franco declares “I stand today already at your side, entirely and decidedly at your disposal”, but Spain remains neutral.

Lonely Nights - Tuesday January 1941

Rye Cottage, Marine Parade W

Lee on Solent, Hants.

My Own Darling Chotie,

                                                            Many thanks for your letter received this morning.  I was just embarking on a 24 hrs Guard and was consequently feeling rather depressed, when along came your letter like a breath of Spring.  Darling, your letters have a wonderful effect on me.  Like morphia* they soothe my somewhat jaded nerves... - and like morphia too, they raise me from the depths of despair to heights of ecstasy.

            This is a tolerably decent Guard Room.  There's no fire as the place is electrically heated.  There's also electric light, & so for about the first time on Guard I am able to write in almost what may be termed comfort.

            In King's Regulations (the Laws which govern Army Life) it says that any man may ask for a pint of tea or cocoa (free of charge) which he has during the night if on a 24 hr guard.  By reason of this most noble law, I am now enjoying some steaming hot cocoa, which even if it doesn't taste like cocoa is at any rate hot...

            A man is also allowed a pint of beer, but needless to say this luxury comes from his own pocket!

            It's now 20.30 hrs (8.30) Tuesday evening and I am faced with the dismal prospect of staying awake all night until we dismount at 10 o'clock tomorrow morning.

            I've just finished a very good book.  It is called ‘Magnus Merriman’ and it's by Eric Linklater (of ‘Juan in America’ fame).  You must certainly read it if you get the chance!  I was just reminded of it because I remembered where:

 “The girls who had been sitting on the sailor's knees, and had now returned to those warm seats began to sing: -

            ‘Morning never comes too soon, I can face the afternoon, But Oh!  Those lonely nights!’ “**

             I had to admit the truth of those lines.  It deals with the life of a poet, from when he joins the army during the last war, to when he finally ends up in a marriage of convenience.  It is brilliantly written in the usual Linklater style.

            I also re-read ‘Rebecca’ (Daphne du Maurier) - in my opinion the best novel of the last five years or so.  You should see the film if you get the chance as I know you'd love it.

(Lengthy pause whilst I fill my pipe).

            Remember in ‘Impatient Virgin’ whenever Ruth (the heroine) walks out of a room she always left behind ‘the blue tobacco smoke mingled with the scent of dried roseleaves’!  Perhaps my mind’s wandering... 

            How's the Guardsmen?  You'd better go careful you know.  I may turn up and catch you in the act – and 6ft 3 or not he's going to hit the deck mighty hard.  You can take that from me.

            Good to hear you had a good time at the ‘Haven’***.  It's not a bad place is it?  The only snag is that they can always chuck you in the sea to sober you up.

            Well Sweetheart, I must close here, as the Orderly Officer is due round.

            I'm afraid it's no good me trying to tell you how much I miss you.  It's so much more than words can convey.  I still love you with all my heart Cho Dear, as I know I always will.  I think it would kill me if I ever thought you were unfaithful - but I trust you, Darling as I hope you trust me.

                                                                        Goodnight Precious

                                                                                    Your ever loving

                                                                                                Dicker

 

* morphia – another name for morphine, a powerful narcotic painkiller.

** from ‘Happy Days and Lonely Nights’, a love song by Fred Fisher and Billy Rose.

*** the Haven Hotel, Sandbanks, Poole

© Chotie Darling

 

Telegram on Saturday 18th January 1941 from Lee on Solent 

BARBARA HOME TONIGHT = RICHARD

  

18^th January 1941

Dick and Chotie’s first meeting since October 1940

 

19^th January 1941 – Allied troops advance into Eritrea. Mussolini accepts German aid in North Africa but not in Albania.

Dinton, b....y awful, but not Basingstoke - 22nd October 1940

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

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

All for you! (when I come home)

* Ingrid Bergman, the Swedish film star

** “I am yours for life.”

© Chotie Darling, 2010

Dick and Chotie probably met up on Sunday 27^th October 1940.

On 28th October 1940 Italy attacked Greece.

The other stripe - 14th October 1940

On 3^rd October 1940 Dick was appointed a full Corporal.

 

Telegram 7th October 1940

 HOME TONIGHT SEVEN DAYS LEAVE = RICHARD +

 

Dick met up with Chotie again for the first time since the beginning of September during this 7 Days Leave, which lasted until Sunday 13^th October 1940.

 

On 12^th October 1940 the proposed German invasion of Britain, Operation Sealion, was abandoned by Hitler who turned his attention to the Russian front.

 

 

Bemerton, Salisbury

Wilts, Monday eve.

My Dearest Darling Little Cho-cho,

I'm writing, or should I say, trying to write, this in the N.A.A.F.I. rather late in the evening. As you will see from above, we are still here.

When I arrived back on Sunday I heard that Pete + Eric had gone on to Basingstoke as an advance party, which is the usual thing just before you move. Then tonight I heard that the whole show has been cancelled as far as we're concerned and that we're staying at Salisbury. I was also told that a lorry had been sent this evening to bring them back, but I've just heard that no lorry has been sent. What a show! You simply don't know what to believe. We hear one thing one moment and another the next.

I heard one thing that definitely is true however, and that’s that I've been given another stripe, and that all the time I was home, I was a full Corporal! I shall get (I hope) about five shillings and threepence a day soon. Just another stripe Darling, and we'll get married (officially...).

Well, Darling, it will be wonderful if we stay at Salisbury, but I'm afraid it's not definite yet.

I must close now, Dearest as it's nearly Lights out.

Still loving you every lickle bit,

your adoring hubby

Dicker

© Chotie Darling, 2010

A show of some sort at Bemerton - 2nd and 3rd September 1940

 

 

“K” Company

6^th Bath Dorsets

Bemerton

Wilts

My darling Cho-cho,

 

                                                I’m writing this at my first opportunity, ie Monday evening, in fulfilment of my promise.I travelled back with one of “G” Coy’s Sergeants, whom I met when boarding the bus.

 

I’ve just had an enormous meal of tea & supper combined.I had two pints of tea and one of soup. I’m not feeling so good now. The trouble was, I remarked a bottle of Worcester sauce on the table and half emptied it into my soup.  It tasted marvellous at the time, but I’m just beginning to feel the effects.

 

            I’ve spent most of today with the C.S.M.I. He’s drawing 8/6 a day as against my 2/- and I’ve been spending half my time teaching him!What an Army!

 

I’ve got to go to a show of some sort at Bemerton at 7pm.I believe it’s one of these horrible affairs for the troops.I’m expected to help maintain order as there are few N.C.O.s in camp tonight.I can already visualise a shrill soprano murdering ‘Down in the Forest’ etc!

 

            I’m afraid I must close rather abruptly for the moment, darling, as there’s a sergeant shaking me up.

 

 

            It’s now about 7 o’clock Tuesday morning. I’ve just had a shave and breakfast and feel considerably better than I did an hour ago.I went to that show last night.Pretty chronic. I walked out after twenty minutes or so.

 

I must close now, darling, as kit inspection comes off in a few minutes

 

                                    all my love

 

                                                    Dicker

 

© Chotie Darling, 2010

Returning to Tidworth - 12th August 1940

Dick met up with Chotie over the weekend of 10^th/11^th August 1940.

 

Tidworth

Monday evening

My darling Cho-cho,

 

            Just a short note to let you know that I arrived OK, and without any trouble.I’m afraid I haven’t a moment to spare as we have ‘voluntary’ apparatus tonight, termed voluntary but actually compulsory.By the time I get back it will be dark, and there are no lights here now.

 

            George was on the bus when I got upstairs, I expect you saw him. We had time for a beer in Salisbury, before going our respective ways.

 

            We got to Salisbury at 8pm, and there wasn’t a bus to Tidworth before 9pm!  This was packed full, so they ran a relief which was also packed.  This miserable bus didn’t pull out till 9.20 and arrived in Tidworth at 10.30.  From there I had about 2 miles to walk to my barracks, which I accomplished successfully by removing my boots and gumshoeing past the guards in the shadows. Quite fun.

 

I must close now darling to get to the gym in time.

 

                                All my love

 

                                            Your devoted

                                                                

                                                            Dicker

 

P.S. You might tell Brinner that I made it O.K. but don’t mention it to the rest of the family.  I have n’t time to write them.  That is of course if you should see him.

 

© Chotie Darling, 2010.

 

 

13^th August 1940 – ‘Eagle Day’, start of the major offensive by the Luftwaffe to destroy RAF airfields.

 

 

Dick met up with Chotie over the weekend of 17^th/18^th August 1940.

 

 

17th August 1940 - Hitler ordered total blockade of Great Britain.

Lance Corporal Williams at Bemerton - 29th & 30th July 1940

 

Dick had 48 hours leave on weekend of 27^th and 28^th July 1940 and met Chotie.

Sunday 28^th July 1940 was his nineteenth birthday.

 

 

6^th Dorset’s

South Wilts

Cricket

Ground

Bemerton

NR Salisbury

Wilts.

My Darling Chotie,

                                            I’m writing this on Monday evening, my first opportunity to write since regaining Camp, which I’m trying to do in almost total darkness in the NAAFI*, in the company of Hughes and George. There’s really nothing to write as there is of course no news. I feel terribly flat. We must get really moving on our next meeting. We seem to waste so much time…

 

I was told tonight that I am going on a fortnight’s P.T. course at Tidworth, which I believe is somewhere near Salisbury. Could you let me know where this is, (ie look it up on a map or something?)

            I’m afraid I have to turn in now, but will continue tomorrow.

 

            It’s now Tuesday dinner time. There’s still no more news. I have been on P.T. all the morning and I’m rather fed up. I’m certainly going back to the ranks after I become proficient.

 

            I had a yarn with the Instructor who appears to be rather pleased with my going on this course.He imagines I’m going to come back and teach him something. He must be nuts. Still there’s no harm in thinking.

 

I have another two squads to take this afternoon, what a life! I’m not missing much however, as all the boys are trench-digging.

 

It’s now Tuesday evening. I write a little every time I get a moment to spare.I really must thank you again for this super writing case. It certainly gives me inspiration.

 

I must close now darling, as I have to slip this down to the Post Office without delay.

 

Bye, bye darling

Your devoted

Dicker

 

P.S. Je t’aime encore de tout mon coeur même plusque la vie.**

 

*NAAFI – Navy, Army and Air Force Institutes – official trading organisation of HM Forces i.e. the canteen.

** “I love you always, with all of my heart, and more than life itself.”

 

Dick was appointed Lance Corporal on Monday 29^th July 1940.

On 31^st July 1940 Dick’s medical form stated he was in A.1. condition.

 

© Chotie Darling, 2010.

Dinton, third week as a soldier - 8th July 1940

From July 1940 tea and margarine were rationed. Meat had been rationed since March, bacon, butter and sugar since January and petrol since 1939 and the start of the war.

3^rd July – Britain attacked the French Fleet to prevent it falling to Germany.

 

Dick met up with Chotie again, for the first time since joining up, at the beginning of July,

probably over the weekend of 6^th and 7^th July 1940.

 

 

 

No 5731671

Pte RK Williams

‘D’ Company

6^th Bath & Dorsetshire Regt.

Dinton

Wilts

 

Monday evening

My Darling Chotie,

 I’ve written at the first opportunity after reaching camp. We only just made it – both buses being late. I haven’t seen anything of George yet.

 

Apparently, conditions have got better since Sunday. We now get up later, and we get a little more food than before.  Perhaps things will improve now.

 

 I hope you managed to get home from Bournemouth all right. I expect you know the way by now.

 

I’ll be damn glad when this show is over and everyone can settle down to civilian life as before, sailing and drinking Solder*. Here’s hoping.

 

             I’m writing this in the canteen drinking shandy.  Pause, whilst I relight my pipe.

 

 

            I’ve got some blisters on my hands through trench digging.

 

             I wonder how George will like this life. I understand he’s going to try for the pay section of the company. The pay corps certainly have a jammy time. No parades or anything like that, though I believe they work rather long hours.

            I feel terribly sorry for poor Hughes. It turns out that the Doctor was wrong and instead of pneumonia, his fiancée contracted meningitis, which is of course, almost invariably fatal. She’s been unconscious for days.

 

**Un peu en français:

 

            je peux te vois dans mes rêves, parce que je t’aime plusque la vie.

 

C’est bon, n’est-ce pas?

                                                        bye bye darling

                                                                                Dicker

 

* Solder – perhaps a reference to pewter ale tankards?

 ** “A little French: I am able to see you in my dreams because I love you more than life. That’s good, isn’t it?”

 

© Chotie Darling, 2010.

The Battle of Britain began on the 10th July 1940. German forces attacked Britain by air.

Dorset, where Chotie lived, was in the front line during the Battle of Britain with attacks aimed at military targets such as Portland and Weymouth Harbours, the Royal Naval Torpedo Works on Portland, the Naval cordite factory near Poole and Westlands Aircraft factory just over the border near Yeovil. The ports, airfields and supply dumps in the county were targets in their own right, as well as being alternatives when bombers were unable to reach their primary targets. Luftwaffe bombers from northern France, escorted by fighter planes, flew in over the coast heading for strategic cities inland such as Bristol, Liverpool and the Midlands. On their return they would drop any remaining bombs on the county before heading back across the Channel.

Spitfires from the aerodrome at Warmwell, supported by Hurricane Hawkers from Exeter and Middle Wallop near Salisbury, took to the skies above Dorset in defence of Britain. During the battle the Dorset police recorded that fifty-four British aircraft were lost in the county, with eight of them crashing into the sea. Against this total, some ninety German aircraft were shot down here - split almost evenly between bombers and their fighter escorts - thirty five of them falling into the sea.

(Compiled from information in The Keep Military Museum, Dorchester and from ‘Dorset’s War Diary - Battle of Britain to D Day’ by Rodney

Legg, Dorset Publishing Company 2004 Tel. 01963 32583 ).