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 ).