Chotie Darling

The French Traitors - Friday 21st August 1942

19th August 1942 – the Combined Operations raid (see the Missing Winter) on Dieppe in northern France, which ended in disaster. This joint British and Canadian commando raid (originally code-named ‘Rutter’, but now known as ‘Jubilee’), , was intended to practice techniques for an eventual invasion of Northern Europe by the Allies. The coast was heavily defended by German guns and the invasion force lost the element of surprise by encountering an escorted German convoy in the Channel. After less than 6 hours the forces landed on the beaches around Dieppe were forced to withdraw. Of the 5,000 Canadians, 1,000 British, 50 American Rangers and 50 Free French taking part in ‘Operation Jubilee’ more than 1,380 were killed, 1,600 wounded and 2,340 captured. The RAF had given support but lost 107 planes to the German’s 48. One Royal Naval destroyer and 33 landing craft were sunk.

Dieppe convinced the Allied commanders that a successful cross-Channel invasion would need a massive force, which could not be assembled before 1944. The decision not to use airborne troops had also contributed to the raid’s failure. (From Combined Operations WW2 website, WW2-net Timelines  and ‘Phantom at War – the British Army’s Secret Intelligence & Communication Regiment of WW2’ by Andy & Sue Parlour, Cerberus 2003.)

  

21st August 1942 – Franklin D. Roosevelt, President of the USA says that the perpetrators of barbarism in occupied countries ‘that the time will come when they shall have to stand in courts of law in the very countries which they are now oppressing and answer for their acts.'  (From WW2-net Timelines.)

German troops scale Mount Elbrus, the highest mountain in the Caucasus, and plant the Reich's flag on the summit but the overstretched forces never reached the valuable Caucasian oilfields.

 

5731671 Tpr Williams R

Room 28

3^rd Technical Training Group

Preston Barracks, Brighton, Sussex

 

Friday Eve.

Chotie Darling,

                                                            It’s pay-night, as you will see from above, but as it’s raining like hell I thought I’d stay in and write to my Chubby Lulubelle. Good boy, ain’t I?  Sometimes I wonder …

            Well, Precious – many thanks for your last letter and account of your adventures.  I am enclosing the polyfotos in this – have had to break them up I’m afraid, as I haven’t yet procured a large enough envelope.  I will give you the number I like best in PS., as I can’t make up my mind (?) which one I like the most, at the moment – they’re all so good.

            Hope you manage to see Michelle Morgan, she’s really very good in French films – I can’t guarantee American or English directors.  I’ve only seen her once – with Boyer, in French, with French direction of course and I was very struck then.  I believe I told you I saw Vivianne Romance, (almost as good) last week.

            Did you see the appalling list of French people who have been marked as definite traitors?  The list includes Georges Carpentier (France’s greatest boxer), Maurice Chevalier, Sacha Guitry (her greatest playwright), Corinne Luchaire (of “Prison without Bars” fame), Jean Borotra (the tennis star) and last but not least, Danielle Darrieux who needs no introduction.  Horrible isn’t it?

            Sorry you had a row with Horlock – but then you must remember that there are people without souls – who appreciate nothing, and the road of a martyr is by necessity an exacting one.  Persevere Darling … 

            However, I was glad to hear of your “Braemar”** show.  Looking forward to
seeing it soon.  I’ve been around quite a bit since last writing – making the most of it while it lasts.

            Have seen a couple of old flicks – “Suspicion” Cary Grant and Fontaine, and “Here comes Mr Jordan” – Montgomery and Claude Rains.  Not too
bad.  Also saw a play “Bedtime Story” with Mary Maguire – quite good.

            Had a letter from home – Mother says the Odeon at Bognor had a bomb, plumb centre – killed a dozen or so.  Luckily she did the shopping in the morning and the bomb was about 3 in the afternoon.  She’s been asked up to Herne Bay for a wedding – Rita’s (family friend) but sees no chance of going.

            Have you heard of Eric since your last letter?  Maybe he’s moved – but then
I suppose he’d have phoned or something. I really will write him some day, but I’m thinking of his heart when he gets the letter. 

            What did you think of the last raid***?  I saw most of the action in the Channel and was also machine-gunned in the streets – though still alive and kicking.

            Have you thought of a name for my new pipe yet?  He’s getting nicely burnt in, and has acquired a more mature appearance.

            I bought a copy of Darwin’s ‘The Descent of Man’ and have been up to my neck in it for some days.  I always do crosswords in the bus, on my way to “work”.  Quite suburban in fact – though I miss the Homburg and umbrella …

            Well, Darling, I must close here as its getting too dark to write,

                                                                        All my love, you Precious thing,

                                                                                     your adoring Dicker

PS. NUMERUS XXIV

that’s look you (No 24)

* Georges Carpentier - French boxer who was world light-heavyweight champion and a European champion at four weight classes.

Maurice Chevalier - French musical-comedy star

Corinne Luchaire – French film actress and daughter of Jean Luchaire a journalist and politician who supported the Vichy Regime.

Jean Borotra – French champion tennis player in the 20s and 30s.

Danielle Darrieux - French actress and singer, one of France's great movie stars.

** Braemar – a village in Aberdeenshire?

***possibly a reference to action following the Dieppe Raid, which had set sail from ports between Southampton and Newhaven (near Brighton)?

© Chotie Darling

 

 

22^nd August 1942 – Brazil declares war on Germany and Italy.

 

23^rd August 1942 – the Battle of Stalingrad (now Volgograd) begins in Russia. One of the bloodiest battles in the history of warfare it continued until 2^nd February 1943, claiming nearly 2 million casualties and ending in defeat for the Axis Army.  On 25th August a state of siege was declared in the heavily bombed city. (From WW2-net Timelines and ‘The Second World War’ by Antony Beevor, published by Weidenfield and Nicolson 2012.)

 

25^th August 1942 – beginning of the Battle of Milne Bay, Papua New Guinea. This Japanese attack was defeated by largely Australian forces by 7^th September 1942 – the Allies first decisive victory over the Japanese. (From WW2-net Timelines.)

 

28^th August 1942 – a massive RAF raid on Nuremberg kills 4,000 civilains.  Unlike the Americans the RAF flew at night and Air Chief Marshall 'Bomber Harris' defined their success by the number of urban acres reduced to rubble. (From WW2-net Timelines and ‘The Second World War’ by Antony Beevor, published by Weidenfield and Nicolson 2012.)

28^th August and 9^th September – the Japanese fire bomb the Oregon forests, USA. (From WW2-net Timelines.)

 

"Mien Kampt" - Sunday 16th August

5731671 Tpr Williams R

Room 28

3^rd Technical Training Group

Preston Barracks, Brighton, Sussex

 

Sunday

My Darling Chotie,

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

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

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

            I’m looking forward to seeing Eileen Joyce tonight – never having seen her before. She’s an Australian and extraordinarily good pianist to hail from there.I saw a rather good film a few days ago –“Mien Kampt” (sic*– showing Adolf’s rise to power since his early days after thelast war and the brilliant way he went about it – the way he removed Ernst Roehm, Dollfuss, Schnussnigg** (sic) and the rest.  A lot of it was documentary, ie actual shots, especially of the jolly old Reichstag Fire Trial*** etc, and the flagwrapping parade in the Olympic Stadium****. 

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

                        All my love, Chotie Darling,

                                         Hope to get leave soon

                                                                             Dicker

 

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

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

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

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

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

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

 © Chotie Darling

 

17^thAugust 1942 – first all-American bombing raid in Europe, directed against the marshalling yards of Rouen in France. The American bombers flew by daylight attempting to ‘precision bomb’ key nodes of the enemy’s industrial fabric.  (From WW2-net Timelines.)

Music, ballet and bathing in Brighton - Tuesday 11th August 1942

Room 28

3^rd Technical Training Group

Preston Barracks, Brighton, Sussex

 

Tuesday

My Darling Chotie,

                                                            Many thanks for letter, with all the news.  I’m trying to write this sitting on the prom (it’s dinner-time), which isn’t the easiest of  jobs. There’s a high wind and marvelous sunshine, ideal sailing weather.

            I managed to get home for Saturday afternoon and Sunday last.  I had a day pass for Sunday but decided to hop-it on Saturday.  Everything appears to be all right in that quarter, though Michael’s a wee bit slimmer.

            I would have had a swim in the Lagoon had I a costume.  There were quite a few swimmin’ there, and I rather wished I could have managed it, but I’ve been in the baths here at dinner time so I’m not entirely ‘swimless’.

            My arm appears to be all right now, though it was pretty bad for over a week.  The trouble is that I’ve had nearly a score of letters to write during the past week.

            I went to the Anglo-polish Ballet twice during their stay here.  Quite good
on the whole.  There is also another company here who style themselves ‘the New Russian Ballet Company’, so I may pop along to see them tonight.  Eileen Joyce* is playing with the Bournemouth Philharmonic (Wessex) here on Sunday, so I won’t miss her!  Though like Brinner I missed Moseivitch** by inches.

            Hope everyone at home is up to scratch, I’m very fit myself (for a change) and enjoying every minute of this course.  I don’t suppose I’ll go back to Dover as I believe they’ve moved. 

            I must close here Darling, to get back on time.

                                                             All my love, Precious

                                                                                    Dicker

P.S.  I should get nine days*** in about five weeks time.  Perhaps a month ---

*Eileen Joyce was a glamorous Australian pianist.

**Benno Moisevitch, a Ukrainian-born pianist, gave hundreds of recitals for servicemen and charities during the war.

***nine days leave

 © Chotie Darling

 

12th August 1942 – Churchill arrived in Moscow for talks with Stalin. They eventually agreed there would be no ‘second front’ across the Channel during 1942, despite Stalin’s urgent demands to deflect German attention from Russia.  (From WW2-net Timelines and  ‘The Second World War’ by Antony Beevor, published by Weidenfield and Nicolson 2012.)

 

13^th August 1942 - Lieutenant-General Bernard Montgomery, the ‘Spartan’ General, took command of the Eighth Army fighting in the desert to defend Cairo and the Suez Canal from the advance of German forces under Rommel.  (See WW2-net Timelines and Wilfred Jarvis Institute for Montgomery's famous 'atmosphere' speech.)

A good time in Brighton - postcard posted Tuesday 4th August 1942

The War in Dorset - August 1942

During August the propaganda film ‘Victory’ was shot on the Dorsetshire heaths using old First World War tanks rescued by Rudyard Kipling for the Armoured Fighting School at Bovington Camp. Many had been turned into scrap in June 1940 but some remained as stationary pillboxes and were used in the film.

Bridport was attacked by air on Sunday 2^nd August and two people were killed.

No 4 Commando trained for the raid on Dieppe with landings on the South Dorset coast from 5^th August. They successfully took a battery during the raid but had to withdraw (see the raid on Dieppe on 19^th August). Boats from Poole and Weymouth operated as support vessels for the raid.

On 14^th/15^th August the Small Scale Raiding Force (also known as No 62 Commando), based in Poole, staged a small successful raid on an anti-aircraft gun and radar station at Pointe de Saire, near Barfleur in France.

Luftwaffe bombers killed 13 people and injured 48 in attacks on Swanage on Monday 17th and Sunday 23^rd August.

On 31^st August the Royal Australian Air Force arrived at R.A.F. Hamworthy to fly anti-submarine patrols over the South Western Approaches and the Bay of Biscay in Sunderland flying-boats. Initially they suffered heavy losses because the Allied Navy signal code that operated their patrols had been deciphered by German Naval Intelligence. but their success improved when a new wavelength radar was introduced, which the German Navy failed to pick up.

By the end of August 1942 the X-3 midget submarine had completed testing at Portland and later caused extensive damage to the Tirpitz, Germany’s mega-battleship, when she was moved along the Norwegian coast.

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

 

3rd August 1942 – Churchill arrives in Cairo and makes staff changes which result in General Bernard Montgomery taking command of the 8th Army.

 

The 43^rd Reconnaissance Regiment was still based in Dover during August 1943, although mobilisation had been completed.

Training was resumed with Squadron Exercises involving 2-3 nights out of barracks testing ‘vehicle cooking’ as well as Section and Troop operations. Some Field Firing exercises were carried out on the range at Sandwich. On 6^th and 7^th August ‘C’ Squadron participated in ‘Black Bull’, a Brigade Exercise on the South Downs.

Major A.W.E. Crawford, now a Lieutenant-Colonel, took full command of the Regiment on 9^th August, with Major H.G. Mason as second in command. On 12^th August the senior officers were involved in “Reorganise”, a simulation or ‘cloth model’ tactical exercise without troops and the new Lieutenant-Colonel attended a General Headquarters’ Battle School Course at the School of Infantry from 13^th-20^th August. 21 officers went to Worthing on 19^th August for a demonstration of tanks working with infantry in battle drill. 

43^rd Recce Regiment lost the Inter Regimental Athletics Meeting on Saturday 22^nd August to 1/8^th Middlesex, the Division’s Machine Gun battalion. On 26^th August the Recce took part in Exercise “Beaver”, a 43^rd (Wessex) Division training exercise.

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

 

Dick, meanwhile, was training to be a Driver Mechanic

at the Dreadnought Garage and Motor Engineering Works, Hove.

 

BRIGHTON. PROMENADE GARDENS.

Chotie

      Just a few lines to let you know I’m still alive & kicking. My arm’s all right now so I’ll write again tomorrow. Having a good time here – change from Bulford! I shall probably go back to Dover when I finish this course. I had a week there before coming here.

Love Dicker

© Chotie Darling

 

6th August 1942 - General Dwight D. Eisenhower appointed as Commander-in-Chief of the Allied forces preparing to invade North Africa. (From WW2-net Timelines.)

The World Jewish Congress British section announces that one million Jews have been killed in Nazi occupied Europe. (From WW2-net Timelines.)

7^th August 1942 – 19,000 US Marines are landed on the islands of Guadalcanal and Tulagi in the southern Solomon Islands, held by the Japanese since May.  Despite heavy losses, American and Australian ships continued to bring in troops and supplies.  Fierce fighting was focused around the Guadalcanal aerodrome begun by the Japanese but 'Henderson's Field' was held by the Allies.  The Guadalcanal Campaign was the first major offensive by Allied forces against Japan.  Land, sea and air battles continued around the islands until the Japanese finally withdrew on 7th February 1943, having reached the high-water mark of their conquests in the Pacific.  (From WW2-net Timelines and ‘The Second World War’ by Antony Beevor, published by Weidenfield and Nicolson 2012 .)

8th August 1942 – Gandhi and other leaders in the Congress Party issue a call for the British to ‘Quit India’, leading to their arrest.  India finally achieved independence from the British five years later on 15^th August 1947.

9^th August 1942 – Leningrad (now, again, St. Petersburg) in northern Russia, which had now been virtually under siege since September 1941, broadcasts Shostakovich’s 7th (Leningrad) Symphony to the world on radio – a great boost to Russian morale.  On 19th August this was followed by the Sinyavino counter-offensive, which wrecked German plans to strangle Leningrad’s only supply route across Lake Ladoga.

21 years old - Thursday 30th July 1942

Room 28

3^rd Technical Training Group

Preston Barracks, Brighton, Sussex

 

Thursday

My Own Darling Chotie

                                                                                    Just a few lines, Precious, to thank you, and all your family for a lovely and very welcome present*.   Thank you, Darling, very, very much.

            I would have written before, but I’ve been laid up for some little time with the wretched vaccination.  However, I know you will understand.

            I had a very quiet time on the 28^th.  I thought rather than spend it in the company of strangers, I should prefer to be by myself, so I betook myself to the theatre and saw Jean Forbes-Robertson in the Soviet play “Distant Point” with the London cast, which was really rather good. I managed to sink a couple of pints every interval, so that by the time it finished I was beginning to feel that life was worthwhile again.

            I then hied myself to “the Old Ship”** and finished off the job.  The boys put me to bed when I got in …

            Further to my last letter – I do very well here now, as we are working on theory at a civvy garage every day in Hove, and have our meals in a British Restaurant***. And believe me that’s a cut above the Army.  I’ll send you one or two photographs of the old place. 

                    Well, Darling, I can’t write any more as my arm is giving me hell. 

            Please thank all your family very much.  I now have one exquisite smoke every night before going to bed.  Any tobacco will do in the daytime but I can appreciate a little ‘Sobranie’**** in the ‘cool of the evening’.

            I’ll write again as soon as my arm gets better – in a couple of days I expect.

                                                                                    all my love, Darling

                                                                                                            Dicker

                                                                                                            xxxx

                                                                                                            B.O.L.T.O.P.****(?)

                                                                      That shook you! Rather puerile don’t you think? 

 

* Dick’s 21st birthday was on Tuesday 28^th July 1942.

** an historic hotel on the seafront in Brighton

*** British Restaurants were set up by Local Authorities with loans from the Wartime Meals Division. They were open to all, but mainly served office and industrial workers. A three course meal cost only 9d.

**** an expensive cigarette

***** “Better on Lips than on Paper”

 © Chotie Darling

 

31^st July 1942 – heavy raid by 630 RAF bombers on Düsseldorf, a city in Germany’s Lower Rhineland.

Brighton - Wednesday 22nd July 1942

On 22nd July 1942 Dick was assigned to

No3. Technical Training Group in Brighton

 
Copy of Record

SERVICE AND CASUALTY FORM

22.7.42.  Cutd(?) to No 3. Tech. Trg. Gp.  Army Rank Trooper  Place  Brighton

 

Letter written Wednesday 22nd July

Tpr Williams R

5731671 Room 28

3^rd Technical Training Group

PRESTON BARRACKS

BRIGHTON

SUSSEX

 

Wednesday

Dearest Darling Chotie,

                                                                        As you will see from above address, I’ve changed location once again, as I’m on a six-week course at Brighton.  Will you please note exact address as above and make no further reference, as to Regt etc.

            I’m afraid I’ve only been toBrighton a couple of times before, and so was able to find much to interest me.  The number of Oriental and Continental cafés and jewel shops is amazing.  The famous Aquarium is, unfortunately, occupied by the Army, but the mosque-like Pavilion is still open.

            The unit I’m now with isn’t too bad on the whole.  A very rough lot – no signs of mental vigour, as the medical journal would say – but I’m very thankful to be out of the Airborne in spite of two good friends I made there.

            I’ve had no reply to my last missive – it will probably catch me up in a few days’ time.

            I was transferred from 'A' Squadron to HQ and a couple of days later I found myself on this course.  It’s a driving course and should be quite easy. 

            I managed to get a couple of hours in Brighton this evening and was amazed to find that almost everything was still going – cinemas, theatres, etc. – although all ARP services, and ATS etc appear to be well under control. 

            I was very glad to see our old County again – the Oast houses and farmsteads looking just as peaceful as before this wretched business – I think it would take more than a war to alter them.

            I wish you could have been with me, Chotie Darling, I miss you terribly.  I only hope the day will soon come when we will be together, and when our only worry will be Junior’s first teeth, or something equally trifling.

                                    Goodnight, my Precious

                                                            Your loving,

                                                                        Dicker

P.S.     Write soon

© Chotie Darling

 

23^rd July 1942 - opening of Treblinka extermination camp in NE Poland. More than 850,000 people were murdered here, the majority Jewish.  Between July 22^nd and September 12^th 1942 approximately 265,000 Jews from the Warsaw ghetto were deported to Treblinka and c.35,000 were killed inside the ghetto. (From ‘Warsaw’, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum website)

In Operation Blau, the German advance in southern Russia, they capture Rostov, a city near the mouth of the River Don on the Sea of Azov and the western gateway to critical Caucasian oilfields.  

 

26th July 1942 –As attacks and counter attacks continue on the El Alamein front the SAS (Special Air Service) destroy 37 Luftwaffe aircraft on the ground including critical supply planes.  In July 1942 alone daring raids by the SAS destroyed a total of 86 German aircraft in North Africa. (From ‘The Second World War’ by Antony Beevor, published by Weidenfield and Nicolson 2012)

Rationing of sweets and chocolate introduced in Britain.  Biscuits were also rationed from August 1942.

Kent - letter posted on Friday 17th July

Chotie Darling

Dedicated to the memory of my mother and all those who hold the forever young of war in their hearts.

Part2        Reconnaissance

 

Chapter 6            43rd Reconnaissance  – the end of the beginning

 Dick joined the 43^rd Reconnaissance Regiment on 13^th July 1942.

He was initially stationed in Dover, Kent.

On 13^th July 1942 Dick swopped his Airborne Pegasus badge for the Wyvern (a legendary golden dragon) of the 43^rd(Wessex) Division. The army of King Alfred the Great had fought under the banner of the Wyvern against the invading Danes in the 9^th century and the soldiers of the Division were predominately from the area of his ancient kingdom. The Reconnaissance regiment Dick joined was also known as the Glosters having been formed from the 5^th battalion of the old Gloucestershire regiment in 1941.

Design for 43rd Divisions Wyvern badge in the papers for 4rd Recce held by the Tank Museum, Bovington.

Reconnaissance was an elite corps of the British army, taking the place of the Light Cavalry of past eras. Each Regiment took the number of its relevant Division but from June 1942 used the cavalry names of ‘squadrons’ and ‘troops’ instead of usual infantry descriptions.

They evolved into “swift, adaptable, and superlatively mobile fighting units with fast vehicles capable of taking heavy punishment, high concentrated firing-power and a complicated but efficient wireless network designed to convey, under the most trying conditions imaginable, accurate and balanced information to the general’s battle map”.

'Their task was to solve an eternal problem of war, to discover “what is happening on
the other side of the hill” – that is, inside the enemy lines.'

Reconnaissance personnel had to be of a high standard of intelligence for both the deduction and transmission of information and, although their ultimate objective was not
fighting, they needed to be tough and speedy fighters, able to work at the front of the enemy lines and survive to tell their tale.

They had to find out - by stealth, by drawing fire or by fighting – where the enemy was concealed, to explore his strength and movement and to maintain constant touch with him, relaying accurate information back quickly and continuously.  They were specially trained to be constantly on the alert and to use initiative, cunning and any resources available.

 

Only those who came out top in the IQ test were considered for Recce. “Recce men had to be tough with cold scientific brains behind their brawn.”

 

(From “The Reconnaissance Journal”, Memorial Number, Summer 1950 – article by Arthur Bryant; Recce Regt record WO 170/433 5 at the National Archive, Kew;  “Only the Enemy in Front – The Recce Corps at War 1940-1946” by Richard Doherty 1994; “This Band of Brothers” by Jeremy Taylor 1947; and  “Record of a Reconnaissance regiment – History of the 43^rd” by  A. Scott, Cole Packer and J. Groves with Jeremy Taylor 1950  and other 43^rd Recce papers examined courtesy of the Archive & reference Library, the Tank Museum, Bovington, Dorset. The assistance of members of WW2 Talk Forum with my research is also much appreciated.)

However, after 3 months training, Dick was no longer in the later famous 1^st Air Landing Reconnaissance Squadron,

featured in the film “A Bridge to Far” for their role in Market Garden (September 1944).

 

16th July 1942 – in Paris 9,000 police under the orders of René Bousquet, the French secretary-general of police, seized 13,000 Jews, including children and sent them to Nazi death camps in the east.  In the course of the war at least 50,000 Parisian Jews were deported and murdered.  (From ‘The Second World War’ by Antony Beevor, published by Weidenfield and Nicolson 2012 and ‘Paris’, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum website.)

 

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. This letter was from Dover.

** Military police

© Chotie Darling

 

On 20th July 1942 Major A.W.E. Crawford joined 43rd Reconnaissance, taking over command from Lieutenant-Colonel D.Ward on 24th July.  At the beginning of the month 43rd Recce had received orders to mobilise for service overseas, less 1st line Reinforcements, and preparation for this mobilisation (medical inspections, overhaul of documents and receipts of personnel), to be completed by 2nd August, filled much of their time. All squadrons also carried out shooting practice.

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

 

21st July 1942 - 16,000 Japanese landed at Buna on the north cost of Papua New Guinea ready to advance on Port Moresby, the capital, along the mountainous Kokoda Trail.  Courageous Australian defenders, fighting in appalling conditions, stopped them from reaching their destination and in September they withdrew.

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 ).

61st Recce in Northern Ireland

Between June 1942 and January 1943 Eric Postles was training with 61^st Recce in Northern Ireland:

“The regiment moved to Cromore Camp, on the north coast by Portstewart Station and further training continued including carrier driving on the sand dunes.  During an exercise in the Sperrins we got a carrier stuck in a peat bog and by next day it had sunk leaving only an oily black stain on the surface.  We did shooting practice at Limavady Ranges.  It was strange because you could see the lights shining on the other side of the water in neutral Southern Ireland, on the other side of Lough Foyle.  Later in the year US troops began to arrive and, on an exercise with them, one of our Troop armoured cars overturned on a bank and caught fire but we got the crew out.  It burned like a blow torch." 

(Extracts from ‘My War Years’ by John Eric Postles ISO used by kind permission of the author.)

Eric Postles in Recce beret (introduced in December 1942)

Transfers - Friday 26th June 1942

1^st Air Landing Sqdn

Recce Corps, Home Forces 

Friday

My Darling Chotie,

                                                                                    Many thanks for your letter, received a couple of days ago.  I was pleased to read about your meeting Norman - quite the little man now, isn't he? You didn't say what he is doing here, ie. is he on leave, stationed in England or what?  Don't forget to let me know.  After all - I should like to see him again.  Is he very “different”?  It's hard to think of Norman as a hardened boozer - but believe me, Honey, the Services will drive you to “anythink” - in next to no time.

            Well, so much for Norman. For my part at the moment, - I'm on the sick list - sore throat.  I've had it ever since I came back from leave, and it's got worse every day. 
I've now got to the stage when I have to gargle three times per diem*!  However I hope to get rid of it in a few days.

    It's my day off tomorrow, but being sick, of course, I can't get a pass - although of course it won't have been any use to me, as you would have been working Sat morning.  I understand that in future there will be no more of these day passes - though I don't yet know what the new system will be.

    There are transfers right and left at the moment, so I may get mine soon**, which will be a relief to mother, I'm thinking.

    Have you thought of a name for our horseshoe yet?  I'm relying on you, Darling.. Think hard, LuluBelle ...

    I suppose Brinner's home now.  I haven't heard from home since I got back, so I hope everything’s all right.

    I went out last night to the first time in days and saw a very good show at the Garrison Theatre.  I never go out here, as there is nothing to go out for, and it's quite a long way to the theatre.

                                    Well, Darling, I must close here, as there's little news.

     Please write soon, Precious - your letters mean a hell of a lot out here in the wilds.

                         Bye, bye, Darling - and remember I love you very, very much.

                                                        God bless you, Chotie,

                                                                                    Dicker

*per day.

**According to family memories Dick was transferred out of the Airborne because they found ‘sugar in his blood’ but he wasn’t diabetic.  Although temporary hyperglycemia is often benign and asymptomatic the Airborne medical was very rigorous and any possible problems to the eyesight (damage to the retina is one of the possible symptoms) meant you were out.

© Chotie Darling

 

27th June 1942 – 1^st Air Landing Squadron saw the film ‘Next of Kin’ (a WW2 propaganda film used to promote the government message that “Careless talk costs lives”). (From the War Diary of 1^st Air Landing Reconnaissance Squadron, National Archives, Kew)

 

27^th June 1942 – PQ-17, an Allied convoy of 40 ships, set sail from Iceland to supply Russia. By 15^th July it had lost 24 ships and a cargo including 210 aircraft, 430 tanks and 3,350 lorries in attacks by the Luftwaffe and U-boats. The Germans lost only 5 planes and no U-boats in the attacks.  (From WW2-net Timelines )

28th June 1942 – in the opening moves of Operation Blau, Germany’s offensive towards Stalingrad, Voronezh (500 km south of Moscow) is attacked but successfully and ferociously defended by the Soviets.  (From ‘The Second World War’ by Antony Beevor, published by Weidenfield and Nicolson 2012)

 

 

The Lucky Horseshoe - Monday 22nd June 1942

1^st Air Landing Sqdn

Recce Corps

Home Forces

My Darling Chotie,

        Just a few lines to let you know I arrived back safely, though later than I had expected.

        Firstly, I was under the impression I was going by Salisbury whereas of course I came from Andover. This actually made no difference however, as the ticket bloke said “Change at Romsey”, and it had Andover on my ticket. However, I had to wait over an hour at Romsey and the same again at Andover.  But, as I got back in time, I can't grumble.

        I would have written last night but was on guard, of course.  (You always get stuck on guard immediately you return from leave).  Andrew, the bloke like Doug, was also on so we stuck together.

         There's no news of course - never is.

          I got quite a good book.  It's called “Hudson rejoins the Herd” and is by Claude Houghton*.

           I hope you got back all right, Darling, complete with Horseshoe...What shall we call him?  I'll leave it to you, Precious, as you seem to have a flair for naming things.

           Well, there seems nothing else, Darling, except to thank you very much for a lovely time at Pagham and to tell you, I love you very much.

                                                            Bye, bye, my Darling

                                                                                    Dicker

P.S.     Please excuse pencil, Honey but I left my pen at Pagham. 

*Said to have inspired Henry Miller’s ‘Tropic of Capricorn’.

© Chotie Darling

 

On Monday 22nd June 1942 an Airborne Section demonstration was inspected by the Deputy Brigade Commander. 1^st Air Landing Squadron trained on the Bulford Grenade Range on 23^rd June and was given a lecture on Russia on 24^th June.

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

 

23^rd and 24^th June 1942 – the Germans advance into Egypt as the British Eighth Army retreats although more than 6,000 prisoners from the Indian Division were taken by Rommel’s troops at Mersa Matruh on the Egyptian coast.

25th June 1942 - General Dwight D. Eisenhower is appointed to command US forces in the European Theatre. (From WW2-net Timelines )

 

25th June 1942 – 1^st Air Landing Squadron tested for night vision and then marched to the compound. D.M.* used. (From the War Diary of 1^st Air Landing Reconnaissance Squadron, National Archives, Kew)

*D.M. probably refers to Distance Measuring - a technique for night navigation.

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 King and Queen - Saturday 23rd May 1942

21^st May 1942 – The Airborne Division was visited by their Majesties the King and Queen at Bulford (Salisbury Plain, Wiltshire) followed by demonstrations by various units of the Division.  1^st Air Landing Squadron was inspected and the Commanding Officer presented to the King. 

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

 

22^nd May 1942 – Mexico declared war on Germany, Italy and Japan.

 

5731671 Tpr Williams R

1^st Air Landing Sqdn

 Recce Corps

HOME FORCES

My Darling Chotie,

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

            Many thanks for letter - as welcome as ever.

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

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

            Had quite a thrill on Thursday - when we were inspected by the King & Queen and a score of Generals.  It was a demonstration of Paratroops & Gliders etc.

            I hope Johnny knows what he's letting himself in for.  At any rate he'll find out sooner or later.

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

            Flying all the morning - cold & cloudy.

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

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

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

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

            Well, Precious no news as per usual. 

            Incidentally will you get in touch with Eric and get him to send me a GROUNDSHEET. MOST IMPORTANT!!! I'm about to be charged 18/- for one! Will you send it, Darling?  (please...) - and I'll give you a big kiss...(Hope that will do the trick). 

                        Well, bye, bye for now, Darling.

                                                            All yours,

                                                                        Dicker

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

                                                                xxxxxxx

                                                                        all for you!

                                                                                    Darling.

                                                                                                Xxxxx

 

*French for “You never can tell”.

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

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

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

Ted Lewis

© Chotie Darling

 

23^rd May 1942 – the British Commander-in-Chief of the Home Forces orders an end to ‘blood-lust inculcation’ in battle training.

( From WW2-net Timelines. )

 

26^th May 1942 – Britain and Russia sign a treaty in London pledging to fight Germany until final victory. They also agreed a 20-year alliance. (From WW2-net Timelines.)

The Battle for the Gazala Line in Libya begins with an offensive by the German Afrika Corps towards Tobruk and the line held by the Allies’ Eighth Army while Rommel’s main forces outflanked the line from the south, attacking the forces now cut off at Bir Hakeim where the 1^st Free French Brigade stood firm.   On 31^st May in the ‘Battle of the Cauldron’ the British 150^th Brigade was eventually destroyed.  50^th Recce Regiment, which was also attached to the 50^th Division, was annihilated in the Battles of the Gazala line (leading to Dick’s 61^st Recce taking its place in 1944). It was an Axis victory ending with the withdrawal of the Allies towards Egypt on 14^th June and the fall of Tobruk on 21^st June. (From WW2-net Timelines.)

50 Recce was all but destroyed during the action and its place as the ‘eyes’ of the 50^th (Northumbrian) Division was later taken by 61^st Recce – Dick’s Regiment in North-West Europe. (From ‘The British Reconnaissance Corps in World War II’ by Richard Doherty, Osprey Publishing 2007)

27^th May 1942 – 152 Berlin students were shot for displaying anti-Nazi posters.(From WW2-net Timelines.)  

On the same day Reinhard Heydrich, the German SS (Shutzstaffel – Nazi paramilitary and police) General and major architect of the Jewish Holocaust was shot in Prague by two Czech volunteers trained by the British Special Operations Executive. He died of his wounds on 4^th June. Lidice, a Czech village of 2,000 people, was raised to the ground by the Germans in reprisal. All the men over 16 were shot and the women and children sent to concentration camps. (From WW2-net Timelines.)

28^th May 1942 – beginning of Operation ‘Blau’, the German summer offensive in Russia.  Defeat of the Soviets at Kharkov. (From WW2-net Timelines.)

 

29^th May 1942 – 1^st Air Landing Squadron move from Shaw House, Newbury to take up quarters at Bulford on Salisbury Plain, Wiltshire.

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

I have not been able to identify the soldiers on this photo but they appear to be wearing the 1st Airborne Division's Pegasus badge. If you can help please comment. They were Dick's photos.

 

30th and 31st May 1942 - the Allies’ first 1,000 bomber raid attacked Cologne in Germany, killing 486 civilians and destroying 600 acres of the city.

31^st May 1942 – a Japanese midget submarine entered Sydney Harbour in Australia. (From WW2-net Timelines.)

 

Eric Postles was now with the 61^st Reconnaissance Regiment in Northern Ireland, in 10 Troop 'B Squadron' – he would fight alongside Dick in B Squadron from June 1944 to February 1945.

“After training was completed I was sent on a 6 week course at the Divisional Driver Mechanics School at Cookstown (in the centre of Northern Ireland) where I learnt to mend and maintain vehicles.  On return I joined 10 Troop B Squadron Carriers and Armoured Cars and remained with the troop until the regiment disbanded.  I got an extra 9d a day for passing the course.  Further training included a live firing assault course with Bren guns firing above you as you went along and over obstacles and wire.  The Recreation truck went into Armagh (near the southern border of the Province) at weekends where you could get sweets off ration in the shops.  Fred Neale, one of my pals, was with me in 10 Troop and another pal Jack Reed was in 13 Assault Troop.  Before D-day some of the older soldiers (including Fred) were posted out of the regiment and he went to The Ranges at Warcop…….”

(Extracts from ‘My War Years’ by John Eric Postles ISO used by kind permission of the author.)

YMCA - Sunday 17th May 1942

YMCA

WITH HIS MAJESTY’S FORCES

 PLEASE ADDRESS YOUR REPLY TO

 

No. 5731671     Rank Tpr         Name Williams R

Address 1st Air Landing Squadron

            Recce Corps HOME FORCES       Date 17 – 5 - 42

 

My Darling Chotie,

                                        Many thanks for letter - glad to see you're still alive and kicking.

            I went over to Basingstoke yesterday to see Brinner - which took him rather by surprise in the midst of the delicate operation known as shaving. He's very fit and will be moving by the end of next week - he thinks.

            There's no further news from this end.  We're in the midst of specialised training which is pretty stiff and takes most of our spare time as well.

           There's a lot of sport here - I play hockey most of the time!  (Don't tell Diller for heaven's sake..)

           I'm on the MT* again - for the time being anyhow - and drive a 15 cwt** truck.  Not too bad as I manage to get out most of the time and see quite a bit of the local country.  Unfortunately when you're on the MT, you have to do your ordinary training as well! - which is rather a blow.

            I've heard from home that they have settled down once again, which is quite a relief.  Brinner says it's not too bad, but the country is flat and very uninteresting***.  Chichester however is quite near and that is a beautiful town if ever there was one.

            In any case, we shall see for ourselves, soon, I hope. 

            Well, Darling, as I said before, there's no news - is there ever? - and I must conclude here to get back to billets in time.

                                                            Bye, bye my Darling

                                                                        all my love

                                                                                    Dicker

 

P.S.     Please give my best wishes to all and sundry, won't you?

PPS     Still love you, Precious...

                                                xxxx

                                                            xx       

 

*MT = Motorised Transport 

**cwt = hundredweight - 112 pounds in the British Imperial System (or 50.8 kg.)

***Dick's family had moved from Poole to Pagham in East Sussex.

© Chotie Darling

 

20^th May 1942 – British forces retreating from Burma reach the Indian frontier.(See WW2-net Timelines)

Malta receives re-inforcements (spitfires were brought in by the US Navy ship Wasp), deterring  Germany’s planned airborne invasion. 

Home Forces - Friday 1st? May 1942

The War in Dorset - May 1942

On 14^th May 1942 a landslip at Cairn’s Folly near Charmouth destroyed the radio station on the clifftop. Two German ‘T’ boats were sunk off the Dorset coast by Royal Navy motor torpedo boats on 19^th May and on 23^rd May the German flying ace Hauptmann Langur was killed when he crashed into a Shaftesbury hillside in low cloud.  The RAF plane attacking him was able to operate through the cloud using the ‘Starlight’ radar system from Sopley near Christchurch.  

24^th/25^th May – following a Pathfinder bombing, which unfortunately killed several people and damaged houses in the Hamworthy area, a bomb fell on the Brownsea decoy site setting off prepared cordite flashes.  The Special Fires (code name ‘Star Fish’ - pyrotechnics simulating bursting bombs and burning buildings) were started on the island attracting a 75 minute bombardment from 60 enemy aircraft that would have done terrible damage in Poole, where Chotie lived.  Out of 166 tons of bombs used that night, all but 9 tons fell harmlessly on the decoy.  Even so 140 people had to be accommodated in the Sandacres Hotel, Sandbanks that night and one bomb hit a military target – the Poole Home Guard company HQ in Lindsay Road, where one Guardsman was killed.  (See also December 1942 - the war in Dorset.)

At the end of May 1942 the Telecommunications Research Establishment at Worth Matravers, near Swanage in Dorset, moved inland to Malvern in Worcestershire.  The success of the Bruneval Raid had alerted them to the dangers of a coastal raid on their vital and very secret research.

(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 2004.)

 

 

In May 1942 Lt-General “Boy” Browning, the Commander of 1^st Airborne Division, devised an inspirational emblem to represent the airborne forces and introduced the famous ‘red’ beret, which is still used to this day. The badge of the winged horse Pegasus and his rider Bellerophon was taken from Greek myth and designed by Major Edward Seago. It became the divisional shoulder flash of the airborne forces.  (See The Pegasus Journal )

1^stAir Landing Squadron Officers listed for May 1942:

Major C.J.H. Gough;

Captains: G.C. Roberts, J.P. Royle, C.W. Suter;

Lieutenants: D.Allsop (captain of Freddie Gough’s 1^stAirborne Reconnaissance Squadron at Arnhem, awarded the Dutch Bronze Lion), D.M.Freegard (mentioned in despatches
as a Major in 1945), T.J. Firbank, M.W.Grubb, J.A.Hay and G.L.Millar

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

(See Joining Browning's Boys )

For most of May 1942 1^stAir Landing Squadron was still based at Shaw House, near Newbury.

1^st May 1942 – City of Bath placed out of bounds for 1^st Air Landing Squadron except for duty on special leave. (Why? Was this because of the Baedeker Raids?)

(From The Pegasus Archive, Just Ordinary Men, Operation Market Garden and the War Diary of 1^st Air Landing Reconnaissance Squadron, National Archives, Kew)

 

Trooper Williams RR

1^st Air Landing Sqdn.

Reconnaissance Corps

HOME FORCES

N.B. New Address

                        NOTHING ELSE!

Friday

Dearest, Darling Chotie,

                                                     Many thanks for letter received yesterday.  It would appear that it took ages to get here - but the new address, Home Forces, is apparently much quicker.  However it did arrive, which is the main thing.

I must begin this letter as usual by an apology for this paper - after all, there's a war on, somewhere, so convention must go by the board.

I hope you're quite well Precious and looking after yourself as you mean a helluva lot to me (slush...!) - but seriously, Darling, takes great care, and dodge the bombs, if any.

I've been to Bulford* all day, firing Anti-Tank Rifles, and managed to get quite brown as there was plenty of wind and sun.  The weather here is excellent, and I eat like a horse (or two).

Incidentally, I'm at the place I expected to go to - the one we found on the map, but I'm not of course allowed to write it down in letters - hence the address - Home Forces.  I had a letter from home a couple of days ago - things there, being a little brighter than usual.  Diller however can give you more dope on this question then I can.  It's quite all  right for you to tell Diller where I am, so don't be frightened on that score.

I met quite a decent bloke here, who's very much like Douglas (Enid's?).  He's a throw out from a Military Academy and joined the 70th Hants** (Brinner's crowd) and transferred here the same time as I did.

I'm afraid there's no news - I am up to my eyes in work and get very little time to call my own.  Hope everyone at home is up to par, and hope you will give them all my fondest regards, etc.

This is a glorious county - reveling in old houses particularly Georgian and Elizabethan.  I saw plenty of such desirable abodes today as I did nearly a hundred miles in the truck.

Well, I must close here as I'm on night operations in about half an hour and have to get my kit ready.

                                                            All my love, Darling

                                                                        Dicker xxx

P.S.
Home Address

                        “BROOMLEIGH”

                                    PAGHAM BEACH

                                                BOGNOR

                                                            SUSSEX.***

PPS     Look after yourself!!!

 

*Bulford ranges on Salisbury Plain, Wiltshire.

** The 70th Battalion (the 70th was usually the “Young Soldiers” battalion) of the Hampshire Regiment was formed in Southampton in September 1940, but soon moved to Basingstoke. It was disbanded in July 1943. It appears that Dick’s younger brother, Brian or Brinner, had now joined up.

***Dicker’s family had now moved to Pagham in Sussex. Dick’s next of kin (father) is listed as Capt. Dudley Kelner Beresford Williams of St Margarets, Sea Lane, Pagham, Sussex but the family first moved to ‘Broomleigh’.

© Chotie Darling

Shaw House, Newbury - c. Wednesday 22nd April 1942

Pte 5731671 Williams RK

1st Air Landing Coy

Recce Corps

C/o A.P.O. NOTTINGHAM.

My Darling,

            Arrived here safe and sound on Monday Evening.

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

            The only good thing about it is the leave.  Apparently they get Seven Days every nine weeks or so - which is amazing for the Army.

            I start on a course on Monday next - it's just like being a rookie all over again.

            The Company here is billeted in a marvelous old house – Elizabethan* - with hundreds of rooms, banqueting halls etc.

            Incidentally you must write to the address as shown, and not the one you already know - for security reasons. You might advise Diller or Mother if you write, as I've had to give them the Nottingham address of course.

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

            I'm afraid I can't say anything of local interest, etc as these letters are sometimes censored for security reasons.

            I miss you already, Darling - how am I going to feel in a month’s time?

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

                                                                        all my love Precious,

                                                                                    your adoring

                                                                                                Dicker

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

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

 © Chotie Darling

 

23^rd April 1942 - In a secret session of the House of Commons, Churchill delivered a speech declaring that the liberation of Europe was 'the main war plan' of Britain and the USA. (From WW2-net Timelines. )

 

Friday 24^th April 1942 - 1^st Air Landing Reconnaissance Squadron changes its designation to 1^st Air Landing Squadron, Recce Corps. On 27^th April its address was changed to 'Home Forces’. The Squadron used the mortar range at Chobham (Surrey?) on Tuesday 28^th and were training with night flying gliders on the 29^th.

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

 

24th April 1942 - The Luftwaffe raids Exeter in the first of Hitler's raids on historical cities in retaliation for the bombing of Lübeck at the end of March. These became known as the 'Baedeker' raids after the famous guidebook series.

The Allies second raid was made against Rostock in Germany and on 25th April the Luftwaffe attacked Bath. The 'Baedeker' raids continued with the bombing of York and Norwich in late April and of Canterbury in May and June, after the Allies’ bombing of Cologne.

 

28th April 1942 – the Nazi Reichstag, Germany’s ‘puppet government’ declares Hitler ‘Supreme Judge of the German People’ and above the reach of the law. This turns out to be its last meeting. (From WW2-net Timelines.)

Malta's George Cross - April 1942

The War in Dorset - April 1942

Work commenced on building a Landing Craft base for the Commandos at Ham Common, Poole (officially commissioned as HMS Turtle in October 1942).

On 2^nd April an American B-17 Flying Fortress bomber made an emergency landing next to the Baker’s Arms pub at Lytchett Matravers. That night, bombing in Weymouth killed 20 and injured 56 people.

Winston Churchill visited the Lulworth Ranges on 6^th April to inspect the new ‘Churchill’ tanks and on 9th April a new master station for the radio direction of RAF bombers from Southern Britain was erected on Bulbarrow Hill, in central Dorset.  On 17^th April a flight over Bournemouth, Poole and Christchurch managed to use the new ground-mapping radar (developed by the Purbeck-based Telecommunications Research establishment) to distinguish the towns without vision. This enabled bombing though clouds or at night.

20th April brought bomb attacks in Hamworthy, Poole and in Swanage, where there was considerable damage.

In April 1942 Mountbatten’s Combined Operations began to plan for an Allied landing at Dieppe (see August 1942). A scheme for the landing of 12 divisions around Le Havre had been put forward in late 1941. The scheme was to be tested in Operation Rutter, a division sized raid on a German held port on the French Channel to be held for at least two tides while effecting the greatest amount of destruction of enemy facilities and defences before withdrawing. It was hoped this would divert troops from the beleaguered Russian front and was supported by the Americans eager for an offensive in the West and under pressure to concentrate their efforts in the Pacific against the Japanese. The scheme became the disastrous Operation Jubilee - 4,384 of the 6,000 Allied troops that landed were killed, wounded or missing, the Royal Navy lost 550 men and 34 ships and the RAF lost 106 planes in their largest single-day air battle of the war.

Combined Operations were also engaged in Operation Myrmidon in April 1942. This commando led raid on the Ardour Estuary in southern France planned to land 3,000 troops to disrupt road and rail transport between Spain and France.  However, the vanguard encountered a sandbar barrier and the raid was called off on the 5^th April after a month sailing off the coast of France disguised as Spanish merchant ships.

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

 

1st Air Landing Reconnaissance:

In April the 1^st Air Landing Reconnaissance Squadron was still based at Shaw House, Newbury, Berkshire. Their war diary mentions a platoon demonstration inspected by the Corps Commander on 1^st April but not the critical visit to 1 Airborne Division on 12^th April 1942 by Winston Churchill. He was shown a demonstration of gliders and parachute troops dropping, including 12 Whitbys and 9 Hectors, each towing a Hotspur Glider. Following this demonstration Churchill increased the number of discarded bombers to be placed at the disposal of the Airborne Corps.

Meanwhile the squadron continued their training - at  Shrewton Aerodrome on 6^th April, at Abingdon aerodrome on the 10^th and on the Imber Ranges of Salisbury Plain on the 13^th.  The right wing historian, Sir Charles Petrie, was called in to give them a lecture, ‘Why we are at war’, on the 9^th April.  

(From the War Diary of 1^st Air Landing Reconnaissance Squadron, WO166/6955 National Archives at Kew, ‘Airborne Forces’ by Lt-Col T.B.H. Otway, D.S.O. London: Imperial War Museum, 1990 and Paradata  – the living history of The Parachute Regiment and Airborne Forces.)

See the next Chapter of Chotie Darling, Air Landing, for further information from the war diary for April.

Dick joined 1st Air Landing Reconnaissance on 20th April 1942.

 

1^st April 1942 - Japanese begin landing in Dutch (West) New Guinea. (From WW2-net Timelines.)

 

5th April 1942 – Japanese attack on the Royal Navy's base at Colombo in Ceylon (now Sri Lanka). Although the bulk of the fleet escaped the heavy cruisers HMS Dorsetshire and Cornwall, the armed merchant cruiser Hector and the destroyer Tenedos were sunk. (From WW2-net Timelines.)

 

9^th April 1942 – the 76,000 American and Filipino forces on the Bataan Peninsula in the Philippines finally surrender to the Japanese (only the fortress island of Corregidor was still held by the Allies).  More than 7,000 of the prisoners die on a forced march (‘the Bataan Death March’) while hundreds of Filipino officers are massacred. (From ‘The Second World War’ by Antony Beevor, published by Weidenfield and Nicolson 2012)

Mahatma Gandhi arrested by the British in India.

 

11^th April 1942 – in the smallest Commando raid of the war, Operation JV, two men paddled a canoe into Boulogne Harbour to stick a limpet mine on a German tanker and withdraw unseen. (From Wikipedia)

 

15th April 1942 - Malta was awarded the George Cross for "heroism and devotion" by King George VI for its key role in attacking the German supply line to Libya, despite a constant siege. The Maltese people stood up to more than 2,000 bombing raids and constant shortages for over twelve months and did not surrender. (From WW2-net Timelines)

 

18^th April 1942 – first Allied air raid on Japan by 16 US bombers from the aircraft carrier Hornet. The success of the ‘Doolittle raid’ (named after its leader, Lieutenant Colonel James Doolittle) raid on Tokyo, was an important boost to American morale.

The US eastern coast was ordered to black-out its light at night to reduce the success of U-boats attacking convoys at night. (From WW2-net Timelines)

The Allied Headquarters of the Southwest Pacific theatre were established in Melbourne (and moved to Brisbane on 20^th July 1942). (From WW2-net Timelines)

 

End of Part 1 The Blue Cockade

 

St Nazaire

 27^th and 28^th March 1942 – HMS Campbeltown and amphibious commandos transported by the Navy successfully destroyed the heavily defended dry dock at St. Nazaire.

The ship, disguised as a German destroyer and filled with explosives, was sailed six miles up the Loire estuary to ram the docks, lodging in the lock gates.  She exploded several hours later, putting St Nazaire docks out of action for the rest of the war and killing senior German officers who had come on board to inspect the ship.

The dock was the only one on the eastern Atlantic seaboard large enough to accommodate Germany’s new battleship the Tirpitz - according to Churchill “the most important naval vessel in the situation today”. Without this facility for repairs, Germany’s largest ships could not attack the Allies vital lifeline from America. The Tirpitz never entered the Atlantic, instead staying safely east of the Channel until she was bombed and capsized by the RAF in a Norwegain fjord in November 1944. 

The raid on St Nazaire, codenamed Operation Chariot, was carried out under the command of Mountbatten’s Combined Operations Headquarters located at Anderson Manor, near Poole (possibly where Dick was working - see The Missing Winter and The Small Scale Raiding Force). The raid was first proposed by Britain’s Naval Intelligence Division in late 1941 and included diversionary bombing by the RAF.  Although there were heavy losses among the 622 servicemen who took part, it established Churchill’s support for the ‘butcher and bolt’ tactics of the commandos.

Two of the launches attending the Campbeltown were from the Poole boatyards that supplied numerous craft for the war effort.

(From Combined Operations WW2 website and  ‘Poole and World War II’ written by Derek Beamish, Harold Bennett and John Hillier and published by Poole Historical Trust in 1980.)

Eric joins 61st Recce

February 1942

Eric Postles continues his account of life in 61st Recce:

“After training those who were allocated to 61^st Division went by train to Loughgal in Northern Ireland via Edingburgh, Glasgow and then from Stanraer by boat to Larne.  The train journey from Larne was interesting as at each station the engine was detached to move goods waggons and we could get off for a leg stretch. 

Our camp was Nissen-hutted in the grounds of an estate.  We were divided in squads for further training including driving instructions on 15cwt trucks, Bren carriers and armoured cars as everyone had to be able to drive.  The regiment was so concerned to have these young boys posted to it that we were given extra food to build us up. We were also dropped off around Lough Neagh and had to find our own way back to camp.  Training ended with an exercise up in the mountains.  We were on open trucks and had to endure snow, rain and cold.”

 (Extracts from ‘My War Years’ by John Eric Postles ISO used by kind permission of the author.)

"The Divisional sign was a blue square with inset red diamond."

The 61st Division was deployed to Northern Ireland in response to the German threat to invade neutral Ireland - Plan Green - which, although thorough, may have been a deception or feint.

Singapore surrenders - February 1942

The War in Dorset - February 1942

Part of Hurn aerodrome was modified to accommodate gliders and tow air-craft for air landings. (From ‘Dorset’s War Diary - Battle of Britain to D Day’ by Rodney Legg, Dorset Publishing Company 2004).

See also The Small Scale raiding Force and The Bruneval Raid.

 

February 1942 – The German Navy changes the Enigma settings for its signals leaving the British code-breakers at Bletchley Park  unable to decipher communications.  This had disastrous consequences in 1942 as Admiral Döbitz’s ‘wolf-packs’ of U-boat submarines were able to hunt out Allied shipping in the Atlantic untracked.  It would be 10 months before the code-breakers could break the new settings they nicknamed ‘Shark’.

February 1942 – soap, tinned tomatoes and peas now rationed.

1st February 1942 - Quisling formed a puppet government in Norway (from WW2-net Timelines).

7th February 1942 - Japanese artillery fire on Singapore across the Jahore Strait and 20,000 Japanese troops begin to land on the north-west shore of the island.  The city, and ships full of evacuees, were heavily bombed. (From ‘The Second World War’ by Antony Beevor, published by Weidenfield and Nicolson 2012)

11th to 13th February 1942 - the German battleships Scharnhorst and Gneisenau and  the cruiser Prinz Eugen, escorted by destroyers and torpedo boats,  escaped the Allies blockade at Brest and attacks in the Channel to reach safe harbour in Germany.

15th February 1942 – The military commander of Singapore, Lt.General Arthur Percival, surrenders the Island to Japan (and then escapes to Sumatra).  On 17th February the Japanese military police begin rounding up the Chinese community and thousands are executed.  The British and Australians were taken as prisoners of war to work on the notorious Burma railway where many died. (From ‘The Second World War’ by Antony Beevor, published by Weidenfield and Nicolson 2012)

19^th February 1942 – Japanese aircraft attack the port of Darwin in northern Australia. 

The Japanese Navy wins the Battle of Lumbok Strait and land on Bali.

President Roosevelt  authorises the transfer of Germans, Italians and Japanese-Americans living in coastal Pacific areas to internment camps. Homes and possessions were taken from those interned.

 

22^nd February 1942 – Bruneval Raid parachutists, commandos and the Navy were training off the Dorset coast for retrieval from the beach below the German radar station. They encountered considerable problems including parachutists getting stuck in a coastal defence minefield. Practising off Redcliff Point near Weymouth in Dorset, one of the landing craft collecting the raiders became grounded offshore but the raid had to go ahead over the next few days to coincide with an approach on the rising tide under a full moon. (From ‘The Bruneval Raid – stealing Hitler’s radar’ by George Millar, Cassell 1974 and ‘Dorset’s War Diary - Battle of Britain to D Day’ by Rodney Legg, Dorset Publishing Company 2004)

The operation was organised from Combined Operations headquarters at Anderson Manor, near Poole and may have involved Trooper R.K. Williams of Intelligence in some minor role?

 

23rd February 1942 - Air Marshal Arthur (Bomber) Harris was appointed Commander-in-Chief of British Bomber Command.

The Australian Prime Minister Curtin, orders all Australian Divisions to return home to defend Australia (from WW2-net Timelines).

 27^th February 1942 - The Battle of the Java Sea begins between Japan and the Allies.  On 28^th February the Japanese landed on Java.

Introducing Eric Postles

The stories of those who survived fighting with 61^st Reconnaissance have brought to life Dick’s wartime experience.

Eric Postles was born on 8^th September 1922 and lived in the village of Burscough in Lancashire.  His parents, Mr and Mrs H. Postles lived at 7 Moss Nook, Burscough bridge, Nr. Ormskirk, Lancashire. His war years began here:

 “When men and women reached 19 years of age they were conscripted and, unless you were in a reserved occupation, you were called up for the forces or munitions work etc.

 

I had a medical for the forces at Wigan and on 15^th January 1942 I, along with Harry Parr* from the village and Dennis Crumbleholme from Ormskirk, reported to the Castle at Carlisle as part of a big intake of men from north-west England for the Reconnaissance Corps, a newly formed corps to provide regiments to recce for Infantry Divisions.  I became 10602580 Trooper J.E.Postles. 

The role of the Reconnaissance Corps was to gather vital tactical information in battle.  Our badge was a spear with flashes of lightning on either side and the words reconnaissance on a scroll beneath.  The Corps lanyards were green and yellow and on top of our sleeves we wore the word 'Reconnaissance' in yellow on a green background, the divisional sign and beneath that a bar of green and yellow.

Similarly our vehicles were recognised by the number '41' on a green and yellow square and the divisional sign on the front and rear.  We wore forage caps, later changed to khaki berets and then black berets when we became part of the Royal Armoured Corps.  We also changed our steel helmets to ones similar to those worn by the airborne troops, which gave more protection. 

Our pay was 1 shilling and 9 pence a day but shortly after joining it rose to 2 shillings and 6d and 6d was paid in towards a gratuity given at demobilisation. 

After an IQ test I was allocated to 61^st Division Recce Regiment.  The Divisional sign was a blue square with inset red diamond.  Harry and Denis went to 59^th Division Recce Regiment in Ireland.

 

My regiment, also in Ireland, was moving to a new location so instead of joining them at the outset we went by train on 18^th January to No 10 I.T.C. (Kings Own Scottish Borderers) to do our basic training at Berwick-on-Tweed.  The camp was on the cliffs next to the sea.  It was bitterly cold and snowed heavily.  There was a lot of visible enemy air activity off the coast although the camp was never attacked."

(Extracts from ‘My War Years’ by John Eric Postles ISO used by kind permission of the author.)

*Harry Parr joined the 59 Division Recce regiment.  In July 1943 he “was killed on an exercise in Kent when his heavy armoured car turned over and he was crushed by the gun.”

United Nations Declaration - January 1942

The War in Dorset - January 1942

In Dorset in January 1942 a Wellington bomber, with a Royal Australian Air Force crew, crashed at Fifehead Magdalen near Sturminster Newton and the first American GIs (General  Infantryman) began to arrive in the county at the end of the month - see previous post. (From ‘Dorset’s War Diary - Battle of Britain to D Day’ by Rodney Legg, 2004)

 8^th January 1942 – Mountbatten, head of Combined Operations (based near Poole), approaches 1^st Airborne Division to discuss the feasibility of a paratroop raid on the Würzburg radar apparatus detected near Cap de la Hague. This was to result in the famous Bruneval Raid.

14th January 1942 – Operation Postmaster.

17th/18th January 1942 –  Operation Curlew – an unsuccessful commando reconnaissance raid on St Laurent, France (between Cherbourg and Caen) by the elite ‘V’ Corps School of Raiding from Southern Command. ‘V’ Corps Southern Command included the secret signals and reconnaissance ‘Phantom’ squadron commanded by David Niven and based inland of Poole Harbour (see The Missing Winter).

 

1st Air Landing Reconnaissance:

On 1^st January 1942 Major General F.A.M. Browning, D.S.O., commander of 1^st Airborne Division, inspected the 1^st Air Landing Company, Reconnaissance Corps.  Browning, married to the novelist Daphne du Maurier (Dick’s favourite), was close to both Churchill and Louis Mountbatten and used this influence to ensure his men got what they needed.  

Throughout January their training continued on the Churn Ranges near Didcot and Beacon Hill* Ranges. (* The Beacon Hill near Newbury or the Beacon Hill on Bulford Ranges, Salisbury.?)

(From the War Diary of 1^st Air Landing Reconnaissance Squadron, WO166/6955 National Archives at Kew.)

 

Dick joined 1st Air Landing Reconnaissance on 20th April 1942.

 

1st January 1942 – all those at war with Germany adopt the ‘United Nations’ and sign the  United Nations Declaration in agreement with the principles of  the Atlantic Charter.  26 nations signed in January 1942 including the so-called ‘Big Four’ - Britain, America, Soviet Russia and China.

January 1942 – rice and dried fruit rationed.

 

2^nd January 1942 – Japanese capture Manila, capital of the Philippine Islands.  On 9^th January they attack General MacArthur’s US and Philippine forces and advance down the Bataan Peninsula. (From ‘The Second World War’ by Antony Beevor, published by Weidenfield and Nicolson 2012)

 

5^th January 1942 – Stalin launches new Russian offensives attempting to advance and encircle German troops on the front line near Leningrad (St. Petersburg) in the north, Moscow in the centre and the armies in Crimea and Kharkov in the south.  By April, Soviet military casualties had risen to over one million, although the suffering of civilians (“crushed between the cruelty of the Germans and that of their own Army and partisans”) was even greater. Stalin ordered the destruction of any building the Germans might use for shelter.  Dreadful conditions in besieged Leningrad led to the death of 620,000 (a quarter of the December 1941 population) from famine, cold and disease. However half a million of the inhabitants escaped by “the Road of Life”, the frozen ice road across Lake Ladoga, before the spring thaw. (From ‘The Second World War’ by Antony Beevor, published by Weidenfield and Nicolson 2012)

 

11^th January 1942 – Japanese took Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia.

 

12^th January 1942 – Japan declares war on the Dutch East Indies.

 

14th January 1942 - At the Arcadia Conference in Washington, President Roosevelt and Prime Minister Churchill agree to concentrate the Allied war effort on the European theatre.

President Roosevelt also orders that all ‘aliens’ register with the government. This is the beginning of a plan to move Japanese Americans into internment camps in the belief that they might aid the enemy. (From WW2-net Timelines.)

 

18th January 1942 – Japanese troops advance into Burma from Thailand.

 

19th January 1942 – Japan occupies British North Borneo. Singapore Island prepares for siege by the Japanese. (From WW2-net Timelines.)

 

20^th January 1942 - British troops capture Benghazi in Libya.

20^th January 1942 – Germany formally adopts the ‘Final Solution to the Jewish Problem' . All Jews in occupied Europe were to be transported to the east. The able bodied were worked until they died, while the remainder were put to death.

See Holocaust Memorial Day (27th January).

 

21st January 1942 - Japan attacks New Guinea.

Rommel launches a counter-offensive against the 8th Army in North Africa and the British retreat to the Gazala line, 60 kilometres west of Tobruk. (From ‘The Second World War’ by Antony Beevor, published by Weidenfield and Nicolson 2012)

The Luftwaffe begin a series of raids against London and ports in southern England.(From WW2-net Timelines.)

 

25^th January 1942 – Thailand declared war on Britain and the USA.

Having requested re-enforcement for Britain and the US, Australia begins full mobilisation for defence against Japan. (From WW2-net Timelines.)

 

26^th January 1942 – American forces began arriving in the British Isles, first landing in Ulster. They brought with them a new vocabulary, including the snappier ‘radar’ for 'radio direction finding' and a guidance book to prevent them treading on British toes:

Mindful of the old saying, “It is always impolite to criticize your hosts; it is militarily stupid to criticize your allies”, the US War Office provided every American serviceman heading for Britain with a cultural guide ‘Instructions for American Servicemen in Britain, 1942’.

Explaining about the war-weary British, it said: “Thousands of them have lost their houses, their possessions, their families. Soap, is so scarce that girls working in the factories often cannot get the grease off their hands or out of their hair. And food is more strictly rationed than anything else.”

Also “The British do not know how to make a good cup of coffee. You don’t know how to make a good cup of tea. It’s an even swap.”

To the sometimes jaundiced Tommy the GIs (General Infantry) were still "overpaid, over sexed and over here".

 

29^th January 1942 - German forces recaptured Benghazi in Libya. 

Churchill’s speech to the House “I offer no excuses” ended with:

“I avow my confidence, never stronger than at this moment, that we shall bring this conflict to an end in a manner agreeable to the interests of our country, and in a manner agreeable to the future welfare of the world. I have finished. Let every man act now in accordance with what he thinks is his duty in harmony with his heart and conscience.” From the Churchill Society

 

31^st January 1942 – British and Commonwealth forces complete evacuation Malaya in the face of the Japanese advance but defend Singapore.

Dentist in Bournemouth

19^th December 1941 – Dick visited the dentist in Bournemouth.

 
He visited again on 11th and 23rd February 1942 so was presumably still located in the Bournemouth area (but was treated by a different Dental Officer on the 23rd).

Copy of Record

Dental Treatment Card –    19/12/41, 11/2/42 and 23/2/42                 Bournemouth

Pearl Harbour - the world at war, December 1941

The War in Dorset - December 1941

While the Telecommunications Research Establishment continued to develop their ‘Blind Navigation’ two more British planes crashed in Dorset – a Wellington bomber on 16^th December 1941 near Powerstock and a Beaufighter (the long-range heavy fighter modified from the Beaufort bomber) at Pulham on 29^th December. Both crews survived the crashes.

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

During 1941 construction began of the Starfish (from SF for Special fire) Decoy on Brownsea Island that was to play such an important role in the defences of Poole. Elstree Studios' pyrotechnics crew helped to install theatrical explosives and fires to mimic the bombing of Poole and draw the Luftwaffe's attention away from the town.  Designated as PE1, it was operated by the Royal Navy who also maintained decoys to protect the Royal Navy Cordite Factory at Holton Heath– HH1 on Arne and HH2 on Gore Heath.

 (From  ‘Poole and World War II’ written by Derek Beamish, Harold Bennett and John Hillier and published by Poole Historical Trust in 1980 and ‘The Book of Poole Harbour’ edited by Bernard Dyer and Timothy Darvill and published by The Dovecote press Ltd 2010.)

 

1st Air Landing Reconnaissance Squadron:

In December 1941 the newly formed 1^st Air Landing Reconnaissance Squadron moved from their secret training location in Wales to Shaw House, an impressive Elizabethan building in Newbury, Berkshire.  There they had lectures and motor cycling, driving and weapons training.

On 26^th December their designation changed to 1^st Air Landing Company, Reconnaissance Corps.  Major C.J.H.Gough (later of Arnhem fame), known as ‘Freddie’, was their commanding officer and the squadron soon acquired the nickname of FGS or ‘Freddie Gough’s Squadron’. He was a stickler for discipline and set exacting standards in search of 'the best of the best' in selection and everyday duties. All Air Landing (gliderborne) troops were volunteers.

 (From the War Diary of 1^st Air Landing Reconnaissance Squadron, WO166/6955 National Archives at Kew, ‘Airborne Forces’ by Lt-Col T.B.H. Otway, D.S.O. London: Imperial War Museum, 1990 and Paradata  – the living history of The Parachute Regiment and Airborne Forces.)

Dick joined 1st Air Landing Reconnaissance on 20th April 1942.

 

At the beginning of December 1941 German heavy artillery were within range of Moscow but the German commanders realised that their exhausted and frozen troops could not take Moscow this winter (frostbite casualties were now exceeding the number of wounded in battle), even as they began a final assault on the city. (From ‘The Second World War’ by Antony Beevor, published by Weidenfield and Nicolson 2012).

 

2nd December 1941 – the new National Service Bill introduces compulsory service for women.

 

 

5^th December 1941 – Soviet forces mount a surprise counter-attack to defend Moscow and the Germans advance is halted.

 

6^th December – Roosevelt approves the commencement of atomic weapons research in the USA.

 

7^th December 1941 – Admiral Yamamoto’s Japanese carrier fleet bomb the US fleet in Pearl Harbour.  The Americans, taken completely by surprise (Japan had not declared war on the US), lost the battleships Oklahoma and Arizona, two destroyers and 188 aircraft. Many other ships and planes were damaged and 2,335 servicemen were killed.  The Japanese lost only 29 aircraft. (From ‘The Second World War’ by Antony Beevor, published by Weidenfield and Nicolson 2012)

Japanese forces land on Kota Bahru in the far north-east of Malaya and are able to make their first air raid on Singapore the next day.

 

8^th December 1941 – the USA and the UK declare war on Japan.

Japan attacks the US controlled Phillipines bombing the Philippine capital of Manila and American airbases. Half the US Far East Airforce are destroyed.

Japanese forces attack the British territory of Hong Kong and Japanese forces occupy Shanghai in China.

 

Mass killing began at the Chelmno extermination camp near Lodz in Poland. More than 152,000 people were murdered there during the war, mostly in the gas chambers, including Jews and Romanies from Poland, Hungarian Jews, Czechs and Soviet Prisoners of War.

 

9th December 1941 – China declares war on Germany and Italy.

Japanese troops occupy Bangkok, Thailand.

 

10th December 1941 – Allied Forces enter Tobruk in Libya. This was their first major overseas victory.

The British battleship HMS Prince of Wales and the battle cruiser HMS Repulse, which had been sent to defend Singapore, are sunk by the Japanese.

The Japanese take Guam, an American base in the Mariana islands.

 

11^th December 1941 – Germany and Italy declare war against the USA and the USA declares war against Germany and Italy.

 

14^th December 1941 – Thailand becomes an ally of Japan.

 

15^th December 1941 – Japanese troops enter Burma.  The Battle of Burma begins with a Japanese bombing attack on the capital of Rangoon on 23^rd December.

 

16^th December 1941 – Japanese forces land in Borneo.

 

18^th December 1941 – Japanese troops land on Hong Kong Island.

The British battleships HMS Queen Elizabeth and Valiant are sunk by the Italian Navy while in Alexandria harbour, Egypt.

 

19^th December 1941 – Hitler took over complete control of the German armed forces, the Wehrmacht.

 

22nd December 1941 – Roosevelt and Churchill meet at the Arcadia conference in Washington and agree to pool British and US resources and develop strategy to win the war together.

Japanese forces land near Manila in the Philippines. US and Philippine troops with the American Commander-in-Chief General Douglas Macarthur, withdraw to the Bataan peninsula.

 

23rd December 1941 – Japanese forces finally land on and occupy Wake Island an American base in the Pacific between Hawaii and the Mariana Islands (after unsuccessful attacks on 8th and 11th December

 

25th December 1941 – surrender of Hong Kong to the Japanese.

 

 

26^th December 1941 – Winston Churchill addressed the US Congress with his speech “A Long and Hard War” rejoicing that “the United States, united as never before, have drawn the sword for freedom and cast away the scabbard”.

27th December 1941 - A combined services commando raid on German occupied islands off Norway results in 150 Germans killed and 16,000 tons of shipping destroyed as well as defences and infrastructure.

 

During 1941 Allied merchant shipping lost 503 ships, equalling 2,530,011 gross tons. to U-boats world-wide. Only 35 U-boats were sunk (from World War 2 Timelines).

 

Lest we forget - November 1941

The War in Dorset - November 1941

Weymouth was bombed again at the beginning of November 1941. Devastation around the Abbotsbury Road killed three and injured eleven, including the Mayor of Weymouth, the publican of the Adelaide Arms.

On 10th November 1941 Christchurch Aerodrome became a satellite airfield to the now larger RAF Hurn. It’s Special Duty Flight, which had carried out aerial tests for the secret Telecommunications Research Establishment at Worth Matravers in Purbeck since August 1941, was moved to Hurn. Around this time TRE discovered that ground ‘maps’ could be produced using radar.  Varying signals were received from the streets, houses, pines, heath and cliffs of Bournemouth on a plane flight from Christchurch.  This became known as ‘Blind Navigation’ enabling bombers to find targets in poor weather and at night.

Guarding RAF Warmwell, two members of Dick’s Dorsetshire Regiment were killed with a Spitfire pilot when his plane crashed on landing on 11^th November 1941

See also The Würzburg  .

 

13th November 1941 – the British aircraft carrier HMS Ark Royal is
torpedoed and sunk. On the same day the US Neutrality Act is repealed to allow
the arming of merchant ships carrying Lend-Lease cargo to Britain.

17^th November 1941 – buses are restricted so none may
leave after 9.30pm due to fuel shortages. Christmas cards, advertising
leaflets, posters and paper handkerchiefs are banned because of paper shortages.

18^th November 1941 – beginning of the Allies ‘Operation Crusader’ to relieve the
siege of Tobruk in Libya, North Africa.

25^th November 1941 – Germany attacked Moscow.

28th November 1941 – Germany’s siege of the critical Mediterranean
seaport at Tobruk, in Libya, was broken by the Allied 8th Army.

30^th November and 8^thDecember 1941 – massacre at Rumbala. 25,000 Jews were murdered in woods near
Riga in Latvia by Nazi paramilitary death squads, the SS Einsatzgruppen.

(From WW2-net Timelines and ‘Dorset’s War Diary - Battle of Britain to D Day’ by Rodney Legg, DorsetPublishing Company 2004.)

 

From ‘Chotie’s Story’

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

Never give in - October 1941

The War in Dorset - October 1941

In October 1941 – filming of ‘The First of the Few’, a film telling the story of the Spitfire aeroplane, began near Christchurch.  It starred Leslie Howard and David Niven, both returned from Hollywood to support the war effort since 1939. Niven rejoined the Army and around this time was working for the General Headquarters Liaison Regiment (known as ‘Phantom’) as Commander of ‘A’ squadron, informing Army HQ on coastal defences and invasion risk, and happened to be stationed near Poole. Leslie Howard may also have been employed by Intelligence – when he was killed in 1943 it appears that the civilian plane he was flying in from Lisbon was targeted by a German bomber, possibly because of his work supporting the Allied cause in Spain and Portugal (although Churchill had been scheduled to fly on the same plane). 

On 11th October 1941 three of the crew of a crashed Wellington bomber were rescued off St Albans Head on the Purbeck Coast, Dorset.  Chotie was still working nearby in the Land Army at Barnston Farm, Church Knowle.

On 21st October 1941 a German plane crashed into the side of Bindon Hill at Lulworth in Purbeck.

George VI and Queen Elizabeth visited Dominion airmen stationed in Bournemouth on 23rd October 1941.

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

 

1st Airborne:

10^th October 1941 – formation of the British 1^st Air Landing Brigade which became part of the 1^st Airborne Division on 31^st October 1941. (See Chapter 5 Air Landing.)

The 31^st Independent Brigade, recently returned from India and mountain-trained, was selected for conversion to an air land role and redesignated the 1st Air Landing Brigade.  It was anticipated that the Brigade would be transported to a war zone either in gliders or in aircraft that would land on an airfield or suitable level strip of land so they were known as “Airlanding” and not “Gliderborne” troops.The initial task of 1 Air Landing Brigade Group was to carry out investigations into the problems of organisation, equipment and training of an air-landing formation.   

On 29^th October 1941 Frederick Browning, a protégé of Louis Mountbatten, was appointed to act as Commander of the Para-Troops and Airborne Troops that became 1^st Airborne Division.  

(From ‘Airborne Forces’ by Lt-Col T.B.H. Otway, D.S.O. London: Imperial War Museum, 1990 and ‘The Pegasus Patrol’  by Jack Turnbull & John Hamblett.)

 

22^nd and 24th October 1941 – the assassination of two German military commanders in Nantes, France, resulted in large scale punishment killings. 

Following the first violent act of the French Resistance in August 1941 French prisoners had been classified as ‘hostages’ to be executed in reprisal for any assassinations of the German military.  When Feldkommandant Karl Hotz, commander of the occupation troops in Loire-inférieure, and the German Military Administration Advisor were killed by the Resistance on 20^th and 21^st October 1941 fifty local prisoners, mainly communists and other political detainees, were shot in retaliation for each assassination. Despite bribes and threats of further atrocities information on the assassins was not forthcoming.

 

On 29^th October 1941 Churchill addressed Harrow School with his famous speech "Never give in".

30^th October 1941 – beginning of the seige of Sebastopol. This port on the Black Sea continued to resist the Germans until June 1942.

31^st October 1941- an American warship, the destroyer Reuben James, was torpedoed and sunk by a German U-boat submarine while escorting a British convoy. The Americans had not yet entered the war.

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.)

 

Not much of a birthday - posted Saturday 6th September 1941

61st Reconnaissance Regiment, who Dick was to fight with in NW Europe, were formed in September 1941 under the leadership of Lieutenant-Colonel Sir William Mount, Bt.T.D. (the former Prime Minister David Cameron's grandfather).

1^stSeptember 1941 – Nazis decreed that Jewish people in Germany and occupied countries should wear the yellow star badges introduced in Poland in November 1939.

3^rd September 1941 – the first gassing of prisoners at Auschwitz concentration camp. More than one million people were killed there during the war.

5^th September 1941 – Estonia occupied by the German army.

 

 

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

 

 

8th September – beginning of the German siege of Leningrad (St Petersburg) which was not lifted until 27th January 1944. Some 600,000 people died of starvation and disease in the city during the siege.

On 9^th September 1941 Winston Churchill addressed the House
of Commons ending his speech with the famous lines "We are still masters of our fate. We are still captain of our souls" based on the poem ‘Invictus’ by William Ernest Henley. (See full speech on Churchill Society website http://www.churchill-society-london.org.uk/CptsSoul.html.)

The Intelligence crew - Saturday 12th July

Chotie Darling

Dedicated to the memory of my mother

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

 

Part 1         The Blue Cockade 

 

Chapter 4          Intelligence

 

Dick was in Intelligence from early July 1941,

probably until 20^th April 1942 when he officially transferred from the 70^th Dorsets to Reconnaissance.

The secrecy surrounding certain Intelligence units

meant that participants often remained officially assigned

to their original regiments.

From July to September 1941

he was Trooper Williams Intelligence Section, HQ Company, still assigned to Fort Brockhurst, Gosport, Hampshire

while he trained in Winchester (probably at King Alfred College) with the 'Other Ranks' for the Intelligence Corps.

 

July 1941 – coal also now rationed.  

July 1941 – formation of the British Special Air Service – a small scale fighting force suited to raiding and reconnaissance, intelligence gathering and close quarter combat deep behind enemy lines. They were the first to use the motto “Who Dares Wins” and were parachute trained to reach the enemy by air.  

1st July 1941 – Germany and Italy recognise the Japanese government of China.

3rd July 1941 - Soviet Premier Josef Stalin exhorted the Russian people to defend their soil by adopting a "scorched earth" policy, destroying anything that might be useful to the German advance.

 

Dick’s ‘Seven Days’ leave

appears to have been taken at the beginning of July,

at about the time he joined the Intelligence section.

The Sandbanks peninsula, Poole, had been a restricted military area since July 1940 but in the summer of 1941 sea bathing was once more permitted for residents of Poole on a small strip of the Sandbanks beach.  This was courtesy of the Russian resistance to Hitler’s forces deterring Germany from any invasion of Britain.  Before the war Chotie’s family had a cherished beach hut at Shore Road, Sandbanks, but all the huts were removed to clear the line of fire against invading forces in 1940.

“Happy days were spent in the summer going to the beach.  We had a hut on the sands at Shore Road, Sandbanks and I cannot remember when I could not swim.  We pumped up car tyres, which were great fun to dive through and play with - these were the days before lilos and plastic beach toys.  In the evening we would collect all the rubbish left by picnickers and have a bonfire.  Salty, sandy and dishevelled, glowing from the day in the sun and weary from all the playing of games and swimming, we were piled into the back of the milk delivery van to wend our way home.”   From ‘Grandma’s Story’ written by Chotie for her grandchildren.

 

 

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

PS.  Je t’aime encore de tout mon coeur.

 

© Chotie Darling

 

12th July 1941 – surrender of Vichy French Syria and the Lebanon to the Allies.

13th July 1941 – Anglo-Soviet Pact. Britain and the USSR pledged to assist one another against Hitler.

Fort Brockhurst, Gosport - Friday 6th June 1941

      5731671 Cpl Williams RK.

‘D’ Company, 70^th (YS) Bn Dorsets.

Fort Brockhurst, Gosport, Hants.

My Darling Chotie,

                                                Just a few brief lines to let you know I'm OK, etc, and give you the new address. I’m still on Ord. Sergeant, and consequently don't have one minute to spare all day.  I'm up at 5.30 and generally don't get to bed before eleven.  I’m afraid I can’t write much as I only have a few minutes to spare.

            As you will see from the address we are in an ancient fort*, built I understand in the Napoleonic days.

            Things on the whole ain’t so bad, but discipline is very hot.  There’s a tremendous amount of spit and polish…which isn’t exactly to my liking.

           I haven’t been outside billets for eight days which also hasn’t been much fun. But that’s the army anyway...just think of that chicken farm!

 

            I started to write this letter in ink, but was called away by the CSM. Since then my pen’s disappeared, mysteriously...some -------‘s got it.

           I haven’t had a letter from you (or from home) as I believe some fool of an officer at Southampton is holding them up.  The rat...

           It’s raining like hell at the moment (9 pm).  Before going to bed tonight, I've got to take First Post (9.30) - and also Company Roll call, Last Post (10.0) - which is also a Staff Parade when I have to report the Company present or otherwise to the Orderly Officer, and then see that all lights are out at 10.15.  After this I have to call a roll of all NCOs in the Company at 10.30.  After that I may with luck get straight to bed.  I'm then called by the Guard at 5.30 the next morning...

            I'm afraid I can't write any more, Honey, as I've only got a few minutes before First Post.  I come off the Ord Sgt on Friday so will write you a nice long letter then.

                                                                        Bye, bye, Darling,

                                                                                    Your own loving

                                                                                                Dicker.

PS. Love you lots - more than ever....xxxxxxxxxxx

* Fort Brockhurst was built to protect Portsmouth against French invasion but in the mid-nineteenth century.  It is now open to the public as English Heritage's treasure store for the south of England - see Fort Brockhurst .

© Chotie Darling

Moving to Gosport - Friday 30th May 1941

Southampton 

Friday AM.

My Darling Chotie,

                                                      Is anything wrong?  I haven't heard from you for years!  If you have written, I certainly haven't had it.  I hope there's one on the way, and everything's all right.           

            I'm afraid the main theme of this letter must strike a sad note, as I'm Orderly Sergeant for a week, which means I can't get off at all this week-end.  I was hoping to get home, ---- it...

           All 48 hrs have been cancelled owing to our move, which is to Gosport, or rather in between Gosport & Fareham.  I understand it's 3 miles from anywhere, which doesn't sound cheerful.  However, we must hope for the best.

           This Orderly Sergeant racket isn't so good.  You have to be the first up in the morning, - to get the Coy. up, and you're the last in bed at night.

          I hope this will reach you before Saturday as I don't want you to think I may be coming, all the time, when it's imposs.

           We are moving to Gosport on Tuesday - at least that's the orders so far.  They'll probably be cancelled two or three times before then.  That's the Army, all over.

           How are you, Cho Darling?  It seems such ages since I heard from you - whereas it's only about five days really.

            John's just gone on Seven Days, lucky ------- !  He'll have to come back to Gosport.  I haven't heard anything of Eric.  I expect he's enjoying himself somewhere or other, with Jean.  Another lucky ------ !

             Never mind, Sweetheart, it'll soon be all over bar the shouting.  And then ...

 

            Don't you think it's worthwhile though?  It's certainly something to keep us going.  The more I think about it, the more I'm convinced that I'll always like the Army for one thing - it's shown me how much I do miss you, more than I ever dreamed.  I love you such a terrible lot, Darling.  I'm always thinking about you, and hoping & praying that you're safe and well.

             In these horrible days, no one is really safe, what with bombs & land mines & things.  Please, Tootsie, take care of yourself, you're so precious to me. 

             I hope this letter won't make you split your stays with laughing, but I just had to tell you how much you mean to me.

           I'd better close here.

                                   Bye, bye, Precious,

                                                your loving,

                                                            Dicker.

 

Dick was based in Gosport until September 1941 

© Chotie Darling

 

31^st May 1941 - Germany’s Luftwaffe accidentally bombed Dublin (the Republic of Ireland was neutral during World War 2).

Collapse of the pro-Axis revolt in Iraq.

1st June 1941 – rationing began for cloth, clothes, footwear and knitting wool with 66 coupons per person, reduced to 48 in the middle of the war and 36 by 1945. See rationing on the Fashion Era website.

Chotie worked in fashion and would have been quite miserable about these restrictions although she became a very able seamstress, making and updating her own clothes.

 

Eggs also started to be rationed in June 1941 – people were allowed one egg per week but could usually only obtain dried powdered egg. Chotie’s family ran the Creekmoor Dairy in Parkstone and were often able to obtain fresh food from the farms.

Milk was not rationed but could be difficult to come by since many of the pastures for dairy cows were ploughed to grow crops during the war. See Rationing on the Home Sweet Home front website.

Detention guard on Southampton Common - Tuesday 27th May 1941

Southampton

Tuesday 27/May

My Darling Chotie, 

                I'm writing as promised, as soon as I'm on guard, which I missed yesterday.

           I'm now on the detention guard (the one with the barbed-wire round it on the common). There are nine prisoners at the moment, though things are not so bad as I thought they would be as I have a Lance Cpl with me, who does most of the work, leaving me most of the responsibility.  It’s not too bad on the whole.  I shall be quite all right, unless a prisoner escapes, in which case I shall be ruined. But I’ll bayonet the b-----, if I catch him!

           I’ve only just been paid!  They wouldn’t pay me on Sunday, as you know, and on Monday they hadn’t got any!  However, I’ve got it now and that’s all that matters.  The only thing is I’ve borrowed so much now that it scarcely leaves me any left!

           This is neither here nor there.  What I wanted to tell you was that you looked marvellous on Sunday, Darling, and made me love you a hundred times more than I ever thought I could love anyone.

            I miss you so terribly, Darling.  Even when I'm with the boys having a drink, or at the flicks or somewhere, I am always thinking how much better it would be if I could only change them for you.  I have a good time on the whole here with John & Co, but it could never be compared with being with you.  Just to be near you, Tootsie, really means such a lot to me, more than you'll ever know.

           Am I boring you?  I hope not.  You must think I write a lot of drivel - but nothing has ever happened to me like this before.  I'll change the subject before you start throwing things about. 

           It's a funny day to-day here at any rate.  It's real April weather, alternate sun & rain - really marvellous.  The common’ s lovely when the sun's out, as all the trees are wonderfully green.

            I took ‘Rebecca’ back yesterday evening.  The woman who runs the library is very decent and kept insisting that she didn't want any fine but my conscience paid her.  I got Steinbeck's ‘The Grapes of Wrath’.  I read it when first published but it's all I could get and it's worth reading again. 

(smudge)    Mucky puppy!

             There's a lot of rumours around about moving, which will probably be on Thursday, but is not definite.  It will probably be Gosport, which is no good to me.  I'd like to get back to Southbourne again....that seems too good to be true now.  However, we must always hope, as usual. 

            The buglers are practising somewhere outside, and they're raising Cain. They keep playing ‘Cookhouse*’.... blast them! 

            I hope you got back safely and in good time, on Sunday.  I had a lift up Hill Lane, but was soaked all the same.  It rained all yesterday which peeved me not a little as I again got soaked, being too lazy to clean my overcoat buttons...That is the penalty for sheer laziness.

            Have you seen any of the old family?  I suppose they're still alive & kicking, if somewhat feebly.  I had a letter from the mater this morning, also an enclosed from Diller, as mad as ever.

             There's no news as usual, I'm afraid, so I'll close here, and scrounge some tea if possible.

                                                            Bye, bye, Darling.

                                                                        All my love

                                                                                    Dicker 

PS.  Maintenant, Chèrie, je t’aime tout ce qui est possible, avec tout mon âme, et avec toutes mes forces**.

* Buglers memorised their calls through patterned word refrains – mealtimes were announced by the call to “Come to the Cookhouse door, boys, come to the cookhouse door”, which presumably acted on Dick’s saliva glands like Pavlov’s whistle!

** “Darling, I love you as much as possible now, with all my soul and with all my strength.”

© Chotie Darling

 

 
Top photo: Corporal Richard Williams of the Dorset Regiment on guard at home at 'Fairhaven', Orchard Avenue, Parkstone, Poole.

Above: Corporal Richard Williams with his father Dudley Williams in Home Guard uniform and his younger brother Brin, a cadet.

 

 

27th May 1941 - President Roosevelt of the United States declares an unlimited national emergency and asks all Americans to resist Hitlerism.

Germany’s new battleship, the Bismarck, was sunk in the Bay of Biscay, finished off by the torpedoes of the battle-cruiser HMS Dorsetshire.

 

27th – 31st May 1941 – evacuation of defeated Allied troops from Crete.  Poole’s flying-boats assisted with the evacuation. (Extract from ‘Poole and World War II’ written by Derek Beamish, Harold Bennett and John Hillier and published by Poole Historical Trust in 1980)

 

 

Winchester Intelligence course - Wednesday 21st May 1941

Dick was on the 4th Division Intelligence Course

at HQ 4^th Div. in Winchester

from Sunday 18^th May to Saturday 24^th May 1941

20^th May 1942 – Germany invaded Crete.

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

 

Dick had his rank as full Corporal confirmed on 21^st May 1941.

 

Copy of Record

Statement of Service                        Army No. 5731671          Richard Kelner WILLIAMS

THE DORSETSHIRE REGIMENT

Order 100/41          70^th Y.S. Bn                 

Promoted War Substantive          Army Rank Cpl          21-5-41

 

24^th May 1941 – HMS Hood was sunk by the Bismarck with the loss of 1,416 men, out of a crew of 1,419, in the Battle of Denmark Strait. 

24^th May 1941 – Picture Post, the most popular magazine of the time, predicted that Poole (where Chotie lived) with the Isle of Wight and coast by the New Forest would be one of the four main landing areas for German invasion.

"Poole was the first landfall out of Cherbourg. It's gentle shelving beaches were ideal for invasion while, as a landing base, it had 5,000 feet of quays, wharfage facilities and equipment for handling cargoes. It also provided airfield facilities for the BOAC flying boats and had millions of gallons of petrol stored near its quays."

Hitler's plans for invasion in 1940 included the landing of the 6th Army from Cherbourg on the Dorset coast.

(From  ‘Poole and World War II’ written by Derek Beamish, Harold Bennett and John Hillier and published by Poole Historical Trust in 1980.)

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).

Failing the OCTU Board - Tuesday 22nd April 1941

10th April 1941– severe incendiary bombing of Poole suburbs including Broadstone, Upper Parkstone and Canford Cliffs. Water supplies were used up by fire fighting in the lower part of the town so there was no mains water to dowse the blaze at the Canford Cliffs Hotel which burnt to the ground. (The converted remains of the stable block behind the hotel accommodate The Cliff pub and the flat where Chotie was to live for 44 years).

Bournemouth was also bombed that night and several people were killed by the bombing .

11th April 1941 – Incendiary bombing and machine gun attacks in the Poole suburbs of Broadstone and Corfe Mullen. 

13th April 1941– bombing of Upton, near Poole. A Heinkel crash landed at Lydlinch in North Dorset.

(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).

 

13th April 1941 – Russia signs a neutrality pact with the Japanese.

 

14th April 1941 – Rommel besieges Tobruk, a key port in Libya.

 

17th April 1941 – Yugoslavia fell to Germany.

 

18th April 1941 – Britain warns Italy they will attack Rome if Cairo is bombed.

 

19^th April 1941 – British forces land in southern Iraq.

 

 

Southampton

Tuesday

My Darling Little Chotie,

                                                          As promised I'm writing as soon as possible.  To cut a long story short, the Board failed me because I'd done too much service on P.T. and couldn’t therefore have enough military knowledge! 

                I was that mad when I heard, I could have rushed from here to there but now having cooled off somewhat I don't care twopence.

            Last night I went to the Bellemoor* to drown my sorrows with John and a few others.  On getting back to get to bed, however, I found I hadn't got my petrol lighter.  Half crazed with grief, I rushed back to the Bellemoor to see if it was left there, despite the fact that it was after Roll-call.  It wasn't there.  I almost cried. Some time later John comes in and casually gives it to me saying that he had pinched it from my pocket.  I was so relieved; it left me a physical wreck.

            I realised then, Darling, that every thing connected with you means far more than anything this world has to offer, least of all commissions.  If only I could tell you how much you really do mean to me, Tootsie. It makes the Army seem so insignificant.          

            At the present rate things are going, it should be all over in six months to a year.  Just wait ‘till then...

            I mustn't write any more Darling, as I have to make out a pass for my Seven Days.  I doubt if I'll get it now as things appear to be bad in that direction. But, here's hoping.                                                                    

            Bye, bye Darling,

                            Take care,

                                            Your loving Dicker.

P.S.     Vous êtes le lait dans mon thé,

            Ce n’est pas possible de vivre sans toi!**

                        (all my own work!)

S.W.A.L.K.** etc!

 

* the Bellemoor Tavern in Shirley, Southampton

** “You’re the milk in my tea, it’s not possible to live without you!”

*** acronym for “Sealed with a loving kiss”.

 

© Chotie Darling

 

24^th April 1941 – German forces advance into Egypt.

The OCTU Board - Wednesday 9th April 1941

April 1941 – a secret commando unit, the Small Scale Raiding Force, was founded at Poole in response to Churchill’s proposal for “self-contained, thoroughly-equipped raiding units with specially-trained troops of the hunter-class” to “develop a reign of terror down the enemy coasts”.  Initially their HQ was the Antelope Hotel in Poole. ‘Pop’ Seymour the landlord, the Poole pilots and the Naval Officer were the only locals who knew of their existence on 'Maid Honour', a requisitioned Brixham trawler moored in a southern creek of Poole Harbour for their demanding training on the Purbeck hills and coast.

(Extract from  ‘Poole and World War II’ written by Derek Beamish, Harold Bennett and John Hillier and published by Poole Historical Trust in 1980.)

1st April 1941– 10 killed and 20 injured in a raid on Warmwell aerodrome in Dorset. (From ‘Dorset’s War Diary - Battle of Britain to D Day’ by Rodney Legg, Dorset Publishing Company 2004).

 

3rd April 1941 – beginning of pro-Axis uprisings in British Iraq.

 

6th April 1941 – Germany attacked Greece through Bulgaria in Operation Marita.

6th April 1941 - the Allies captured Addis Ababa, the capital of Abyssinia (now Ethiopia).

 

Telegram on Tuesday 8th April 1941 from Southampton

LEAVE POSTPHONED LETTER FOLLOWING = RICHARD

 

 

Southampton

Wednesday 9^th April

My Darling Chotie,

                      I'm writing as soon as possible to let you know the worst - and the best.

                     The point is this.  I should have been on leave from ‘After Duty’ on Tuesday.  However, on Tuesday afternoon (I only wanted about 2 hours to go!) the O.C.* (Capt Burgess) told me I wouldn't be able to go as I had some board or other on Thursday.  Even if I had come home, I should have had to go back again as, if I missed going before this board, it would probably mean waiting six months or so before I had another chance.

                    Looking on the brighter(!) side, the O.C. said that if I get recommended for an O.C.T.U.** I should get leave before I go, which won't be longer than a fortnight away and will probably be ten days not seven.           

                    Another thing.  If I'd been going on leave and not going to see this board, I should have been inoculated and vaccinated. Well, the way it seems to affect me, I should be in bed for at least three days.  I’ve still got the hell of a throat, and it's been over a week since the last.

               So, altogether Darling, it’s all for the better that it has been postponed.  It would have been marvellous to be home for Easter, but we can probably have as much fun afterwards.  Also leaving it until after Easter, I can get much more cash than I could at the moment.

 

            I've explained everything against taking this leave Darling, but I'm really terribly disappointed at not coming home.  I’d have chucked the whole stunt to get home for Easter, but I'm not going to back out now.  I spent about an hour trying to get through on the phone yesterday.  I reckon all the wires were down or something - in any case, the girl was completely daft.      

 

               How have you been keeping, Darling?  I feel OK now but have been under the weather for a week or so.           

                Incidentally, I've got hold of a battered copy of ‘Rebecca’ from a lending library in Shirley.  It's due back in a week, but I can easily pay the fine. I'll send it on after this letter and bring it back after my leave.

 

                Well, Darling here goes for breakfast.  I didn't tell you it was early, did I?!  I'll write some more later.

 

Afternoon

            The O.C. called me into the office this morning and told me I have to go to Winchester tomorrow.  It will only be for the day I suppose.

            George will be home tomorrow for seven days.  He's just been raising Cain owing to the fact that they only gave him £3 to go on leave with!  Poor George...

 

Well, Honey, there doesn't appear to be anything else.  I expect you think I've said enough already! I only hope I have some better news next time. 

             If they let me get away suddenly, I'll send a telegram.

                                                                                    Bye, bye, Darling,

                                                                                              Dicker

 

* O.C. = Officer Commanding

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

© Chotie Darling

Oh, for my Student days! - Thursday 27th March 1941

                                                                   ‘D’ Company, 70th Dorsets (No Girls School now)

Southampton

27th March 1941

My Darling Chotie,

                                        Thanks for the letter, and Birth Certificate, it’s very good of you to go to the trouble of getting it.

           Did I make my journey back sound so terrible?  It was quite fun really.  Everything connected with the Army is grumbled at – at the time, but doesn’t seem half so bad afterwards.

           I hope you’re managing to bear up all right.  Things are quite good here – all things considered – but it wouldn’t be much of a life if I hadn’t my Chubby Baby to dream about, in fact it wouldn’t be a life at all.

            I had a letter from Eric to-day.  He’s a queer bloke.  He thanked me most profusely for ‘what I did on the beach’!  I think he thought I’d have walked off and left him!  He always says nothing for months after anything, and then suddenly holds forth.  He also enclosed 3 shillings, which was very welcome. He owes me about £3, the rat!

           I’m afraid I don’t get much time to write here, if any.  I always seem to be on duty – they have a nasty habit of grabbing me when there’s any work to be done!  However, who am I to grumble?  I’ve got the most wonderful wife in the world, which is more than any General has.

           I write so seldom now that I can hardly hold a pen!  Oh, for my Student days!  By the time I get out of the Army I'll be so dull I shall have to keep pigs or something.  I haven’t had time to read anything lately, besides I can never get settled on any one thing for long.

            I’ve been up on the range for the last three days, instructing.  The best part of it is that I’m no good myself

            Well, Darling, I’m on duty till lights out so I must say night night, Honey

                                                           your adoring sweetheart

                                                                                                Dicker

                                                                                                x x x x x x x

                                                                                                I.T.A.L.Y.*

* acronym for “I trust and love you”

 © Chotie Darling

 

27th March 1941 – a ‘sneak raider’ bomber attacked the gas works at Branksome, Poole.  34  were killed and 23 injured when the works Mess Hall was hit at lunchtime. (From  ‘Poole and World War II’ written by Derek Beamish, Harold Bennett and John Hillier and published by Poole Historical Trust in 1980.) 

 

30^th March 1941 – the German Afrika Korps began their offensive in N. Africa.

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.

Bombs every night - Friday 21st and Saturday 22nd March 1941

 ‘D’ Company, 70th Dorsets

Southampton, Hants.

My Darling little Chotie,

                                               Many thanks for the letter, Darling, which I’ve just received.

        It’s now Friday afternoon and I’m on guard.  I went on at seven o’clock yesterday and come off at seven this evening. Unfortunately I haven’t been paid yet and probably won’t get paid until tomorrow. What abject misery!

Saturday morning.

                                                Well, Darling I’m off guard and waiting to go on morning parade.  We keep getting sirens here, about six a day. There’s always one about 6-30, (reveille)!

           There are rumours about of going back to Southbourne.  I only hope they’re true.  In any case it won’t be for another fortnight or so.  I’m pretty fed up with this place.  The bombs rain down every night.  I don’t mind bombs but I can’t tolerate shelters.  Spending hours in shelters in the early hours of the morning is enough to make anyone fed up.

 

Saturday Afternoon

                                                                                    I’ve just come from a meeting of the Corporals’ Club.  It’s not too bad as we get papers etc. in the Corporals’ Room.

            Well Darling, I’m afraid there’s nothing else to tell you, except I think of you all the while and dream of that wonderful time which is bound to come after the end of the war when we can really start to live.

            I’d hoped & prayed that I could have got home this weekend but, as Corporal Holloway is still at Southbourne, I’m on guard again on Sunday.                                          

                            Bye bye for now Darling,

                                                Your ever loving,

                                                                        Dicker

 

© Chotie Darling

 

21st March 1941 – the 'Glamour Puffer’, which brought young Poole women to work at the Royal Navy’s Cordite factory at Holton Heath, was bombed but everyone survived. (From  ‘Poole and World War II’ written by Derek Beamish, Harold Bennett and John Hillier and published by Poole Historical Trust in 1980.) 

 

Air Raids in Southampton - March 1941

 

 

 ‘D’ Company, 70th Dorsets

Southampton, Hants.

My Darling Chotie,

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

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

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

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

        

            That’s enough of guards – they’re pretty depressing things anyway. To turn to a more cheerful subject, I hope to get home next weekend for a few hours – either on Saturday or Sunday.  It all depends on when I have to go on guard again. 

             If it falls on Saturday evening it ruins me, as there wouldn’t be time to get home and I would be on guard all the Sunday.  I believe, however, that I go on again on Friday, which means I come off Saturday night and could get home on the Sunday.  We must trust to luck as usual.  I think I can make it all right.

           

               I’ve been to the flicks twice lately – saw ‘The Great Dictator’ and ‘Black Fury’ (Paul Muni).  How anyone could see anything in the ‘Great Dictator’ I don’t know.  I thought it was chronic.  ‘Black Fury’ was quite good but nothing up to the usual Muni standard.        

                The place we go to (the only place we are allowed without a pass) is Shirley.  I’ve no idea where it lies on the map but it’s inland from Southampton.  It’s a pretty dull place; reminds me of the East End on Sunday – all 50 shilling tailors and patent leather.

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

           

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

           

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

 

            Later

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

           When there’s a night raid on the shrapnel comes down like rain, from the Anti-Aircraft Barrage.  There’s not a house in the whole place that hasn’t got some windows out or half the roof gone.

           It’s certainly more interesting from that point of view, as there’s seldom a dull moment at night.  It makes the guards a lot more fun when you can hear the shrapnel on the roof.

           

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

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

 

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

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

                                                            Your ever loving,

                                                                                    Dicker

 

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

 

* RSM – Regimental Sergeant Major

 

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

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

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

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

*****Dick played the piano fluently by ear.

Southampton - Wednesday 12th March 1941

Chotie Darling

 

Part 1 The Blue Cockade

 

Chapter 3 Guarding England – spring

 

Dedicated to the memory of my mother

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

 

 

Dick was still a Corporal in ‘D’ company

of the 70^th ('Young Soldiers') Battalion of the Dorset Regiment

 

March 1941 – jam, syrup and treacle also now rationed.

1^st March 1941 – Bulgaria joins the Tripartite Pact with Germany, Italy and Japan.

 

10^th March 1941

Dick, still a Corporal in ‘D’ company

70^th Battalion of the Dorset Regiment,

appears to have moved to Southampton around this time.

 

11^th March 1941 - The Lend-Lease Act was approved in the US. Through this programme the USA supplied the Allies with more than 40 billion dollars of war materials. Less than one quarter of this ‘loan’ was ever repaid.

 

‘D’ Company 70th Dorsets

Girls Grammar School

Southampton, Hants.

Chotie,

                                                                        Well, here I am Darling, writing at my first opportunity just to let you know I arrived here safely and to let you know the address. 

           I don’t know whether it’s official or not but as no one ever knows the address for days after we move, I always invent my own, which is generally more or less correct & which always seems to reach me anyhow.

            I’m in the N.A.F.F.I. in our billets, which is pretty good – plenty of everything including chocolate(!) and beer!

            There was a lecture this evening for NCO’s by the Colonel.  He kept us waiting for 1½ hours and then spoke for 10 mins.  I suppose it’s a C.O.’s privilege rather like a woman’s….

            This is the first ‘breather’ I’ve had for 2 days.  We’ve been hard at it solidly.  At the first rest I go for a beer and writing pad.

            I miss you an awful lot, Darling.  Much more than I can hope to tell you.  It’s hell going away again.  It’s hard to say how long we’ll be here.  I think we’ll be going back to Salisbury soon. 

            There was a terrific raid here last night. It lasted from 7pm to 3 this morning.  Since then we’ve had six alerts.

 

            Leave from here will be out of the question, I think.  We also have a Guard, which means more work, and greater difficulty in getting in at night.  However, we must look on the bright side.  I may be able to get a 48 hr or even a seven days in the next few weeks.

           I’m afraid I must close here, Darling as there’s more work to do.  It’s now 8 o’clock!

                                                            all my love, Precious

                                                                                    Dicker

PS I’ll write again tomorrow.  I’ll get more time then.

© Chotie Darling

Related articles

"Just relax Lulubell" - Sunday 3rd January 1943

Blitz in Southampton - Monday January 1941

20^th January 1941 – compulsory fire watching duty introduced in Great Britain. All shops and office buildings had at all times to be attended and, at night or in any ‘red alert’ there had to be a ‘Roof Warden’ on duty.

As an employee of Beales, in Bournemouth, Chotie had to take her turn at night-time fire watching on the roof. Beales was later destroyed by bombing on 23rd May 1943, in the worst attack on Bournemouth during the war.

 

Rye Cottage, Marine Parade West

Lee-on-Solent, Hants. 

My Darling,

                                                                                    I'm writing as I promised as soon as possible to let you know that I arrived safely - but only just.  I got to Southampton at 8 o'clock and then the trouble started.  I didn't get back to camp until 3 o'clock this morning.  There was a terrific Blitz on* and we had to wait on the station from 8.15 until 12.30!  However the train eventually came and we reached Fareham, at about 2.30.   Here I met with some luck as there was a naval lorry going back to the camp.  It dropped me about a hundred yards from my billet.

             I had to go on Guard at 7 o'clock this morning so I didn't get much sleep - and if anyone catches me asleep to-night I'm for a court-martial. What a life! 

             Still I mustn't grumble as my little wife is all that really matters in this heartless world.  (Another proposal!)  I must really get down to this proposal business when I get back in civvies...You're not going to get out of it as easily as you think...

             I felt terrible this morning, Darling.  It's pretty chronic when you get back from leave and haven't anyone you can call a friend in the whole company. Apart from Clive there isn't one man whom I could ever get to know or like.

 

            Well, Sweetheart, I've just had supper, (2 zeppelins in a cloud**) and feel at ease once again. 

             I hope you got back from Bmth all right - and please Darling, do look after yourself, whatever you do. You'll never know how really precious you are to me.  I just can't help thinking of you the whole time here.

             I don't think I've ever felt so terribly depressed and lonely as I did this morning.  Cho Darling, I don't know what you must be thinking about me after coming home and being so terribly cold.  I suppose it's not my fault really, but I can't adapt myself to home life in a few hours.  I worry too much I suppose.

             Whatever happens, the next time I get home we must go to the Shipwrights’ or Norfolk*** or somewhere and get completely blotto.  At any rate I'll be home earlier next time, which will mean we can at least go somewhere in the evening.

 Well, Darling I must close here as the Orderly Officer is due any moment,                             

                                                                        night, night Precious

                                                                                    All yours

                                                                                                “Dicker”

* Southampton was the one of the most heavily bombed cities (7^th) in Britain during WW2. As Britain’s number one military port and the home of Spitfire production, just across the Channel from northern France, it was an obvious target.

** Army slang for canteen sausages in mash.

*** The Shipwrights Arms was a pub on Poole Quay (demolished in 1978). Dick had taken Chotie there before the war, much to her mother’s horror.  Pubs in Poole were then almost exclusively a male preserve and Chotie’s family were teetotal – even Chotie had signed ‘the Pledge’ - "We agree to abstain from all liquors of an intoxicating quality whether ale, porter, wine or ardent spirits, except as medicene.”

 

“My mother tore off down to the Williams’ house after she found out Dicker had taken me to a pub.  I had not even been in the bar but had played skittles and drunk one grapefruit juice”.  From ‘Grandma’s Story’ written for Chotie’s grandchildren. However another version of ‘Chotie’s Story’ has Dicker “sneaking me into pubs, taboo with my family in those days”!

There was little other social life besides the pubs during the war and, with war work giving many women more independence, pubs were soon frequented by both sexes.

 *** The Norfolk is still a fine Edwardian Hotel near the centre of Bournemouth.

 © Chotie Darling

 

January 22^nd 1941 - British and Australian forces capture the port of Tobruk, Libya from Italy.

 

22nd to 25th January 1941 – German minelaying off the Dorset coast.

Last week of January 1941 – the Telecommunications Research Establishment at Worth Matravers commandeered the BBC’s pre-war television transmitter, at Alexandra Palace in London, to jam the newly refined German radio beam system for night time location of English targets.

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

Lee on Solent

 

Saturday 11^th January 1941

Postcard of LEE-ON-SOLENT, THE TOWER ENTRANCE TO THE PIER

 Dear Tootsie,

                                                          Have moved and am now living in the town shown overleaf!  May be home for a few hours next weekend.  Letter to follow

love Dicker

PS Don't know address yet.

 

In 1935 the Lee Tower complex was built on the seafront next to the old pier and railway station. It was designed by architects Yates, Cook & Derbyshire, and comprised a white v-shaped Art Deco building with a 120-foot tower. The complex housed a cinema, ballroom and restaurant, as well as a viewing platform at the tower's peak.  The pier, unrepaired after breaching in aid of coastal defence in World War II, was demolished in 1958 and the complex was demolished in 1971, with its land now used for the promenade and remembrance gardens (Wikipedia).

 Dick was based at Lee-on-Solent

until February 1941

 

 

A light in the darkness - Wednesday 25th December 1940

Corsham, Wilts

Christmas Day

My Precious Darling,

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

                                                                            Goodnight, Cho Darling

                                                                                Your adoring

                                                                                                Dicker

 

© Chotie Darling, 2010

 

The War at Sea – 567 Allied ships were sunk by U-boats in 1940 (almost 3 million gross tons of shipping) although only 24 U boats were lost -World War 2 Timeline .

In the mud - Wednesday 11th and Thursday 12th December 1940

Corsham, Wilts

My Darling,

            I must apologise for not writing before, but quite a lot has happened in the last few days.

            As you will see from above, we have moved in the Bath direction, and are now doing guards at an Aerodrome in this vicinity.

            The place is really undescribable. We are now in wretched little huts, which are stone cold. The mud is feet thick. Prepare for it, there is no water! That's quite literal. All the water in the cookhouse (I don't know where it comes from) has to be boiled before use. I haven't washed or shaved for three days. It's criminal to say the least.

            There is no village or shops within 3 miles, Bath being about 5 miles away. The NAAFI here sells only Beer & Cigarettes, no chocolate or cakes. We do 24 hrs on guard (ie no sleep) & then 24 hrs off. Well, when I got off my guard, I got no dinner and in what should have been my 24 hrs I had to supervise trench digging in pouring rain! What a life!

            Darling, it's now Thursday and I'm sitting outside the Guard hut out in the wilds, in front of a log fire. I came on this morning at 9 and end at 9 on Friday morning, (24 hrs). It's a marvellous day, frost early but now in glorious sunshine.

            I was very pleased to hear about your new job*. I hope you'll like it and get on very well there, but remember eyes off the boys in the display.

            Darling, it seems such ages since I've seen you. We're supposed to be on this job for a month, which means I'm afraid no leave for that long. The South Staffs, whom we relieved when we came here hadn't had any leave for over nine months. It's a bad case but that's the Army all over now.

            Incidentally, Eric has had a shocking letter from Jean. Apparently she has been ogling someone else in his absence and has the nerve to ask Eric for permission to go out with him as she is lonely! What a woman!

            Please Cho Darling, don't ever run out on me now, as you're the only thing that makes this wretched life worthwhile.

            Eric is in the hell of the stew and hints at suicide & desertion etc. I don't blame him, I'm only too sure I would.

            Lets talk of more pleasant things. It seems now that this show won't last so very long. Wouldn't it be marvellous if it would end in a few months? It would seem too good to be true. But as Dumas says we can only wait & hope.

                                                                   Well, Darling, I must close now as I perceive the Orderly Officer on the horizon.

                                                                                            Your adoring & ever devoted

                                                                                                                                Dicker

                                                                                                                                    Dieu te garde***

P.S. Address is:-

‘A’ Company (‘A’ not ‘L’)

70^th Dorsets

CORSHAM

Wilts

 

*Chotie: “I was working at Beales in the Window Display Department (after F W Collins). Colleagues Enid Cooper, later to become very big in the fashion world, Arty (the artist) and two others – I cannot recall their names. Miss Boyle, the manageress, was a dragon (she had sued her boyfriend for breach of promise.) At night we had to do firewatch duty. Later on Beales was mostly destroyed by a bomb.”

From ‘Grandma’s Story’ written for Chotie’s grandchildren.

** “Until the day when God shall deign to reveal the future to man, all human wisdom is summed up in these two words,--'Wait and hope'.” Quotation from ‘The Count of Monte Cristo’ by Alexandre Dumas.

***'God keep you'

 

Dick was based in Corsham, Wiltshire,

until January 1941.

© Chotie Darling, 2010

 

16th December 1940 – first RAF ‘reprisal raid’ for the Blitz on a German town (Mannheim).

18th December 1940 – Hitler confirms plans for ‘Operation Barbarossa’, German invasion of the Soviet Union.

To Corsham Aerodrome - 7th December 1940

Chippenham, Wilts

My Darling Chotie,

                                                                I must reply immediately to your letter for which many thanks.

            Cho, Darling, I'm terribly sorry about this weekend. I didn't know you missed me so much.

            The trouble is, we are moving on Monday, and I'm probably going on a Vanguard which will be on Sunday. All leave of every description has been stopped. We shall be there for a month, doing guards at an aerodrome. The name of the place is Corsham. It's a few miles from Bath. Whether there will be any leave there, I can't say.

            I know it's terrible Darling, but we'll make up for it one day.

            I saw the Officer in Charge of our Company today, about a commission. He said he'd recommend me to the Colonel, at his first opportunity. Whether he will or not however, is another thing.

            Incidentally, I was told that a young officer was asking for me at the ‘On Duty Room’ a couple of days ago. Unfortunately, I was out, and missed him. I believe it must have been Toni. I was mad as I'd loved to have seen him.

            Another point of note. This company is now ‘A’ and not ‘K’ as previously. I've also got a new battledress, which I think is about time as we've had this for 6 months.

                                Well, Darling, there doesn't seem much more to tell you, except I still adore you and still pray to see you soon.

                                                                    Bye, bye, Cho, Dear,

                                                                                                your adoring

                                                                                                      Dicker

 

 

Dick was in ‘A’ company of the 70^th Dorsets

for the rest of December 1940

 

© Chotie Darling, 2010

 

8th December 1940 – General Franco declares Spain will not enter the war.

9^th December 1940 – commencement of Allied counter-attack on Italy in the Western Desert called Operation Compass.

11th December 1940 – British victory over the Italians at Sidi Barrani in Egypt.

Raid on Chippenham - 20th November 1940

Chippenham, Wilts

Wednesday

My Darlingest,

                                                Many thanks for the letter which I have just received.  I'm replying instantly as I have one stamp between me and starvation.  I drew 30/- this week, but as I was endeavouring to influence the C.S.M. and as we met Pete, it all went by Saturday evening.  The more I draw the less far it seems to go.

     Well, Honey, you don't mention anything re FWC*.  I see that your letter was written from work.  I hope everything turns out all right, as you certainly deserve it.

     You seem to be having a pretty hot time now.  I wish I could say the same for myself.  Things are very dull here.  On occasion we go out and drown our sorrows but that's all it amounts to.  We very seldom seem to get very merry.

     I hope you won't go and fall for a Guardsman.  They are a trifle smarter than the Dorsets you know.  Have a good time by all means, but don't forget your little Dicker whatever you do, as I'm afraid you're vital to me now.

     Pete and Co are on an NCOs’ Cadre at the moment.  That's a course of sorts.  I did my best and got out of it as I much prefer to go away on a pukka course.  Local courses sound alright but amount to very little.  This particular one is being taken by an old Sergeant, who fondly imagines this is 1914.  He's very smart but lives in the past as so many old soldiers do (Pa for example).

     At any rate nothing can be done, until I get back to duty.  Then the sparks will fly, and I don't mean maybe.

     There's going to be a pretty good change in about a fortnight's time.  Everyone is going to be switched around in platoons and companies.  I'd like a change from ‘K’ as I'm pretty fed up with it.  We've got a new CEO now who is rather a ----.  He stripped a Cpl in ‘D’ for coming in an hour late after he'd been to a dance.  I'm glad I'm not still in ‘D’ as I'd have been finished by now.

    Commissions are still on the horizon, but are approaching gradually. Nil desperandum.

     I'm writing this in an old theatre, in the wings.  We use it for P.T. this weather.

     Went to see ‘ Convoy’ last night as I’d missed it before.  Then we had a raid here.  I should think that half the Jerry Air Force were up.  Plenty of bombs came down, but not too near.

     Well, I must close now and do some work.  The CSMI is on a course, which leaves me in charge of PT for 300 men!

         So long, Honey

                    your devoted

                                        Dicker

P.S. Remember what I said about that Guardsman ....

 

* Chotie’s place of work, which was closing down.

© Chotie Darling, 2010

 

20^th November 1940 – Hungary joins the Tripartite Pact with Germany, Italy and Japan.

22nd November 1940 - Italian 9th Army defeated by Greeks.

23^rd November 1940 – Romania agrees to join the Tripartite Pact with Germany, Italy and Japan.

24^th November 1940 – Slovakia joins the Tripartite Pact with Germany, Italy and Japan.

'pretty merry' in Chippenham - 16th November 1940

 

Chippenham

Wilts.

Saturday.

My Darling,

Thanks for the letter.  The Post-Corporal whose job it is to deliver the mail said nothing to me about it, but I later discovered it tucked in the blankets in my kit.  As usual, it was just what I needed to cheer me up. 

 

Pete came back as you probably know on Friday.  McCracken and I were pretty merry when we met him in town, but what were we like when we rolled back to billets at 10-30?  Our condition was certainly nobody’s business!

 

However, I've spent the day sobering up, and am now writing this in the ‘George’, a very old pub which we frequent; when we have the price of a pint or two.

 

Well, Darling, I hope you're keeping well and looking after yourself in my absence.  You really must look after yourself and take care, as you're all I've got that matters now.

 

I don't know when I shall get another 48 hrs.  I'm pretty busy now as I’m doing duty & P.T. as well & it's pretty tiring not to mention the small amount of time I get off.

 

I can't write any more now, but will again tomorrow.  I'm afraid I've been called for Batt. Ord. Sergeant* for tonight as we had four deserters yesterday.

 

                 all my love

                         your devoted

                                             Dicker

                            S.W.A.L.K.

 

* Orderly Sergeant is the first Sergeant of a company.

 

© Chotie Darling, 2010

 

Bombs in Birmingham - early November 1940

Chotie Darling

Part 1         The Blue Cockade

Chapter 2           Guarding England – winter

Dedicated to the memory of my mother

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

 

 

Dick was posted to the 70^th Battalion of the Bath & Dorsets

on 1^st November 1940.

He was in ‘K’ Company, based in Chippenham, until mid December.

The 70^th or Young Soldiers Battalions were formed about this time to take volunteers too young to be conscripted. They were generally over 18 and under 20.

(Dick was 19 in July 1940, soon after he joined up.)

 

from Record

Statement of Service            Army No. 5731671             Richard Kelner WILLIAMS 

THE DORSETSHIRE REGIMENT

Order 198/48            Unit 6^th H.D. Bn          Posted to 70^th Bn          Army Rank A/Cpl          1-11-40

 

 

3rd November 1940 – British troops arrive in Greece to fight the Italians.

 

 

NB Change of Batt.

70 Bath Dorset Regt.

‘ K’ Coy.

London Rd

Chippenham

 Wilts.

My Darling Cho-cho,

                                                                                                Well, at last I'm now able to write. It's been one long rush for the last week or so, I'll tell you all about it in a moment.

            I was very sorry to hear that F W* has been forced to close down.  It must have been rather a blow. I don't suppose you're very worried though!  Nothing worries us does it, Darling?  You can now join the ATS and get stationed near me.  That would be just about heaven I reckon.

    Talking about getting stationed near me, I'm now at a place called Chippenham, which is marvellous.  We’re billeted over a Burton's (tailors) right in the middle of the town.  I've just given the place the once-over, and when I say it's OK I don't mean maybe.  It's got some marvellous pubs, teashops & everything.  I don't know how long we’ll stay here but it's all right by me.

    I was going down to dinner on Friday when Gurd (CSM) pounced on me and yelled “Escort to Birmingham!” whereupon I proceed to pack up my goods and chattels and, having conscripted a private, set off for Brum.  It took us just about 8 hours to get there. 

     We got to Brum about 11 pm in pouring rain & blackout etc, with nowhere to sleep and no money (having lent all mine to Eric to go on leave with).  Bombs were falling all over the place.  Marshall and Snelgrove's (about as big as Bobby’s**) was reduced to an ash heap.  I ended up sleeping in a cellar under some barracks. 

    I had two days in Brum arriving back via Bristol with the prisoner who was doing his best to escape (bless his little heart...).  It was no joke, I can tell you.

    Well, Darling, I'm afraid there's nothing else of interest.  I may be able to get home this weekend, I don't know yet.

 

            I’ll write again anyway. 

                            Loving you more than ever

                                                            Your devoted

                                                                                Dicker

  

* FW was Chotie’s place of work: 

“At fourteen my Mum took me to Bournemouth for a successful interview in Mr F W Collins’ rather swanky dress shop, selling hats, furs and clothes ‘for every occasion’ in the arcade.  Mrs Pitman, the rather sad manageress (her husband was a rotter) took me in hand and trained me to be a Sales Assistant and Window Dresser.  Mrs Collins showed me how to make and trim hats. 

Mary, whose parents kept the Anglo-Swiss Hotel, also worked there. We used to hide in the lower floor and cold store room (where furs were kept in summer), putting the evening dresses against us, which were lovely, instilling in me a love of beautiful clothes.

The errand boy took a shine to me and bought me a handbag (Mum made me give it him back).  You could not, in those days, accept presents from ‘any old Harry’.

 I forgot to mention, at thirteen I won the ‘Atlanta Cup’ for physique out of all the Poole schools.  Must have been quite a dish!”  

From ‘Grandma’s Story’ written for Chotie’s grandchildren.

** Bobby’s was a large department store in the centre of Bournemouth (later Debenhams, then Bobby's again).

© Chotie Darling, 2010