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Extracts from Arthur Allvey’s letters to his wife, Gladys, December 1944

24-12-44 Today we received stacks of mail and I was very pleased to receive your letter No. 14 among it… In this same delivery I had cards from Grace, your mother and Gran, and a letter from your mother…

Just now the weather is very seasonable with heavy frosts … As you can imagine it’s extremely cold but as clear as crystal and the air is crisp and dry. I’m hoping this fine spell continues for a while to enable us to take full advantage of the Nazis sudden sally from their Siegfried defences in the south. This weather will just suit the Allied Air Forces and they are out in great force I see and are doing some excellent work.

Well darling it’s now Christmas Eve and tomorrow we shall have a special spread having received Christmas rations including poultry. We’ve pulled up a young fir tree and have found some holly with which we intend to decorate a room in a school which we have secured for the dinner. Some beer and spirits have arrived for those who want it.

Many parcels and papers have reached us today but the latter are out of date but, since we have a wireless set, we get the news regularly.

26-12-44 All through Christmas Eve and Christmas Day sacks of letters and parcels kept arriving at the battery but today the Army Post Office staff has been resting. I told you of the letters and cards which I received in my letter of Christmas Eve darling.

Well sweetheart it is now evening on Boxing Day and I have fared very well during this uneventful Christmas. At the moment there is a broadcast on the wireless of the pantomime ‘Robin Hood’.

On Christmas morning, in accordance with an army tradition, the officers and senior N.C.O.s brought us tea in bed.

There’s been plenty to eat — more than enough in fact. We had dinner in a school room which we’d decorated for the occasion with holly and two Christmas trees; the trees were decorated with candles and suchlike. There were bars of chocolate and packets of sugared almonds as well as apples and oranges for everybody. Also hundreds of cigarettes and cigars all issued free.

The dinner was very good and again the officers and N.C.O.s waited upon us. There was tinned poultry with apple sauce and sage and onions, baked potatoes and peas with thick gravy. Then we had Christmas pudding with sauce and mince tarts. In addition to dozens of bottles of English beer, some of our people had procured from Brussels on the previous evening a barrel of local beer, so that for those that wanted it there was plenty of liquor and they took full advantage of the fact. Afterwards we sat smoking our fat cigars and pecking at the dessert and it was only with difficulty that we left the dining room, some to sleep, some to drink more and the wiser ones to take it easy. I sat by the stove in the C.P. — by the way we’ve had our usual luck in accommodation having secured a vacant house which is very comfortable — and did some reading.

Our tea was an equally bountiful feast though few of us could tackle much: there was salmon, celery, bread and jam, sausage rolls, mince pies and a gigantic Christmas cake plentifully seasoned with rum and thick with fruit, of which I secured a good chunk though don’t imagine I ate all these things there and then because I didn’t dear but have been consuming them at odd moments ever since. You know how greedy I am darling but it’s only once in a year that the army whacks out so generously.

Sorry to dwell so long upon this topic my dear but except to describe my rations there’s little to tell about how I spent Christmas. Actually whether we should be able to consume our rations or be on the road eating the usual haversack rations, i. e. bully beef and biscuits, on Christmas Day, was governed by the toss of a coin and our Colonel won the toss so another unfortunate regiment was destined for the latter hard fate while we enjoyed the comfort of our billets.

I’ve missed you awfully and have been thinking of you and wondering what you were doing. I do hope that you’ve kept cheerful and managed to enjoy yourself darling.

The weather has remained just as I described it in my previous letter — really perfect for the time of year. All today a thick hoar frost has remained on the ground … It’s first class weather for our operations, aerial and otherwise, and it won’t be long, in my opinion, before further good news of the battle will be forthcoming.

28-12-44 Travelling in this weather isn’t very pleasant but, of course, one is always moving about. Recently I was in Tilburg for a few days and was billeted in a house with civilians where I was quite comfortable. I could soon have learnt some Dutch here had there been time as the son was learning English and I gave him some assistance; also a refugee from Germany, a young woman, could speak German. I’ve mentioned the stay at this place previously without however stating the name of the town. It’s a large town with a busy shopping centre and hasn’t been badly damaged. On the day that I went to this place I travelled in three different countries and have now been in seven foreign countries altogether including my journeys in the Middle East.

31-12-44 Just a short note darling on this last day of the expiring year to let you know that all is well with me and I am in the best of health saving for a slight headache which, I believe, was caused by my having had no sleep the night before last and having spent part of yesterday dozing over an oilstove whilst travelling in our gin palace which is the name given to the kind of vehicle in which I always travel. In this respect I’m lucky because I have a car which is entirely enclosed, and thus I can shut myself in, black out the windows for which purpose there are sliding shutters provided, and light my stove. It’s not particularly comfortable since a great deal of C.P. equipment is carried therein, in addition to our personal kit and bedding, and one has to sleep sitting up in a most confined space, but it can be made fairly warm and therefore I’m better off than the majority of our people who travel in open vehicles or with only canvas covers which invariably let in the draughts. However a headache is the least of the possible evils with which one may be afflicted in these chaotic times so I shan’t complain…

Well sweetheart I’ve had no mail for some time but neither has anybody and the mail situation has deteriorated in recent weeks — my last letter from you was dated 14th Dec., so evidently there has been a breakdown somewhere in the A.P.O. I hope that you are receiving my letters more regularly dearest as I’ve been writing every other day for the most part.

Travelling in this part of the country I was struck by the beauty of the scenery, enhanced as it was by the pure white carpet of frost. In any climatic conditions this area would be beautiful with its gently undulating fields, its picturesque old farmsteads and chateaux and the many fine woods but when the whole panorama is garlanded in hoar frost and is viewed in the radiance of the full moon it’s impossible to find words in which to express one’s emotions…

The night when I had no sleep we arrived at a little village which, though I never saw it in the light of day, was of infinite charm. It was an old world place with irregular roads and grey stone cottages clustered around a crossroads. On one corner of the crossroads was the wall, and then the courtyard surrounded by its mangers and stalls, of the farmhouse in which I was billeted for the night and, following the road beyond the farm, one came to a mill stream frozen solid saving for a meagre trickle which made a musical sound on the still night air. On the opposite corner from the farmhouse were the wrought iron gates giving entrance to the extensive park surrounding a large chateau… It was possible to pick out every feature of the village bathed as it was in the light of the moon and the moon and the frost combined to give it an almost phosphorescent brilliance.

I did a guard duty at this village and so had plenty of opportunity to examine it. At 4 the next morning we had to be up and consequently, it was no use going to bed so, before and after my guard, I sat in a comfortable chair before a red-hot stove in the living room of the farm.

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