大象传媒

This is a copy of a letter to my Father from my Uncle who was in the Pioneer Corps. The letter must have been written in 1944.

Saturday 2nd September

Dear Arthur

As I have nothing to do I thought I would write you a few lines, may be I could interest you in a few things that have happened since I left England.

Well to begin with I hope you are still keeping quite OK as it leaves me at present. Edie wrote and said you have been home for a short leave, expect you were glad to get home after waiting such a long time, I see it was 7th February I last went on leave, I鈥檇 give anything to be able to get home even if it were only a few hours, just to get things straightened up, between Ann and I, its very worrying, all I hope is that everything will blow over and be alright again, I don鈥檛 quite know what is happening now as I鈥檝e not heard from Ann for about a week. She used to write almost everyday, maybe the mail is held up somewhere, but still I don鈥檛 want to bother you with my troubles. We must hope for the best. I expect you have had a busy time with the flying bombs, but it doesn鈥檛 look as if you鈥檒l be bothered with them much longer. I have only seen two over this way. They were flying very low and sounded more like a motor bike. It鈥檚 funny how they came over here, they came in from the sea. Well now I will tell you a little of some of the experiences we have had. To begin at the beginning, we set foot off English soil on 12th June, (D.6). We were anchored off the Thames for 48 hrs, then set sail.
The journey took 12 hrs, it was just like a pleasure cruise, the sea was lovely and calm and no-one was sea sick. We sighted the French coast at 8pm on 15th June. We spent the night on board. It was a terrible night as jerry was over all the time, but our ship was a lucky one, there was thousands of ships in sight. Well at 5am on the 16th we all climbed down a rope ladder to the landing craft. Of course we had all our full kit, everything had to be packed in our valise and small pack as we have no kit-bags. We also carried one blanket, and two days emergency rations. We finally landed on French soil about 6am.
Everything was quiet and seemed haunted. There were no houses for miles, just a few red-caps to direct the way. We started marching as soon as we were landed. We stopped for breakfast about 9am then went on again till 2pm, then had some dinner, of course our officer lost his way. We saw the King that afternoon with General Montgomery. We marched and marched until 11pm at night. At one time we were one mile from the front line. Anyway we stopped at 11pm, slept under some lorries, then the next morning we moved off again, altogether we marched 23 Kilometres. We stayed about two miles from Bayeax for two days, then moved to our detachments. We are stationed in a nice little village right on the coast. We have been here all the time. We were only six miles from the jerry until a couple of weeks ago, of course now the front line has moved further away. We were being continually shelled, and ever night jerry used to keep us awake, but now it鈥檚 much quieter. I don鈥檛 know if you have ever heard a shell screaming through the air, I must say it makes you think. One day I was sitting on the beach when a shell came over, it landed a few yards away, five fellows were killed but I was just lucky. We have had several narrow escapes. All I hope now is that nothing happens. It seems pretty certain we have the jerry on the run, and the war will soon be over. We always have plenty of work. We used to work in shifts, from 6 to 2pm, and 2 to 10pm, but now the evenings are to dark so we are working from 8am to 5.30pm. Sometimes if there鈥檚 a lot of work we stay on till it鈥檚 dark. Anyway this my day off, as I am on guard tonight. The weather has been lovely, and have had some heavy storms but its not been too bad, the weather makes all the difference. When we first came here our three biggest worries were, snipers, mines and booby-traps. The beaches were covered with hundreds of mines. Things are much more settled now. The Frenchmen are working with us and helping to straighten things out. We very often see thousands of bombers come over from England. Only a few weeks ago the jerry ack-ack were firing at the planes at they passed overhead. The battle for Caen was terrible, the guns were firing from morning till night and all night long for weeks, but now that has all gone quiet, we hardly know there is a war on now. When we first left England we were living on compo rations, we had them for about six-weeks, then finally we had our first slice of bread, now we get ordinary rations and plenty of white bread, we have had to rough it and like it, now they were tightening up on us, making us salute all officers and go about dressed just so. Of course all saluting was stopped when we first landed here, because of snipers. We can always buy plenty of butter and cheese, although the 21st Army Group have tried to stop that now. We can buy duty free cigarettes from our canteen, and we all get 50 free each week, of course I don鈥檛 smoke, but I get right of them, I should have sent some home for you but we cannot send duty free parcels, not yet. We have a small Cinema here; its been hit by a shell, but they are using it now. I've been twice this week, the films are both Technicolor this week, called, 鈥淧in-up Girl鈥� and
鈥淐over Girl鈥�. They are both good films. Next week is Bing Crosby in 鈥淕oing My Way鈥�. Well Arthur I don鈥檛 know if you are getting bored reading all this but I thought maybe you would like to know a little of what has happened over here. I think it will pass the censor ok. Anyway I am posting it in a green envelope.

The news is still very good. The other evening we heard a rumour that gas had been dropped in England, but so far we haven鈥檛 heard the truth. If jerry uses gas it will be his lot, because with our great Air Force we could finish them in one day. The Air Force is doing great work over here. I think now I have told you about everything, so all I hope now is that the war will soon be over. Its exactly five years ago, when I heard the first warning sound in London at 11am on the 3rd September. Hope this letter finds you well. I am just going to write a few lines to Edie, so I will enclose this letter for Edie to forward on to you. Well I must close now, hoping we shall meet again soon. Keep old England safe. Cheerio Arthur, best of luck.

Yours Vic

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