Most of the country is unspoilt and untouched; but here and there where the Boche has stood and fought, where there has been a good defence line, everything is smashed and horrible. I have seen a little town, complete and unspoilt in the morning, a blazing inferno in the evening and a mass of smouldering rubble, full of evil smells by the next morning…
Well my darling I think that is just about all for today, so will close now and go to bed.
All my love darling, mine is yours alone.
Your very loving and devoted husband,
Gerald
Though he was wounded and evacuated following operations in Normandy, Major Ritchie returned to his battalion and took part in the last great airborne operation of the Second World War, Operation Varsity, the crossing of the Rhine in March 1945.
Major G. Ritchie
12 Para Bn
BLA
Easter Day
My dearest Sweetheart,
At last I have found a few moments to write a proper letter to you to let you know how I am getting on. I hope you have got all the various field post cards I have sent you, they are very useful for just letting you know I am well…
Well my darling, I seem to have lived through such a multitude of experiences since I last wrote that it is difficult to know what to say and where to begin. Most will of course have to be kept until I see you I’m afraid. The initial party was a bit hectic for a time, but it might have been a lot worse and it was a real success, as I expect you read in the papers. My company have done magnificently and I feel very proud of them all; all my officers are ok…
It is rather an extraordinary experience being in this country, the people are very docile and polite, and in most cases seem very pleased the war is for them over, particularly because of the RAF bombing, which is pretty devastating. The thing that has surprised me most in this particular part of the world is the fact that the populace are very well provided for food and most other things too, but it may be only on the surface. There is no doubt though that they are fully aware now that they are beaten.
This morning we had a wee church service, but it was only a very short one, but it was at least something being Easter Day. I wonder if you were at church this morning… Well my darling, I think I will close now, my thoughts are always with you…
All my love comes to you with this as always, your very loving husband,
Gerald.
Another officer who took part in the Allied airborne operations in Normandy and beyond was Captain Chris T. Cross, who was part of the 2nd Battalion, Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry. Cross had wanted to be a paratrooper, but at 6ft 4in was deemed too tall and instead joined the 2nd Ox and Bucks, which was an airlanding battalion dropped onto the battlefield by glider.
Lt C.T. Cross, C Coy
2nd OXF & BUCKS Lt Infty
A.P.O. England
June 23rd 1944
Dear Folks,
At present I’m lying in the sun in a very pleasant orchard in N. France and a force of about 500 Fortresses has just gone overhead, most encouraging… I have just changed my underclothes and washed my feet for the first time since I left England. And today we bought a few bottles of wine, and intend, if all is quiet, to have a little dinner party this evening because when we are busy we get a bit split up and the officers don’t get much chance to see one another… What we would really like is some bread – getting awfully tired of these biscuits, but the army bakers are not here yet and the local French don’t have any to spare.
My platoon is in very good form and we all get on very well together. The five new blokes I had shortly before we left are pretty good and with one exception fitted in well. The exception is now no longer with us – Jerry saw to that. But he has not dealt with us too severely – touch wood.
Being now at liberty to talk slightly about D-Day here you are for what it is worth. For quite a long and very tedious time before the thing began we were cooped up very tightly in a tented camp opposite an operational aerodrome near Oxford. It was incredibly hot while we were there but they stretched a point and allowed us out of camp to go across to the RAF mess & have a bath. ENSA* sent a show down one afternoon – held in plain air – quite amusing. And occasionally we packed a few sweaty men very tightly into a tent and showed them a film. But it was a trying time and a lot of money changed hands at cards. Meanwhile the officers and NCOs were very busy learning the story of what we were going to do, memorizing maps, studying models, air photographs, intelligence reports and all that sort of thing. All done in the near nude Nissen hut, whose doors and windows had to be kept shut! And throughout this time about half the company were within a dozen or so miles of their homes. And they had great temptations. However, all was well. The whole business was a bit nerve-wracking though, because we were not told exactly when D-Day was to be, and then, when we were told, the whole thing was put off for a day just when we were about keyed up to go.
The glider flight was bloody! It was of course longer than most we’ve done before because of the business of getting into formation, collecting fighter escort and so on. After about ¼hour I began to be sick and continued until we were over the channel where the air was much calmer. The channel was a wonderful sight – especially the traffic at this end – Piccadilly Circus wasn’t in it. We were not over the coast this side long enough for me to be sick again, and we were pretty busy thinking about landing. The landing was ghastly. Mine was the first glider down, though we were not quite in the right place, and the damn thing bucketed along a very upsy-downsy field for a bit and then broke across the middle – we just chopped through those anti-landing poles (like the ones I used to cut myself!) as we went along. However, the two halves of the glider fetched up very close together and we quickly got out ourselves and our equipment and lay down under the thing, because other gliders were coming in all around and Jerries were shooting things about at them and us so it wasn’t very healthy to wander about. Our immediate opposition – a machine gun in a little trench – was very effectively silenced by [another] glider which fetched up plumb on the trench and a couple of Huns – quite terrified – came out with their hands up! Having discovered that we were all there and bound up a few scratches we then set off to the scene of the battle. I shall not tell you about that, except that apart from a bar of chocolate and ½ the contents of the whisky flask I had no time to eat or drink for a very uncomfortably long time – too much else to do, but it seems incredible now. From my last meal in England to my first cup of char and hard ration in France was very nearly 48 hours! But I’ve been making up for it since.
Somebody once said that war was composed of intensive boredom relieved by periods of acute fear. This is it, in a nutshell. The boys used to hate digging themselves trenches on Salisbury Plain, but you should just see how fast they do it now. And we’ve had a good many to dig in various different places since we came here. My hands are not as beautiful as they were!
The French people I have met have been marvellous – very pleased to see us – pleasure mingled with apprehension because they knew that when we arrived it might mean shelling, it might mean that we should have to raid their homes to protect ourselves, and it would assuredly mean the death of a lot of their livestock. This is a horse and cattle-breeding district, and one of the saddest things is to see their carcasses lying about, nobody having time to deal with them and fields full of very scared animals, some of them wounded. The local drink is cider – rough but very good and I hate to think what goes into the making of it. However, the alcohol in it makes it safer to drink than the water hereabouts. The civilians used to give us cider if we asked for a drink. Recently though we have not been near any places with inhabitants about…
It is now time for the party, and Jerry seems to be giving little trouble this evening. So that’s all for a while.
Love to you all,
Chris
Lieutenant Cross also took part in the airborne operations across the Rhine, though by this point
he was the battalion’s Intelligence Officer.
Lt C.T. Cross
2nd Ox & Bucks Lt Infy
BLA
Germany. 27 March 1945
Dear Family,
It seems incredible that we’ve only been here three days, seems like weeks. But I’m all in one piece and the morale is sky high.
I’ve seen no newspapers since we were first shut up in the [town’s] camp. But unless there is a security blackout, I expect you know all you should know about our activities.
The Regiment has covered itself in glory – a really first class show… I’ve been feeding on Benzedine but it looks as though I’ll be getting some sleep today. Also food. The German farmhouses around here are very well supplied … and we are at present winking an eye at looting of hams, eggs and preserved fruit! In fact we are organising it, so that everybody gets the same share!
This can’t go on much longer, I only hope I never have to get into a glider again! The first three and half hours of that flight were wonderful – I was not a bit sick. But I put on five years in the last five minutes of it.
That must be all…
Love Chris
Lieutenant Cross stayed with the battalion right through to the end of the war, and wrote to his family at home describing the somewhat chaotic situation following the German surrender.
Lt C.T. Cross
Regtl HQ
2nd Ox & Bucks Light Infantry
BLA
4.5.45
My dear family,
I have just heard the 9pm news broadcast, containing the official news of the surrender to 21st Army Gp. As such dates go, this I suppose, will be an important one. For us, it’s not any different from yesterday or the day before.
I have missed all the fun of the ‘link up’ with the Russians – that has been left to the Divisional Staff, who have ceased to take any interest in us, but are concentrating instead on Vodka. Meanwhile it has been left to the likes of me, and there are not enough of us, to try and cope with 1 Surrendered armies and 2 Civilian refugees.
Yesterday was the worst. At 10 o’clock in the morning I had a belated breakfast after doing the final night advance – during which incidentally, the beautiful BMW was written off. From 1030am until 1130pm I had time for one cup of char and a sandwich brought to me by Richards. All that time I was dealing with German soldiers. I had to use a reception camp for rather more than one German division. Here the soldiers were searched for arms, organised into bodies of 200 approx and marched off. Many were wounded, many had marched so far that they would go no further. Their own medical services had to be organised to cope with these, transport arranged for them and so on. We are miles ahead of supporting troops, having rushed at full tilt over and beyond the Elbe, so we have no facilities for feeding the blighters. Furthermore we have civilians to cope with, of which more anon. So at all costs we had to keep them moving back. During yesterday I had something like 10,000 through my place. By the end of the evening I had no voice left at all, having been shouting orders in German at them all day. This I did mainly from the back of a horse…
Well anyway, this bit of the war is over. I suppose I should feel elated, but I feel tired and disgusted, and I can’t get the smell of Germans out of my mouth and nose, no matter how much I clean my teeth. Disgust, contempt and a little pity mix ill. What now I wonder?
Now I think is the time for you to send me some books. The Huns don’t keep English books in their houses and everybody is crying out for light literature for the days.
Love to you all,
Chris
At the same time as British forces were struggling in Normandy, and the Fourteenth Army was driving back the Japanese in India at the battles of Imphal and Kohima, a very different force was fighting its own battle way behind the Japanese lines in Burma. The brainchild of the unorthodox Major General Orde Wingate, the Chindits launched their first long-range operations behind Japanese lines in early 1943, and in early 1944, after Wingate’s death in March, a second more ambitious operation was launched. Twenty thousand men in six brigades, broken down into a series of individual columns of 500 or so men, were inserted behind enemy lines to seize vital airfields, and disrupt the lines of communication to the rear of the Japanese forces.
Colour Sergeant Tom Proudfoot was one of the Chindits, and served with 2nd Battalion, Queen’s Royal Regiment during the operation.
888437 C/Sgt Proudfoot
2nd Queens Royal Regiment
India Command
12.5.44
Dear Bobby,
At last I am able to write and tell you of our expedition.
I am now out of Burma, and recuperating after a most thrilling, hazardous and gruelling trip. We were members of the ‘Special Force’ until recently commanded by the late General Wingate. We set off and marched behind the enemy to the extent of 300 miles. At the initial stage of our trec [sic] we had to cut away every yard of jungle growth, we walked, or I should say, crawled 21¾ miles over mountains, in 69 marching hours, and climbed over 14,000 feet carrying a pack weighing about 70lbs so you can see how we at times could only do three miles a day.
We crossed rivers which were often waist high. After crossing the Chindwin without much trouble we then settled down to do some really useful commando-cum-guerilla warfare. We blew up bridges, roads, railways, damaged airfields, laid a few ambushes and we were in turn ambushed ourselves, but managed to escape. Our policy was to harass the Jap so that he did not know where or when we were going to strike, and because we in our party were small we fought the Jap when it suited us not when it suited him. Our last ambush was very successful. My guns caught the first trucks loaded with Japs, and cut them to pieces. He brought up reinforcements and put in a counter-attack which looked rather ‘sticky’ for a time, but we managed to slip away, only losing five men killed, and several wounded for the Jap total of 60 killed, and many wounded. In all we walked during our operation behind the enemy lines to the extent of 500 odd miles. It was a great strain mentally as well as physically as you can well imagine. Every track and village held for us the possibility of being ambushed and shot up so we avoided these, except when we travelled in the dead of night.
We were hunted as criminals. After we had been ‘inside’ for several months we were flown out in heaven sent planes. We were also supplied with food, clothing, equipment and ammunition which we needed by air, and we all pay tribute to the pilots, and crew, because they never once let us down. They also lifted our wounded after a battle, and flew them to hospital. I am in a rest camp for the moment and expecting a leave soon.
Since we came out people have [been] doing everything for us, giving us what we have missed in the way of luxuries during the last few months. I hope Bertha and new arrival are both well, I expect it will have happened before you have this letter, or have I forgotten the date? However good luck to her… You know I don’t think that it will be too long now before I come home … in my opinion we should be home by this time next year. Today I have had a thorough medical inspection, and strangely enough I have turned out one of the fittest men in our bunch as well as one of the oldest. Our physical category was A1 plus higher than that demanded by any other force. We had a commando with us who said commando work was a ‘piece of cake’ to ours!
Cheerio Bobby. I am trying to catch the post. Excuse horrible scribble. Regards to Bertha and (children?)
Tom
Captain Norman Durant of the South Staffordshire Regiment, who also served with the Chindits, reflected on the very different nature of the war in the Far East compared to the situation in Europe.
… And that’s all that there was to it, and on reading it through, very dull in comparison with the Press version. But this is a true account and I hope I have not overstressed any one angle. I have purposely left out descriptions of scenery, the rising sun, bird-life and native dress and habits because had I begun this would have turned into a 50,000-word book. I have purposely left out descriptions of rotting bodies, s
pilled blood and dangling guts because that is a constant factor in fighting a war. I have purposely left out criticisms because I wish this to pass the censor, and I have purposely left out the glory and the joke-in-the-face-of-death angle because it should need no stressing. This is merely an account of the ordinary men in an ordinary infantry Bn., telling what they were ordered to do and recording briefly how in every case they succeeded in doing it; and I hope it’s been legible enough to show you this.
Many people in this war had worse times and harder fighting but anyone who has fought the Italians, French, Germans and Japs will say with no hesitation that the Japs are the ones to be avoided. Somehow one can imagine that under different circumstances one could have a drink and a cigarette with a German and a quite amiable talk and a cup of tea with a prisoner, but having once met the Japs one can only imagine kicking their heads in. They look like animals and behave like animals and they can be killed as unemotionally as swatting flies. And they need to be killed, not wounded for so long as they breathe they’re dangerous. I have seen plenty of our dead and plenty of theirs, and whereas ours look bewildered, as though someone has taken an unfair advantage of them, the Japs have their lips drawn back over their prominent teeth in a last snarling defiance.
Captain Durant, though somewhat dismissive of his own actions, was obviously held in high regard by the men under his command as a letter to his parents from his platoon sergeant confirms.
Dear Madam,
First of all I will introduce myself. I was Capt. Durant’s platoon sergeant in the last ‘Wingate’ show. I have just received a letter from him thanking me for paying you a visit while on my disembarkation leave. I did say I would see you for him, but before I knew I was home my leave was ended. However, I think I can tell you more easily by mail than in person what the men, NCOs and myself thought of him while we were together.
Letters from the Front: From the First World War to the Present Day Page 18