Letters from the Front: From the First World War to the Present Day

by Roberts, Andrew

  When he first came we were a platoon of old soldiers, my fourteen years service was well down the roll, most of them were tough ones too. Pte Robinson for instance joined up in 1925 has served three or four terms in ‘Aldershot’ for striking. If I ran through them all you would think they were a savoury lot. The first words they said were ‘who has put this boy in charge of us?’ At the same time I think Capt Durant had his doubts. After three weeks together every man was satisfied with him. He could rough it as well as anyone. I tested him myself on his drinking. I cannot tell you how the night ended because I was carried to bed.

  Well the night came for us to go to Burma, and of course our test was to see who was worth his salt and who was not. I think he was the first one to fire a shot. It was just after ‘stand to’ there were five or six Japs about two hundred yards away. I am afraid he missed, but from then until six o’clock at night it was one long fight. That was the day he got wounded. This is how it happened. About four-thirty over half of the men were killed or wounded. Brigadier Mike Calvert ordered an attack. The first time only six made the dash up the hill, lieutenants Day and Karns were killed, Major Jeffries shot through the mouth and your son through the fat of the calf, just above the knee when he was jumping over the side of the hill. I was the sixth and didn’t get touched. I think the only reason Major Jeffries and myself went up the hill three times was to find the ‘boy’. When we had control of the hill and still could not find him I gave up hope and came back and there he was getting the stragglers together. He had jumped over the wrong side of the hill. I put a bandage on his leg. We both went down to our own lads to get things fixed up for the night. I have been awarded the Military Medal for that day and everyone there thinks that Capt. Durant should get the MC, if not for his own bravery then for his platoon, he got them fighting mad.

  Well weeks went on until we came out. I can honestly say he never showed the least bit of fear, either to [the] Japs or to his tough crowd of men who would do anything for him. It was the best nine months I have known in the Army. We could always find something to laugh about. In fact there was never a dull moment with him.

  The last week must have been terrible for him, the marching was through deep mud and flooded rivers. One day he made twelve crossings on one river which was nearly a hundred yards wide. Every man, mule and our kit was over before he would rest. The last day I was lucky enough to meet an American. After bargaining with him I got twelve bottles of beer, but Capt. Durant was too ill to drink one, and still he carried his own pack.

  Mr and Mrs Durant I notice this is the sixth page. I have tried to tell you what a great man your son is in action. It was a very good feeling to be with someone who went there to fight an enemy, to help win this war. I was very sorry not to have said goodbye to him when I left, but some day I hope to meet him in England in a healthy condition… So I will close by hoping you are in the very best of health and that very soon your son will be home with you.

  Yours sincerely,

  J. Jenkins Sgt

  In Europe the Allied armies had broken out of the Normandy beachheads and were driving across France towards Belgium, with the German Army retreating before them.

  Cyril Charters was one of the many thousands of men who were shipped over to France to support this great advance, in his case by serving as a projectionist with 37 Kinema Section, Royal Army Ordnance Corps (RAOC). Although, given the nature of his job, Cyril was a long way from the front line, he wrote a series of highly detailed letters home to his wife telling of his experiences and describing the situation of the French and Belgian population under German rule, as well as the end of the war in Europe.

  13057038 Cpl Charters, C.J.

  37 Kinema Section RAOC

  BLA

  Letter No. 40

  Dearest sweetheart,

  In this letter I am going to deal with the subject of how people lived over here under German domination. Besides being interesting (I hope!), it will help you to understand many events which have happened; from the antagonistic reception we experienced in Normandy to the recent trouble re. disarming the F.F.I. in Belgium. Now Normandy is one of the richest districts in France for dairy produce and agriculture and the behaviour of the Germans in this district was beyond reproach. It paid the Germans to be nice to the farmers and in return they seem to have been well supplied with dairy produce and the goods they wanted. It is not really surprising, therefore, that after four years living peacefully and in harmony that friendships sprang up, the girls went out with the Germans, more and more marriages were solemnized, and the Germans became a part of the villages. Then came the invasion and with it all the horror and actuality of the war that had almost been forgotten. What were the French wives of the German soldiers to do? There were a variety of answers, but the three that most concerns us are the following: (i) those who fought side by side with their husbands, usually isolated in a church steeple or similar vantage point, sniping, until they were killed together; (ii) those who took up the [roles] of their husbands who had fled, and retired to the woods, to cause delays and annoyances, sniping, at our own troops; and (iii) those who thought they could carry on as they did before, but who now walk about trying to conceal their bald heads!

  It is not hard to understand their hatred for us; and worse was to follow for the Germans took with them everything they could get, with the result that there was a shortage of many things that had formerly been plentiful. Not unnaturally they blamed the invasion. Now there were also in Normandy during the occupation, a number of pro-Allied inhabitants. Two interesting cases I know of: one Victor who was doing intelligence work for us, and a cinema operator who worked one of the four great radio links for the underground. Also, after the invasion, there were those who wanted to do something big to gain the confidences of the Allies (and at the same time possibly hide their own guilt), and these grew and grew in numbers as the Allies became more advanced. Hence came the head-shavings and similar medieval practices.

  But now let us leave Normandy and see what happened in the industrial areas. Now here was a vastly different case; there was no great food production here; but goods, produced by machines – and machines can be sabotaged!

  This called for the SS and the Gestapo, and with them brute rule; the press gangs of men carried off for work in Germany; the questionings and beatings up, which is in no propaganda story; the lack of food and the taking of what little home-grown foods the inhabitants could raise.

  It is hard to imagine the fear and horror in which these people lived, nor can we fully realise the hardships they suffered. We can only see it in the eyes of these people as they tell us; in the undeveloped state of the children, most of them suffering with rickets; in the anxiety which they cannot hide when they speak of their menfolk in Germany; and in the unexpected nooks and corners where their rabbits and other potential foodstuffs were kept, to keep them from the prying eyes of the German.

  It is little wonder that this was the Maquis country. Young and able-bodied men had to hide, nor did they dare venture to a cinema or dances or entertainment, for the Gestapo kept a close watch on such places. What better then than to get their own back on this foe who kept them from their homes. And what a job they did when the time came!

  Belgium presents another case again. As I told you in previous letters there exists a strong bond between England and Belgium created by intermarriage during the last war, and by the great exchange of tourists between the two countries. They never fully submitted to the German yoke, although of course there are individual cases, and there always seems to have been that silent antagonism, which the Germans could not break down. Food was rationed to such an extent that it was impossible to live on the meagre allowance, and there were many cases of starvation. Then came the blackest black market ever known, and one that makes the world stand still and gasp at its immensity. Fabulous prices were paid to the fortunate few who could get the urgently needed commodities. Starve or pay up.

  Business men sold all
their businesses, the wealthy spent all their money, and the poor – well, another alternative arose, starve or steal! Steal! But from whom?

  Meanwhile underground movements had sprung up. Not one but dozens, assuming all sorts of names. The most popular was the White Brigade, so called in opposition to the Black Brigade (collaborators with the Germans). Their main job was sabotage and this they did well. But there was no uniting bond between parties. Consequently, when the advance of the allies swept past and there was no further need to sabotage, many (and I regret to say, the majority) [degenerated] into nothing more than hooliganism. But, as the need, or rather excuse, for hooliganism ended, and all the collaborators had been beaten up, another opening arose – the Black Market!…

  The real big suffering of Belgium during the occupation was the food shortage. I have seen photos of people, taken before the war, fat and plump and sturdy. To see those same people today is incredible: thin and wan and meagre. Mummy used to laugh about giving me sausages whenever I was home on a 48hrs; but what would they have given for those same sausages here in Belgium!

  Well this was intended to be a four page letter but it has turned out nine, and I could still write another nine but – pity the poor censor – I’ll continue it later!

  So cheerio for now darling,

  And all my fondest love,

  Cyril

  xxx

  13057038 Cpl Charters, C.J.

  37 Kinema Section RAOC

  BLA

  Sat. 5th May 1945

  Hello darling,

  Isn’t the news grand! The announcement of the surrender of the armies in Denmark, Holland and N.W. Germany has just been made, or rather, it has just come into effect from 8.00 this morning. And as I write this I am just half a mile away from where Monty accepted the surrender.

  Everybody looks decidedly happy and cheerful but very little has been made of it so far. I think all the prisoners coming in and the general decay of the German resistance foreshadowed the news so that it was accepted more as a matter of course than anything.

  It is Sunday as I continue this letter. It is nearly dinner-time and I have a few minutes to spare.

  Last night I gave the grandest show of all. It was to men who had not seen a show for five years – our xPOW’s [sic]. The show did not start until just after eleven and it finished just before one in the morning. They were absolutely fascinated during the performance, and as they left afterwards, one after the other as they passed thanked me. It was very touching.

  Today, darling, I had the satisfaction of crossing that last river barrier, the Elbe – now for that other water barrier and home, peace and you!…

  Now, cheerio once more and all my love darling.

  Your ever loving husband,

  Cyril

  xxxx

  The collapse of the German positions in France led to the liberation of Paris in August 1944, and the Allied armies continued their rapid advance across the Belgian frontier, reaching Brussels at the beginning of September.

  Captain Michael G.T. Webster was the commander of the Reconnaissance Troop, 2nd Battalion Grenadier Guards, part of the Guards Armoured Division. His letters home to his family from this period give an impression of the exhilaration felt by both the liberators and the civilian populations of both France and Belgium.

  1 September 1944

  We are all making history, I am writing this in my tank, on paper captured from a German officer who I took prisoner, personally; in fact we had rather a field day yesterday so I captured myself a German half track motor bicycle, you may have seen pictures of them. However, that is all very small fry compared with everything else. If only I could tell you where I am, how we got here and all the thousand other things which have added up to what has been the most exciting and exhilarating days of my life, but I mustn’t, I must simply be content in telling you that I’m more than alright and I’m in the best possible form anybody could be. That I’ve actually had tears coming to my eyes through sheer joyous excitement during the past two days. This might seem a bit exaggerated, but if it is, it is because the whole conception seems so…

  11 September 1944

  … This is to thank you for a lot of things, your letters, the soap, razor blade, saccharine, powdered milk and above all the last pair of socks. Imagine my quandary. You know something of the four hundred mile advance of the Guards Armoured Division to Brussels from Normandy.

  It was my unfortunate lot, just before we started, my own tank broke down and I had to transfer to another one. This is always inconvenient, at the best of times, but normally one is either able to transfer one’s kit into a new tank or the original tank turns up again having been repaired in, say, a couple of days, but this time neither conditions apply… The result of all this was that I had not got with me the amount of reserve clothing that I normally budget for to carry on my tank. So it was an answer to prayer that your parcel turned up with the immortal pair of socks. Socks, however, and their replacement have been of minor interest in what has been the most exciting 10 days of my life. The battalion was virtually in the front the whole way and it was, along with Timothy Tufnell and his boys, the first brigade into Brussels; racing the whole way on a centre line parallel with the rest of our brigade. They only just got in before us and this even though they had a dead straight road the whole way, while we had an extremely curly and narrow one.

  The job of a liberator although thoroughly enviable is also pretty exacting. As you can imagine, throughout France and all the way up to Brussels we received a rapturous welcome. Each successive village that we passed invariably stood out to wave us through. Nine times out of ten they were not simply content with waving; flowers, apples, beer, pears, plums were literally hurled at us, as we sped by… As for when we stopped in a village, or worse in a town, the tank would be swamped by animated Frenchmen, women and children who simultaneously wanted to kiss you, shake your hand, photograph you, give you a glass of cognac, explain in voluble French, or, hopeless for us, Flemish, how glad he was to see you and what his experience was of being at the hands of the Germans. This greeting, generally worked to a formal, rapid and incomprehensive patois, would be followed by what seemed to be three entirely ritualistic gestures.

  1. General agitation of hands and arms as description ensued.

  2. Realistic play of throat cutting plus appropriate noises in throat. To the un-initiated this appeared to be what the Germans had tried to do [to] the Frenchmen or women, but in point of fact it was intended to show what the particular native wanted to do to the Germans as a whole and Hitler in particular.

  3. Pointed an imaginary rifle at an imaginary enemy and with cries of pop, pop, pop, showing how he decimated hundreds of ‘les Boches’.

  In Brussels itself of course, this was multiplied by the hundred fold…

  Despite the apparent ease of the advance in August and September 1944, the fighting in Normandy had been hard fought and bloody, with the British suffering particularly heavy casualties in the repeated attempts to take the strategically vital city of Caen.

  Lieutenant Brin Francis was serving with the 8th (Belfast) Heavy Anti Aircraft Regiment, Royal Artillery, in the Far East when he learnt of the death of his brother David during the fighting around Caen.

  21/8 (Belfast) HAA Regiment

  SEAC

  Sept 5th 1944

  My Dear Mum,

  I heard tonight from Joy – I should say Joy wrote to Jack Williams who came here and in a very kind way told me about David. I can only hope and pray that you, and Billy, learnt in as gentle way as I did.

  When David went we all feared bad news, but when it comes it is a terrible thing, especially for you, who had been through all this wretched heartbreak before in this war.

  I’ve only learnt of this a matter of hours, and I can’t believe it yet; to say that I’m very sad and very sorry would be a poor way, all I can say is I’m completely at a loss to say just how much this news hits me.

  My thoughts flew t
o you and Billy, and I can hardly bear to think of you suffering all this agony again. It doesn’t seem fair that one family should be hit twice. All I can say to this is that whatever life holds for us, or for ours, we must not allow ourselves to grow either bitter or hard; and although this news does seem so hard to bear, we must never lose faith for a moment, and God will help us. Life may be difficult to understand, but we must go on the same way as we can be CERTAIN Dad and David would have us going on, doing our very best to be HAPPY and making others happy too.

  It seems hard that this second loss to us should happen so near to the end of the war … but if we remember ‘where and when’ David died, we can be proud.

  I will write a letter to Billy now, poor Billy, she will be suffering now, and we must do all in our power to help her, although I know that anything that can be done to help her in any way will be done by Mrs McLaine and Dolly. I’m afraid Billy will be heartbroken and nothing we can do will help her over her grief, as you know from bitter experience.

  Try to be brave, as you can be; I know you will put on a ‘brave show’ for the world, and to relatives too, but try with all your might to be brave inside, because that’s the one I love.

  God bless and help you,

  Lots and lots of love,

  From Brin

  Following the advance into Belgium, and the failure of Operation Market Garden to gain a foothold over the Rhine, the German defences stiffened and the winter of 1944/45 saw a great deal of hard fighting as the British battled the German defences of the Siegfried Line and the Reichswald Forest.

  David Sheldon was posted to Belgium in December 1944 and went on to serve as a platoon commander in the 5th Battalion, Coldstream Guards, part of the Guards Armoured Division. He took part in most of the major combat operations through to the end of the war, and described them in some detail in his letters home.