by Vicky Unwin
I have had 2 airgraphs from you lately Mummy. I feel such a pig writing and telling you all the lovely things I do when you all at home aren’t having such a good time. You would love it out here, I think, in Alex anyway. I am in whites again, much to everyone’s amazement, but I am not cold and enjoy the sun – will send photos when printed. Tons of love Sheila.
In Cairo, Sheila meets Bruce Booth-Mason for the first time, then a major, and later a captain, in the Indian Cavalry. He is destined to become one of Sheila’s serious boyfriends, competing for her affections with John Pritty. He was a completely different character to John: considerate and kind and, above all, calm. We can only guess at how the romance blossomed, but taking a girl dancing in the moonlight at the Mena House Hotel with the pyramids as backdrop is a sure way to a girl’s heart. John is predictably possessive and jealous. Meanwhile Sheila is working hard with Admiral Ramsay on ‘Operation Husky’, the Sicily invasion:
RNGHQ 5/5/43
My dear Mama –
… Cairo is getting very hot and you can now go out in the evenings without a coat at the risk of gippy tummy! I have been working abnormally hard and have had to ask for someone to help me – the superintendent excelled himself by sending us a 2nd officer who, luckily, I know and I like very much. However, she is only temporary as the situation might have been rather awkward. What a time I had last week – again I felt ashamed at enjoying myself so much – On Tuesday I went to Shepheards with Idwal Humphreys the A/Sec I work with, Maureen Brennan and another Paymaster who works with us – on Wednesday the film and the following evening found me at Shepheards again – this time with Ula Bowing (the 2/O) and 2 friends of hers, one very tall and one very short. We had also played tennis all the afternoon till 5. The following day Idwal and I went sailing at the Yacht Club, and there we were entered for a race! Of course, this terrified me, as I’m no experienced crew. However, Idwal showed me the ropes and off we set! It was such fun and we were getting on really well, when on rounding the first buoy, we hooked on to somebody else, and had to withdraw! We were annoyed. However, we had a good sail on our own and went back to work at 5. In the evening Ula and I had arranged to go to Mena House Hotel (near the Pyramids) to dance, with Bruce Booth Mason (a vague relation of Diana Booth’s) and an unknown quantity whom we’d specified had to be tall, dark and handsome. Well he turned out to be a Major in the Indian Cavalry regiment, and the party turned out to be the most hilarious one I’ve ever been to. We drove out there in a taxi, it’s about 10 miles and as soon as we got there started dinner. The dance was held in a huge Moorish style ballroom with tables all round – well, I’ve never laughed so much in all my life, they were the funniest pair, in fact quite disgraced myself with ribald laughter! We are planning to go again when there is a moon so that we can go and scan the Pyramids in traditional style. On Monday I had arranged to go sailing with Bruce, but our plans fell by the wayside and I came back here to Connaught House champing at the bit. A minute or so later a knock came at my door, and was told someone was waiting to see me outside. That someone turned out to be John! What an afternoon we had, nothing but arguments and disputes as to my behaviour since I have been in Cairo ending up by a most unfond farewell – to my intense amusement 10 minutes after he had taken his leave, a parcel containing a sheaf of four huge lilies on one stalk appeared for me – stating that lilies were usually given at funerals! How we laughed. However, the great high and mighty reappeared the next day full of apologies for his behaviour!
Yesterday afternoon Ula and I had lunch at the club and then I went on to the Yacht Club and sailed with Bruce and another man and we all got soaking! No races this time, tho! Tonight and tomorrow and the next night I shall be out with John and tomorrow afternoon I am having lunch and a sunbathe session at Gezira with one of our staff and Friday I am duty secretary which entails working the best part of 12 hours at a stretch!
… My scrapbook I am keeping is getting on so well and is nearly full. It’s filled with snaps and cuttings and everything under the sun. Oh yes, I have had my hair cut yet again. Really I shall look like a convict any minute now, but those things must be done! Now I have got to rush out and get tickets for a thing called Polish Parade, which is an all Polish revue on this week, John and I hope to go this week. So no more – with very much love,
from Sheila
RNGHQ MEF
11/5
My dear Mama – I’ve just had your airgraph of the 10th April, but have had no mail from you for ages.
How nice the garden must be and I wish I was there to see it – you would love the flowers here – Just now the shops and street corners are banked with roses, carnations, arums, delphiniums, stocks and all sorts of gorgeously coloured flowers – men pester you in the streets to buy them late at night even. But we get no green – no grass or fields – just blazing colours and sand. Last Monday John suddenly appeared from out of the blue – on a course till Friday. I’m afraid we didn’t have a hilariously happy time, because all the time he was attacking me because I have been having such a gay time in Cairo. I’m afraid he expected me never to go out at all and to sit at home waiting for him! I tried to explain that I couldn’t do this after all, working as I do sometimes ten hours a day and with very little free time – I must enjoy myself while I can and get away from work and the YWCA. However, nothing seemed to be any good, and it all ended up in what one might call a free fight – him struggling with me to pull off my scarab ring which he gave me and which he succeeded in doing – nearly breaking my little finger into the bargain and me giving him a sound slap on the face for his pains. We did not part friends I can assure you. It all seems such a pity, but I couldn’t end my days married to someone so impassioned with jealousy so maybe it’s just as well. I have many regrets, now, especially when I look back on the tremendously happy times we had in Alex which are now a closed book. I often wonder if I shall ever go back there. Now I am away and it is so hot here (has been over 100 degrees in the shade last week) I remember our lovely bathing parties, riding, and visits to Eve Barber all so well. She is coming up here to stay next week, I hope. I have been sailing again this week, twice with Idwal Humphrey, whom I work with, and once with Bruce Booth Mason, in the army and a vague relation of Diana’s. He is the most amusing boy – Ula and I, and he and another person called Waddylove (yes, it’s true) all went to see a Polish Revue on Saturday – very good. Ending up at Shepheards with champagne and sandwiches at midnight. It had been the hottest day of the year so far and all I’d had to eat since breakfast was an ice cream, punctuated by glasses of lemon and orange! We’d had dinner, but that mostly consisted of fruit cup, you just can’t eat in the heat. We all laughed so – I have been working hard under not so ideal conditions, rather at loggerheads with my sec, and to laugh makes all the difference. Please apologise to R. that I haven’t written – and explain that as well as having been out a lot, I have been working sometimes 10 hours a day which makes one rather dead beat in the heat! …
With very much love to you all,
Sheila
RNGHQ MEF
19/5
My dear Mama – … I’m delighted you’ve had the 2nd parcel and there should be another on the way if I remember rightly. We have all laughed and laughed at having to cut the sugar in half with a saw! How did you like Desert Victory. I thought it was just wonderful – and relived it all once more – though, of course, we weren’t there, we were all so very near and I remember well on the night of the 21st October (the night it began) hearing the guns roaring away in the distance. For some days we’d known in the Cypher Office ‘something’ was in the air, and that was what it was! The same thing applied to the landing in N. Africa. Even way back in July we’d known of the mysterious ‘thing’ all very hush, and so it had grown bigger and bigger till we knew what to expect. Of course I had to be ill at the crucial moment, so that I wasn’t on watch when all the exciting signals came through. I remember well the VAD coming in and announcing with glee what had happ
ened, and I, with boredom and a feeling of being very much in the background, answering ‘Yes, I know!’
… I have heard no more from John so expect he really has cut me off with it this time. Well, maybe it’s for the best – we were temperamentally very ill suited. It seems a pity though! … Tons of love S.
June 1943 marked the transition of Operation Husky from planning to action. Admiral Ramsay, in charge of the British Eastern Naval Task Force, was himself transferred to Malta, where the landings were being co-ordinated, and where the Admiral of the Fleet, Sir Andrew Cunningham, had already shifted. Sheila’s promotion and mooted move to Kilindini are therefore unsurprising in this context:
RNGHQ MEF 2/6
My dear Ma – many thanks for No 63 which has just arrived. I’m glad you got the snaps and that you liked them. Well, I have got rather a surprise for you, I am now a second officer! Isn’t it amazing? I will tell you all about it, ages ago, last February or so the PCO [Principal Cypher Officer] had told me I was being recommended but naturally I rather pooh poohed the idea as ridiculous. When I was just off to Cairo, the Superintendent told me I had had a very good report and that they would try for my 2nd stripe – however after being here for some little while I quite gave up hope, as I am working for an over efficient man who gives me a complete inferiority complex and makes me feel an absolute boob! Well one day I was looking through a batch of signals and read one saying that I was to be promoted + immediately transferred to Kilindini – relief being sent from there. What a fright – as I’m not particularly keen to go anywhere much hotter than this. However, a signal was sent saying they wished to retain me here, but as recommendation had already been sent for promotion to 2/O, it was requested I should become 2/O and reappointed – and Admiralty agreed!! I really am rather pleased as there are only 2 other 2/O Cypherers out here, and one of them is a P.C.O. – I do feel, though, that although I have worked hard (and dammnably so) I’m not the most efficient person there is, but I can do things awfully fast – hoping hard I haven’t made a mistake. It is really a very good thing working for someone as efficient as I do, I just can’t afford to be slack – every little point is noticed – BUT I never get any encouragement, which would go an enormous long way in the middle of all the toil. But I don’t care how hard I work so long as I can help. What does worry me terribly is that there are others (or only one, really) who do deserve promotion – Anne Halliday (now Bamber) being THE one. She is most terribly efficient and conscientious – better than I am I know – and my senior, too, she has been rather done out of promotion by moving around a bit, and I know she will feel it dearly. Mary Henie will, too – but she isn’t really as good, or conscientious as Anne and I am very sorry about it. Others in Alex will be furious – but I don’t care about them.
… With very much love to you and Pa (who promised to write and hasn’t!) Sheila.
Sheila: ‘the planning’ (quote from scrapbook).
The following letter was received on 20 June. Scribbled on it in my grandmother’s writing are the words ‘Brought by Gen Montgomery’. Montgomery worked closely with Ramsay in planning the Sicily invasions: Ramsay was in charge of the naval strategy and Montgomery of the deployment of the Eighth Army once landed. Initially he had rejected the American plan, which ‘breaks every commonsense rule of practical battlefighting … and has no hope of success and it should be completely re-cast’. Indeed, the eventual plan for the invasion was changed and followed Montgomery’s suggestion to concentrate the attack on the south-east area only, to avoid dispersing the troops. A rather fitting way to learn of her daughter’s promotion:
6/6/ 43
My dear Mummy –
… I don’t suppose you have had my air letter card yet, but I am now Second Officer Mills, much to my amusement – because it wasn’t exactly anticipated. I have told you fully about it in my letter card posted 2 days ago, no 3 … Really, this is such a surprise – I can’t believe it.
I have made up the quarrel with John, and he has given me my scarab ring back. He came up all unexpectedly last night, and though we started off badly, ended up all right. So that is a good thing. I can’t bear these often quarrels. Life is too short. I am on the scout for your lipstick, and hope to be able to get it and send it on this week.
It must be very lovely at home now – here strange to say it is still beautifully cool. We have started dancing in the open air, though and everything is as summery as it possibly could be. My only regret is I have so little time to wear cotton dresses and for swimming etc. We do miss Sidi Bishr beach very much, as you can guess – but still, Cairo has its advantages.
With very much love to you and Daddy,
Sheila
xx (one each)
RNGHQ MEF 21/6
My dear Ma and Pa – it is now the longest day of the year and I am Duty Secretary, but as I’ve no key (Idwal having promised to come in early, but hasn’t) I’m not working awfully hard as everything is locked up! Did you get the parcel, by the way – It should have reached you by now, and also a letter written a bit earlier on, which I sent by someone [General Montgomery] travelling home by air … – I’ve thought quite a bit about what I should do if the war suddenly ended (I don’t think it will yet – but still!). If I get the chance of staying on in the WRNS I certainly would, as if I wasn’t married, I’d far rather be in the service than in a civilian job. I always did hate offices anyway – and as a Wren I’d have a fairly good chance of seeing the world. However, it’s really too far ahead to speculate what we’ll all do! … On Friday I went to Ula’s birthday party, which was held at a new place between Giza and Mena called Auberge des Pyramides – a very good band, quite large floor too, but rotten food. It’s all in the open, and with a bright full moon above, it was really rather fun – but without the moon I don’t know what it would be like – as there were very few lights. The following evening, Saturday, I went out to dinner with Bruce to the Mena House Hotel (I sent you a snap of it). It was just perfect, dining and dancing in the moonlight by the side of a swimming pool, all very gay – at about midnight we decided to walk up the hill and see the Pyramids – it was rather glorious – you walk out of the hotel garden and up a hill which slopes round to the foot of the Big Pyramid that I climbed – and all in the bright moonlight – beautifully cool. Yesterday I was frightfully tired tho’ after all this gaiety, but this afternoon Idwal and I are both working early and if there is not much work to do, we are going to leave at about six and go for a sail – It’s really not awfully hot yet, tho’ last year at this time it was boiling, and we were just preparing for the flap! I told you I made it up with John, didn’t I, and that I am now in possession of the ring once more? Robin writes from Iraq that he may be on a short course in these parts fairly soon – in the meantime I have to set about buying him a new signals side cap, and a pair of sunglasses – I should like to see him again very much. Mails from UK have been generally very bad. Well here comes Idwal so it’s work for me now. He’s just had his hair cut and looks quite different – it was curling round his cap at lunchtime! Heaps of love, Sheila.
The following letter was written the day after Admiral Ramsay sailed from Malta on the headquarters ship, Antwerp, to witness the convergence of the convoys of big ships from both Europe and the Middle East, and landing craft from Sfax (Tunisia), Tripoli and Malta as they headed for landfall on the south-east coast of Sicily on 10 July, when Syracuse fell to British forces. On 19 July after the success of the Sicily landings, Admiral Ramsay’s appointment came to an end and he returned to England, where he became pivotal in planning the D-Day landings. Mussolini was to fall only a few days later on 25 July.
As for the campaign itself, it was led by the two most able Allied commanders – General Patten of the Seventh Army and General Montgomery in charge of the Eighth. It is remembered as a shining example of the value of sea and air power working together, something that had been rather lacking in the previous North African campaigns, mainly due to Italian and German do
minance of the Mediterranean. It was, from a naval perspective, the greatest assembly of ships ever massed at one time, and it took the Italians completely by surprise.
It was not all plain sailing, however. The weather deteriorated very suddenly just before the primary assault and there was much debate around postponing the attack. In the event it was decided to continue, a decision that was vindicated despite the atrocious conditions suffered by the landing forces, often waist- and shoulder-deep in treacherous, choppy water. The success was due in no small part to the meticulous planning of the assault, mainly carried out by Admiral Ramsay and his team, including Second Officer Mills, in a dingy house in Cairo.
With Ramsay’s departure, Sheila’s role in Husky is over – she is still not able to talk about it – and she finds herself back in Alexandria, and it’s rather an anticlimax:
C in C Levant 10/7
My dear Ma – I wonder if you got my EFM saying I had changed my address once more, and am now back in Alex again. I knew I should have to leave Cairo fairly soon, but I did hope very much I wouldn’t have to return to Alex. However, here I am, back in C in C’s Cypher Office, this time as a duty Cypher Officer with a watch of my own – and again I am living in a convent. Not Notre Dame de Sion, but Sacré Coeur, which is nearly on the sea front and quite a long way away from the town and shops. I am thankful not to be at the Rue Rassafah – 50 Wren officers is too much for me, and we are only 7 here! I have just discovered that my promotion dates back from 29 April, and that it is a permanent one, unlike so many 2/O’s out here. There has been mass promotion on account of a new order saying that all heads of watches are to be 2/O’s but mine came through before that and for an entirely different reason – which will be divulged later …