This is the last communication my grandmother received from my grandfather, who was serving on HMS Fiji in 1941. He was killed one week later on May 22nd in the Battle of Crete when his ship, which was sent out into battle with no ammunition, was sunk by a lone German Messerschmitt off the south west coast of Crete.
My grandmother would have been 8 months pregnant when he wrote the letter. She received the telegram informing her of her husband being missing at war 1 week after he had died. She received this Airgraph the day after my mother was born. If this doesn’t illustrate the harsh reality of war, I don’t know what else could.
It is one of over 60 letters, airmails and telegrams that he sent her between 1939 and 1941. My mum has had the box of letters for a long time but has never read them as I guess the emotional trauma of never knowing her father runs deep. I finally plucked up the courage to start reading them last year.
Wally wrote to Meg sometimes 3 or 4 times a week when they were apart. Meg moved up to Scotland to be nearer the naval base and away from the continued bombing of London and then Lincolnshire, so she could be with him whenever he had shore leave.
Due to censorship there is not much information to be gleaned from his time at sea, except for the drudgery and discomfort of chugging up and down the ocean, and the deep love he had for my grandmother. His penmanship was amazing. How he could write so small and so neatly amazes me. Seeing words that had been physically cut out of letters was surprising to me too.
My grandmother never remarried as she always held out hope that he was alive, as one of Wally’s surviving shipmates had told her that he had seen him swimming away from the wreckage of the Fiji. Over 1000 sailors died on May 22 1941 when the HMS Gloucester and HMS Fiji were hit and sunk in the Battle of Crete.
I hope that by sharing this letter that Walter will be remembered more than just a name on a plaque.
