This (Airgraph) letter was sent by my father Bill Bailey to my mother, Margaret. He was in the RAOC based in Kanpur (Cawnpore). He had left the UK in 1941. My mother went from London to Hope Cove in Devon to try and be as close to her husband as she could as he embarked from Plymouth. His ship was damaged in an air raid and he was given leave. He was heading for London , but my grandmother told him Margaret was only 20 miles away—-he spent his leave in Hope Cove. I was born in May 1942! He left not knowing my mother was pregnant. This letter as written in July 1942 when communications were very difficult from one side of the world to the other. After VJ Day, my father was seconded to the Indian Army for the duration of the partition process under the orders of Earl Mountbatten. He returned in 1947. Unfortunately he died at 48 in 1958.
