This is a letter from my Dad to my Mum dated the 1st June 1944. This letter has great significance, both to me personally (of which more in a minute) and understanding the public’s knowledge of D-Day preparations.
When my Mum died in 2013 I inherited all her correspondence and included was a pile of letters tied with ribbon, they were obviously letters from Dad but for many years I felt they would be too personal for me to inspect. Just before the D-Day anniversary in 2024 I decided to read just one letter and it happened to be the letter has has the most significance of any event in my life.
The date is significance being a few days before D-Day itself, and it is pretty obvious from other letters that it was common knowledge that D-Day was imminent, also Dad had found a way of posting letters to Mum that did not go past the censor, and Mum had a way of getting messages to him by telegram as that is how she had told him she would be visiting him at a place she was not supposed to know about.
The letter refers to them having been apart for months and it also refers to having spent four hours together on 27th May. I was born on February 19th 1945 so it is pretty obvious I was conceived during those 4 hours.
Because Dad was a Crane Driver with the Royal Engineers he did not actually return home until the end of 1946 and spent most of the time after D-Day in Antwerp I believe. He became a Lance Corporal and for some reason two weeks before he was demobbed he was promoted to Lance Sergeant.
The additional photo shows my Dad on completion of first 6 weeks training, he is the slightly chubby one third from the left. He was older than others because he was in a protected occupation until 1943 as a Crane Driver. He deliberately accepted promotion to Foreman in 1943 so he would be eligible for call up.
