This is a letter from a mother (my grandmother) to Bill, one of her 5 sons, all of whom were away from home serving during WW2. A whole collection of wartime letters were retained by the only sister to the 5 men and these were passed to me after the recent death of her daughter. This letter is dated 14 April 1941 during the London Blitz. My family lived in the East End of London and the letter talks about the air raids. Because I have been unable to obtain copies of Bill’s service record I don’t know where he was in 1941 but the letter – & its envelope – suggests he may at that point have been training in Britain. He served as a Craftsman in REME 28 LAA Regt 4th Corps, 14th Army and spent time ‘stranded’ (in the so-called ‘Forgotten Army’) in Burma (now Myanmar) at the end of the war.
Reference at the beginning of the letter to ‘uncle’ relates to my great-uncle Luder ‘Jack’ Korten. He was a bootmaker and did very well in his career. His parents (my great grandparents) were German, they came to London in the 1860s, and Jack was born in East London in 1885. He served in the Middlesex Regiment throughout WW1 as a bootmaker/mender, staying in Britain because of his family origins. In WW2 he served as an air raid warden and was killed in a massive air raid just 3 days after this letter was written.
My grandmother lost 3 of her loved ones during WW2 – one son, her brother in law Jack, and her husband, Johann Henrich Korten (known as John Henry Korten) whose death was caused by a tragic accident in 1946. His sons were all still away from home in the Armed Forces at the time.
