My grandfather wrote hundreds of letters and airgraphs to his mother, wife (and children, which included my mother at just one year of age), and wider family and friends from May 1942 when he joined the RAMC as a dentist, through to December 1943 when he returned home after being wounded in Operation Avalanche in Salerno, Italy in September 1943.
The letters have allowed us his family to follow his service from Crookham, Aldershot in the UK to Iraq, India, Egypt, Tunisia, and Italy, where he provided dentistry to the troops. We have the full collection of letters to both his mother, wife, and children and have been able to track all of his movements whilst matching the correspondence.
This particular letter is the first he wrote home to his mother having been wounded in Salerno, explaining how he had shrapnel lodged in his ‘behind’ and leg. The wounds were cleaned on the beach by the medical team attached to his unit and he returned home after recovering in the General Hospital. Other letters describe how he met ‘Monty’ who visited his dentistry tent in Italy before the Operation, watched Dumbo in the cinema whilst on leave for four days in Italy, found 90 litres of red wine when the Italians retreated, was best man to a unit trooper who married his Irish wife whilst in Baghdad, read Penguin books sent by his mother, and smoked hundreds of Players cigarettes (although they often arrived bent!), and swan in the nude in Tunisia with hundreds of other soldiers, because it was so hot.
He went on to live a full and wonderful life after returning from the war, and had two more children and numerous grand children and (now), great grandchildren. We have the full collection of his medals, leather dog tags, note pad, Captains uniform, photographs, black cat badges, and his whistle. Plus lots of photographs from his wartime travel, with the troops that he mentions in his letters, so lovely to put a face to the names.
He is our hero.
