Jul 131944
 

Thursday
Dover
Dearest,
While I remember I’d better tell you that I have written to the L.M.S. [London, Midland & Scottish Railway] to try to get a refund of the money I spent on the last three days I had. Remember? I didn’t use the return half so I’ve written off asking for a rebate. I don’t know how I’ll get on, but if a letter comes from the L.M.S. perhaps you will open it in case it is a voucher to be cashed in Liverpool, as may be the case. If I remember, I’ll enclose a rough draft of the letter I’ve written them so you will understand what it is all about, though if there are any inquiries made, you know nothing of it except that I got a lift to London. Nothing more. If a voucher does come, will you cash it for me if it is on one of the local stations? It will help towards that other suit I’ll have to get.
Well, sweetheart, I answered all your letters yesterday, and so far there isn’t one today so I’ll tell you about these ‘ere Doodlebugs that we see, chiefly at night. From our side it seems that they run parallel with the French coast for some distance, but this is an illusion, really. They are aimed at London and cross the coast at an oblique angle some miles away from us so that we are more or less in the same position to them, relatively, as people in, say, Ainsdale were to us when we were being blitzed. In other words, we can watch the fireworks without a great deal of danger to ourselves, except when an occasional one comes over our area. And then, believe me, we don’t wait to see if the engine cuts out but nip smartly out of harm’s way. They make a really frightening roar for they are quite low and have a deep boom to the exhaust, though nearly all Londoners agree that this is a big help in that it gives you warning of their approach as well as an indication of their direction. If the engine cuts out you get as much protection as you can and hope for the best. That seems to be the technique, in cold blood, though so far we have not needed to put the last part into practice. We have a natural grandstand view of the Channel when we are on duty and it really is a thrilling sight, at night, to see these things being shot down. At the start they look like Tinker Bell in ‘Peter Pan’. Just a very small light moving across the sky rather inexorably. Slowly at first, then faster so that by the time they cross the coast they are moving at a bit of a rate. Sometimes the fighters start on them quite early on in their flight and it’s most tantalizing to watch tracer bullets passing what looks to be a fraction of an inch above or below the light. If the fighters leave them to the A.A. guns, as they sometimes do for some reason, you get a marvelous shooting exhibition with all kinds of coloured tracers. Suddenly there’s a huge orange glow where the little Tinker Bell was and one more Machiavellian “fairy” has failed to reach London. From our own observation, Churchill was quite right when he said that fighters and Ack Ack, as well as other defensive measures, are destroying a good percentage before they reach London. In the very early stages we were enthralled one night watching one gun battery, which seemed to be in remarkably good form for they scored 100% successes while we were watching.
On another day we had a “thrill” of a different kind. We were hitching to Deal and while waiting for a car to come along stood watching a convoy sailing by a few hundred feet below the road on which we were standing. The French coast was remarkably clear and suddenly the cliffs on that side stabbed forth what looked for all the world like giant headlamps, for they could be seen in broad daylight. There was a battery of three and then two of four each. Thin spirals of dark smoke went up from the cliff in the still air. Jerry was shelling the convoy, which was clouded in smoke screens. We waited what seemed ages and then got the crash of the shells and following them the boom of the guns. Although we could see quite clearly, we were too far from it to be in any danger – though shelling is not one of the things you go out of your way to see. Once you know there is a shelling warning, you duck to safety.
One of the great sights in the Channel is to see the little ships getting a convoy safely through. First you get a line of sweepers going ahead to make a safe channel and behind them come more fast little ships with white smoke streaming from their sterns. It is behind this curtain that the other ships sail in safety. These little beggars do wonderfully good work and get very little credit indeed for it. I’ve seen them, in that spell of dirty weather we had soon after D-Day, bouncing – literally bouncing – from wave to wave with about a third of their hull out of the water all the time, but they still went on with the job. They certainly are tough, both boats and men, for they are fast and light which means that in dirty weather they are absolute devils. In a millpond sea they must be very pleasant to man, but otherwise I’m all for battlewagons! To complete the picture of the convoy, there are destroyers in attendance and, beating along overhead, searching ahead and to each side, are the planes ready if necessary to “patch” the smoke screen by making smoke from above. Then, with the sun shining on it, it looks like distant snow-capped mountain ranges.
Well, love, there you have a fairly full picture of some of the highlights in normal life here. It’s all very new and interesting at first, but people soon take it all for granted, diving into shelter when it’s necessary but otherwise carrying on with their normal lives so far as possible. Somehow I find it difficult to believe anyone ever lived a “normal” life in this hole, even in peacetime!
Just to give you a more complete picture of life here, I will add that when we are “on” we go to Dover Castle where the W/T station is situated. As some of the lads are billeted there – I wish we were – and have their mail addresses there I can see no reason why you shouldn’t know it. I’ll try to get a picture postcard of it. Our Naafi is on the cliff face and while we are having a cup of tea we can stand outside and look over to France. At night you can often see, as well as feel and hear, our heavy bombers pounding hell out of Jerry. Once the battle moves here it will be a grand sight to watch them putting up their land bombardments. It’s one of the reasons I don’t want to leave here, for it will be a tremendous sight. No doubt there will be more gruesome sides to it, too, such as the landing of wounded, but that is inescapable in war, and at least there will be some comfort in the thought that here they will have the shortest possible sea crossing and the lads will be back in Blighty in record time – if that is any comfort. But there’s no point in dwelling on that as it’s quite likely we shan’t be here, though I hope we are.
Dover Castle is a remarkable place and I think it could rival the famous Cassino monastery in the length of time it could hold out against shelling and bombing. We have rambled round it a bit, but I’m annoyed that I cannot find anyone who knows anything about it. It’s everything a kid dreams a castle should be. Old and grey with massive buttressed walls and look-out towers all round it and it has been kept in surprisingly good condition, too. Set on a hill, it is impregnable from the land, I should say, though its very deep moat is now grass-grown and shrub-covered, the home of rabbit and fox. Last night I spent half an hour on one of the watchtowers with a pair of glasses glued on a fox lair, but the vixen didn’t bring her cubs out to play. I believe they romp about all day long in sunny weather on a sheltered little platform outside the ramparts but just inside the moat, where they can be seen but not reached. I’m certainly going to keep an eye open for them. The children would love this place and would be thrilled to death with being able to see all the ships, the coast of France, the MTBs trying their guns out each night, and climbing up on to the broad walls where watch was kept against invasion perhaps a thousand years ago. One day in town – shops are closed on Thursday – I’ll try to get a postcard of it for them.
Well, love, I think that’s all the news for today except to say I got the usual office circular today and an item there has set me off in a bad temper. Twin brothers who used to be kids in the phone room are both out in Italy – both are on the staff of the army paper ‘Union Jack’ and one of them writes glowing accounts home of himself as Sports Editor. It makes me writhe. Why, oh why, did I ever join this blasted navy? Tell me that! Sorry, love, but it hurts. I like to see kids get on (though to be honest I didn’t like one of those two at all) but when you see some people getting all the lucky breaks and you are not merely standing still but going backwards, it’s riling.
Now I must be off or I’ll drip all day long. God help Tom Oliver today! All my love, sweetheart.
Ever your own,
Arthur X