Letter from Harold Gorton to his wife

Letter from Harold Gorton to his wife

He writes of his course and colleagues past and present.

1944-01-28

Four handwritten sheets

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EGortonHGortonLCM440128

[Royal Air Force crest]
The Junior Commanders’ School,
R.A.F. Dallachy,
Near Elgin
Morayshire.
Friday.
Dearest,
Things are going very smoothly here although my head seems to be in a bit of a whirl owing to the gen that is being pumped in to us seven hours a day. Fortunately tomorrow is a half day off, and I shall go to Elgin on the liberty bus, so it should prove a useful break.
Yesterday afternoon I went to the A.F.U. I ran into Paddon at S.H.Q. He spared half a minute to say hello, & then disappeared. Whether he was very busy, I don’t know, but personally I thought he was rather rude.
Then I went to see Church,
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who at present is F/Lt i/c Night Flight. He gave me all the gen. Ozzy Stewart is group commander at Dallachy, & Faulkner, whom you may perhaps remember, is one of the other F/Lts. here. Dale & Padgham [inserted] & Hopkin [/inserted] are both F/Lts. at Banff, and I shall go over to see them some afternoon.
All the other former Flt. Cmdrs. are on Ops, mostly heavies, but Tasker & Smith are on night fighters (the heavies are Doyle Williams, Morris, Red Stewart, etc.).
I must say I felt considerably shaken during & after my visit. Although I’ve no love for my former unit, & suspect that there’s still the same drive & bind there as of old, yet it does seem unfair that these blokes, all junior to me, should have been F/Lts for some time
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while I am still an F/O. It may be luck, but I suppose [deleted] this [/deleted] it’s my fault actually, since the people who are successful are usually the ones who deserve it.
Pardon the above moan. I had to get it off my chest, but am O.K. now.
I half dared hope there would be a letter from you this morning. It will be a week tomorrow since I had a letter from you, & although [deleted] I [/deleted] it doesn’t worry me if I don’t get a letter, it just accentuates the unpleasantness of separation so much more keenly. If this course had only been in the south of England, I might have called to see you en route, but as it is, I shall have
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to wait until I can get some leave. It seems ages off now, & the fact that I’m another 4 – 500 miles away from you seems to make it so much worse.
I wish I could see you again.
All my love,
Harold.