Letter from Jack Darby to Jean
Title
Letter from Jack Darby to Jean
Description
His move to the course location is imminent. His leave trip to New York has had to be cancelled but he has been travelling locally. He was hitch hiking through forests and ended up in a pavilion for the night.
Creator
Date
1943-07-20
Temporal Coverage
Coverage
Language
Format
Four double sided handwritten sheets
Publisher
Rights
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Contributor
Identifier
EDarbyCAHWellandJ430720
Transcription
[logo] ON ACTIVE SERVICE
NO. 25
927893. L.A.C. Darby.
#31. R.A.F. Depot
Moncton N.B.
Canada.
20/7/43.
Dear Jean.
Thanks so much for air-letter number 20 which reached me today, so glad to hear you have been digging for victory, bet It did’nt last long, how many blisters have [deleted] h [/deleted] you got?
Am very glad to say things are at last moving, we should be on our way this weekend, I shall cable my new address to home and they can pass on the gen. Really it was rather annoying in a way to have leave cancelled two hours before I was due
[page break]
2/
to leave for New York. I had even got the $25 required by the currency regulations from my relatives and it must have been a great disappointment for them, however we should miss a lot of the worst weather starting our course now, and we should have a faint chance of getting home next January instead of later on.
Last weekend we did get a 48 hour pass, had a wizard time, travelled 150 miles through some of the wildest parts of New Brunswick. We were lucky in getting a lift with a foreman of some lumberjacks, he had a big Packard and was visiting several saw mills, these were the portable type and are
[page break]
3/
set up where the timber is felled. We travelled 80 miles with him through some terrible roads, mostly consisting of two wheel tracks through the forest, in some parts we had to stop and remove boulders and rubble from the road where sections had been washed out.
The scenery was grand and at one place called 45 Bridge the bridge crosses a gorge about 500 feet deep, the sides are sheer rock and the river runs far below. In the spring the logs are driven down the stream by a system of dams which when the water is released sweep down at a tremendous rate, carring [sic] all before it. The woods are terribly thick and practically
[page break]
4
impassable, of course there are bear, moose, deer and wildfowl in abundance and the numerous lakes yield some lovely trout and salmon, its nothing much like Oxshott Common I can tell you.
After arriving at a small timber port we had some food and said cheerio to him, after a stroll round the port which consisted of about 50 houses we got a lift on our way. this was to a small farm and then luck was not too good, we waited 2 hours and did’nt see a soul, [deleted word] we decided it was hiking from then on into Albert, the road we were on was definately [sic] a secondary one and there seemed no traffic at all, luckily
[page break]
5/
the weather was beautiful and clear. off we set, having 15 miles to go, we had covered 8 miles when to our intense surprise an army truck appeared, we could hardly believe our eyes as military stuff is practically non-existent off main roads. In we hopped and Albert soon came in sight, it was now 8.30 pm and we had 15 miles more to do. this was soon knocked off by another lift and we arrived at a place to stay the night. This was Hopewell Cape where the local farmers has built a pavilion and
[page break]
6/
half a dozen log cabins. We hired one for $1 a night and found it well furnished, equipped with electric light, two beds, big wood stove etc. We were extremely comfortable, had our food in the pavilion which was pretty good, all home produced including chicken, straw berries [sic], farmhouse bread and so on. For breakfast we had home cured bacon, boy I can still taste it now. Next morning we did’nt rise very early and spent the day lounging about the beach, we met some Moncton people who came back with us in their car and of course took us home to supper, its funny we’ve met more people out of Moncton than in town, suppose there are
[page break]
7/
too many air force in town for them to get acquainted.
Luckily the weather has cooled a bit, it was 99° in the shade last week, and only a sharp thunderstorm cooled things off.
I notice in your last letter that alterations have been in progress on your hair, what does it do, make you look more grown up? think it would be a good idea if you supplied me with a photo so I can recognise you [underlined] when [/underlined] I get home, its such a long time ago since I saw you that I’ve forgotten what you look like, probably the only thing I’d recognise about you is the ‘little’ handbag you used to carry, you remember, the one that took up the extra seat in
[page break]
8/
the bus.
At the moment skating is out but later on who knows, I might even be able to go round the rink once without piling up,
Well, must finish up now, cheerio for the moment,
Yours
Jack
NO. 25
927893. L.A.C. Darby.
#31. R.A.F. Depot
Moncton N.B.
Canada.
20/7/43.
Dear Jean.
Thanks so much for air-letter number 20 which reached me today, so glad to hear you have been digging for victory, bet It did’nt last long, how many blisters have [deleted] h [/deleted] you got?
Am very glad to say things are at last moving, we should be on our way this weekend, I shall cable my new address to home and they can pass on the gen. Really it was rather annoying in a way to have leave cancelled two hours before I was due
[page break]
2/
to leave for New York. I had even got the $25 required by the currency regulations from my relatives and it must have been a great disappointment for them, however we should miss a lot of the worst weather starting our course now, and we should have a faint chance of getting home next January instead of later on.
Last weekend we did get a 48 hour pass, had a wizard time, travelled 150 miles through some of the wildest parts of New Brunswick. We were lucky in getting a lift with a foreman of some lumberjacks, he had a big Packard and was visiting several saw mills, these were the portable type and are
[page break]
3/
set up where the timber is felled. We travelled 80 miles with him through some terrible roads, mostly consisting of two wheel tracks through the forest, in some parts we had to stop and remove boulders and rubble from the road where sections had been washed out.
The scenery was grand and at one place called 45 Bridge the bridge crosses a gorge about 500 feet deep, the sides are sheer rock and the river runs far below. In the spring the logs are driven down the stream by a system of dams which when the water is released sweep down at a tremendous rate, carring [sic] all before it. The woods are terribly thick and practically
[page break]
4
impassable, of course there are bear, moose, deer and wildfowl in abundance and the numerous lakes yield some lovely trout and salmon, its nothing much like Oxshott Common I can tell you.
After arriving at a small timber port we had some food and said cheerio to him, after a stroll round the port which consisted of about 50 houses we got a lift on our way. this was to a small farm and then luck was not too good, we waited 2 hours and did’nt see a soul, [deleted word] we decided it was hiking from then on into Albert, the road we were on was definately [sic] a secondary one and there seemed no traffic at all, luckily
[page break]
5/
the weather was beautiful and clear. off we set, having 15 miles to go, we had covered 8 miles when to our intense surprise an army truck appeared, we could hardly believe our eyes as military stuff is practically non-existent off main roads. In we hopped and Albert soon came in sight, it was now 8.30 pm and we had 15 miles more to do. this was soon knocked off by another lift and we arrived at a place to stay the night. This was Hopewell Cape where the local farmers has built a pavilion and
[page break]
6/
half a dozen log cabins. We hired one for $1 a night and found it well furnished, equipped with electric light, two beds, big wood stove etc. We were extremely comfortable, had our food in the pavilion which was pretty good, all home produced including chicken, straw berries [sic], farmhouse bread and so on. For breakfast we had home cured bacon, boy I can still taste it now. Next morning we did’nt rise very early and spent the day lounging about the beach, we met some Moncton people who came back with us in their car and of course took us home to supper, its funny we’ve met more people out of Moncton than in town, suppose there are
[page break]
7/
too many air force in town for them to get acquainted.
Luckily the weather has cooled a bit, it was 99° in the shade last week, and only a sharp thunderstorm cooled things off.
I notice in your last letter that alterations have been in progress on your hair, what does it do, make you look more grown up? think it would be a good idea if you supplied me with a photo so I can recognise you [underlined] when [/underlined] I get home, its such a long time ago since I saw you that I’ve forgotten what you look like, probably the only thing I’d recognise about you is the ‘little’ handbag you used to carry, you remember, the one that took up the extra seat in
[page break]
8/
the bus.
At the moment skating is out but later on who knows, I might even be able to go round the rink once without piling up,
Well, must finish up now, cheerio for the moment,
Yours
Jack
Collection
Citation
Jack Darby, “Letter from Jack Darby to Jean,” IBCC Digital Archive, accessed January 24, 2026, https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/collections/document/40061.