Letter from Lewis Ellis to his mother and father

Letter from Lewis Ellis to his mother and father

Writes that winter had set in and it had recently snowed. Says he had been doing plenty of flying and getting bad weather experience. mentions teaching a wireless/op air gunner colleague to fly but thinks Bolingbroke too big for him. Writes about photographs and issue of battledress uniform. Comments on letters from friends and discussed their news.

1942-11-14

Two page handwritten letter and envelope

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.

EEllisELEllisH-[Fa]421114

Mrs H Ellis
54, Wulfric Rd.,
Manor,
Sheffield. 2.
Yorks.
England.

[page break]

R C A F
[crest]

[page break]

[crest]

1238597 Sgt E L Ellis
7 B & G School
Paulson
Manitoba

Dear Mam and Dad,

Well I am on a forty eight again so I thought I would write again. As you will guess the winter has set in again in full force and you have to put your great coat on even to go to the mess.

The other day we had quite a snow storm and Knox who has only seen snow once before really enjoyed it even if he is twenty three. Today it is not snowing but it is very overcast and the guys who are flying say its really cold up there.

Nothing exciting has happened here lately except I am piling in flying time and getting some good experience in bad weather flying. It is exciting flying through a snow storm over the bush hoping your navigation will get you back to base. Luckily it always does.

I have started taking Know [sic] up with me on long trips and I am teaching him to fly but I dare not let him have control alone, I think a Bolingbroke is a bit too big for him to do his first solo on. He is a wireless operator – airgunner and he sure knows his job but he curses his luck at not being a pilot. Theoretically he is a first class aviator and a wonderful

[page break]

hangar [deleted letters] pilot.

The other day Greene, Knox and I had our photographs taken all together so I am sending [underlined] you [/underlined] one along.

Last week we had “battle dress” issued to us, it is much more comfortable under a flying suite [sic] and there are no buttons to clean eigther [sic].

This week I received two letters, one from Hats and one from Joan Lockwood and the circle so I am going to reply to them tomorrow. Fancy Hats being at No 10 Scarborough. He asks me if I know where St Nicks. hotel is. I think I know all the hotels in Scarborough off by heart and I would not mind being back there myself, we did have a grand time at I.T.W. Hats also said you had not heard from me for six weeks; well I guess it must be the postal service as you should receive at least a letter every fortnight as I write every forty eight and we get one every ten days.

I guess thats about all except wish our Renee many happy returns on her 21st,

Remember me to all,

Your loving son,

Lewis.

P.S. What are you supposed to give people on their 21st birthday?