Letter from Lewis Ellis to his mother and father

Letter from Lewis Ellis to his mother and father

Catches up on mail and news from home. Mentions weather getting cold and all aircraft winterised. Comments on issue of battledress, mentions buying a radio, and listening to BBC. Writes of going to local dance with two WAAF. Comments on receiving parcel from the United States and decision to stay on camp for Christmas. Still doing lots of flying on Bolingbroke.

1942-12-09

Three 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]421209

[postmarks]

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

[page break]

[blank page]

[page break]

[crest]

Sgt/Pilot E.L. Ellis
No 7 B & G School
Paulson
Manitoba.

Dear Mam & Dad,

I received your last letter on Thursday Dec. 3rd and as I am on another forty eight I took this chance of replying. It certainly took Mrs Ballards letter a long time, thats the woman who took us out to Sunday dinner we had a grand time and met her son who is a liutenant [sic] in the United States Navy.

I guess our Sidney must be growing up now its over a year since we left England so he must have grown quite a bit: I would love to have a letter from him.

As you can imagine its getting very cold here and we have quite a bit of snow. All the planes have been winterised for it gets extremely cold flying and you can bet we need the heaters. A week ago we got issued with battle dress which is much more comfortable than uniform and has no buttons to clean but I hated parting with the tunic I had issued at A.C.R.C. London,

I have also bought a radio for 10$ and I can get nearly all Canadian stations and one or two Yankee ones so now I can listen to overseas

[page break]

broadcasts of the B.B.C. and on Sunday nights we hear Bing Crosby, Jack Benny and other film stars.

Last Saturday two of the WAAF.s managed to get Gus Knox and I down to the Dauphin town hall to a dance, well thats what they called it but it looked like a super jitterbug contest between the Mounted Police, the army, the airforce and the indians; the indians won easly [sic] and all I got was brused [sic] shin bones still I guess we enjoyed it.

Christmas is coming pretty close and today Les Greene and I received a parcel from the states containing four pounds of boiled sweets (You lucky people). I decided to stay on the camp for Christmas as we look like having a good time although we have to fly Christmas Eve and Boxing Day but we will get five days leave at New Year.

As regards work we are still doing lots of flying in the Bolingbrokes and you will find a photograph of the three of us inside the Christmas card. I have flown all three of them and the photograph is taken from the parade ground as three of us come home so I might be in one of them.

I cannot think of much more to add only I look forward to all mail from England and hope to see

[page break]

you early in 1943 so So long for now

Rember [sic] me to all

Your loving son

Lewis.

P.S. Thats the station crest on the front of the, Christmas card.