Letter from Roly Roberts to his mother
Title
Letter from Roly Roberts to his mother
Description
Roly describes his aircraft acting as stooge to draw fire on an operation, leave having been cancelled, an invitation to a dance at Lincoln Assembly Rooms and the arrival of his motorbike, albeit having been damaged in transit.
Creator
Date
1940-08-22
Temporal Coverage
Language
Format
One stamped envelope and four 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
ERobertsRFJacksonTW400822
Transcription
Scampton
Lincs
22/8/40
Dearest Ma,
Calm yourself dear parent. I am in no need of congratulations; you must have got me wrong. I certainly was on the same raid but was acting as stooge to confuse the defences and draw off the fire. They don’t give gongs for that. I certainly found out about Croyden’s raid even if did not mention this in my letter. I learnt the full details
[Page break]
from our intelligence as soon as I read it in the papers. It must have been a very anxious time. All leave is cancelled while the Blitzkrieg is on, so that my leave is naturally put back for some weeks. It will probably be a couple of months before I am home again. What a life. I have got the bike up here now, but the railway
[Page break]
rather battered it about and it will take a good week to get it in running order again. It’s a good thing we get plenty of spare time in the day so that I can fix it. Having got the night off from 8’o’clock onwards, it’s too late to go out into Lincoln, so I will turn in early and get some much needed shuteye. On Saturday, if I am
[Page break]
not on operations, I have been invited to a 21st celebration of one of our Waafs. There will be just six of us and we intend to have a supper and go to a Dance in Lincoln Assembly Rooms. There will only be the three girls if we are on that night. We must hope for the best. I am sorry if my letters are a little erratic these days, but they be hard times.
Your Very loving [indecipherable word]
[Page break]
[Postage Stamp]
[Postmark]
Mrs. E. R. Jackson
6 Haling Court,
Haling Park Road,
S. Croydon
Surrey
Lincs
22/8/40
Dearest Ma,
Calm yourself dear parent. I am in no need of congratulations; you must have got me wrong. I certainly was on the same raid but was acting as stooge to confuse the defences and draw off the fire. They don’t give gongs for that. I certainly found out about Croyden’s raid even if did not mention this in my letter. I learnt the full details
[Page break]
from our intelligence as soon as I read it in the papers. It must have been a very anxious time. All leave is cancelled while the Blitzkrieg is on, so that my leave is naturally put back for some weeks. It will probably be a couple of months before I am home again. What a life. I have got the bike up here now, but the railway
[Page break]
rather battered it about and it will take a good week to get it in running order again. It’s a good thing we get plenty of spare time in the day so that I can fix it. Having got the night off from 8’o’clock onwards, it’s too late to go out into Lincoln, so I will turn in early and get some much needed shuteye. On Saturday, if I am
[Page break]
not on operations, I have been invited to a 21st celebration of one of our Waafs. There will be just six of us and we intend to have a supper and go to a Dance in Lincoln Assembly Rooms. There will only be the three girls if we are on that night. We must hope for the best. I am sorry if my letters are a little erratic these days, but they be hard times.
Your Very loving [indecipherable word]
[Page break]
[Postage Stamp]
[Postmark]
Mrs. E. R. Jackson
6 Haling Court,
Haling Park Road,
S. Croydon
Surrey
Collection
Citation
Rory Roberts, “Letter from Roly Roberts to his mother,” IBCC Digital Archive, accessed June 14, 2025, https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/collections/document/50556.