Letter to his parents

Letter to his parents

Stamped 'RAF Censor 937' Douglas wishes his parents a happy Christmas and describes his day including what he has eaten, parade, and attending a service in the church tent. Douglas describes the tradition of officers serving the airmen and mess staff.

1943-01-26

One air mail envelope and two handwritten sheets

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.

EKnoxVD[Fam]421225-0001; EKnoxVD[Fam]421225-0002; EKnoxVD[Fam]421225-0003

AIR MAIL LETTER CARD
[postage stamp] [post mark]
Mr and Mrs W. Knox
The Nook
East Harlsey
Nr Northallerton
Yorkshire
[underlined] England [/underlined]
[inserted] V Douglas [underlined] Knox [/underlined]
[inserted] [RAF crest} R.A.F. CENSOR 937 [/inserted]
[inserted] Rec.d [underlined] 26/1/43 [/underlined] [/inserted]
[page break]
Christmas morning
[underlined] 11a.m. [/underlined]
F/O KNOX. 462. SQUADRON.
RAF. [underlined] M.E.F. [/underlined]
Hello Mum and Dad
A Merry Christmas. It is now 10a.m. in E. H. and I am picturing what will be going on there at this moment as indeed I will during the whole of today. I shall be with you in Spirit and as the Padre said at this morning’s parade a person who is in that state is indeed a happy man. I was up at 6.30 this morning and had breakfast at 7, being the first in. We had grapefruit, that cereal that pops when milk is poured on it, bacon, eggs, fried bread, tomatoe [sic] and sausage and then marmalade – in fact breakfast like that of [sic] home in peace-time. I then went off to the Church tent about a mile away at 7.30. There wasn’t time to return to the Squadron for 8.15 at which time the whole Squadron paraded prior to Church Parade so I stayed up at the Wing Mess and had a second breakfast, almost a repetition of the first, joining the Squadron at the Church Parade. At 11.30 we are having sandwiches and at 12.30 we go over to the Airmen’s Mess to serve them with their Christmas dinner – an old R.A.F. custom. At present I am sitting outside my tent in a pair of shorts in the hot sun – there is not a cloud in the sky – I bet a little different from the weather you are experiencing back home. I shall add more to this letter as the day progresses giving you a running commentary of my doings. Yesterday a radio was bought for the Mess so we shall be able to
[page break]
hear the Empire programme and the King’s Speech to which I know you will be listening.
[underlined] Boxing Day [/underlined]
Well I didn’t find time to write any more on Christmas Day so I’ll give you a resumé of yesterday’s happenings. As I have already mentioned we served the airmen with their lunch which was really an excellent one and very similar to ours. Then we returned to our Mess and had our photographs taken; we heard a bit of the Empire broadcast and while this was on we had our Christmas Dinner. This consisted of Tomato Soup, Fish, Turkey, Pork, Apple sauce, Stuffing, Roast and mashed potatoes, asparagus, cauliflower, peas, then Christmas pudd [sic], - very good – [underlined] fresh [/underlined] strawberries jelly and cream – coffee, cheese, biscuits, bananas, tangerines [sic] oranges, dates, figs, Christmas cake with icing, Crème de Menthe, sherry and cigars and cigarettes. So you can see we had a real good spread. We heard the King’s Speech (not as much as we would if we hadn’t been eating.) [sic] He seemed to get through it perfectly. I was thinking [inserted] of [/inserted] you all at this time as I knew you would be listening to this programme. Shortly afterwards the Mess Staff – cooks, waiters and batmen – ate their meal and several of the Officers including myself – waited on them for a change. In the evening I went along to my crew’s tent and spent the time with them until after midnight. Jimmie as I told you in my last letter was in hospital with athlete’s foot and I am going in to see him tomorrow. I visited him on Christmas eve. You would hear in yesterday’s programme just before Big Ben struck 3, the choir and congregation singing [sic]