Letter to David Donaldson from his brother Norman

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Title

Letter to David Donaldson from his brother Norman

Description

Written from HQ 14th Army, South East Asia Command where he is now a Captain. Congratulates David on award of bar to Distinguished Service Order and offers banter about his medals. Writes of recent leave and complain of action by Royal Air Force officer. Catches up with family news.

Date

1945-08-08

Temporal Coverage

Language

Format

Two page handwritten letter and envelope

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

EDonaldsonGNDonaldsonDW450808

Transcription

AIR MAIL LETTER CARD
[postage stamp]
[censor stamp]
W/C Donaldson DSO, DFC,
[deleted] 42, Peartree Avenue,
Bitterne,
Southampton. [/deleted]
c/o R.A.F.
Foulsham
Nr Dereham
Norfolk.
U.K.
[underlined] THESE CARDS ARE FOR THE USE OF H.M. FORCES ONLY [/UNDERLINED]
Written in: English
No.: 282266
Rank: Capt
Name: G.N. Donaldson
[page break]
8 Aug 45
APIS, HQ 14th Army,
SEAC
Dear Willie
Further to our combined (for economy) wire or 26 July, many hearty congratulations on the new DSO. Ian and I have been frantically adding up stars to see what we can produce in the way of ribbons. I can make 3 if you count the Defence Medal, which I haven't had the face to put up yet. Ian is as yet bare-breasted he says he's not sure whether or not he's qualified for the Burma, but personally I think he's just being snobbish about it. Presumably you are well into two rows by now.
We had a pretty Donaldsonish sort of leave – no women, wine in great moderation, and you can scarcely imagine us doing much singing, though Ian [deleted] has [/deleted] practically murdered [inserted] me [/inserted] one night for whistling under my breath in his mess. We swam a good bit, and Ian turned salmon pink and my mecrapine yellow went a little darker in shade, and I had a lovely attack of squitters, and beat him hollow at picquet [sic] (though he will probably maintain that he had bad luck.) my opinion of the RAF has sunk considerably since a very nasty-minded Wingco turned me out of their living quarters there, in spite of the fact that they had bags of empty charpoys, and also from seeing the remarkably phoney excuses they seem to get home on. Definitely a sissy service. Too young to know better, I suppose. But otherwise the leave was good.
I believe I owe both of you and your ever-loving a letter; in fact I don't think I've ever thanked you for the [word deleted] for the very worthy Captain Foulenough. (A brow type, of course.) I take it that you will be going back to school again shortly. If
[page break]
I get home in time, I shall come & take you out and buy you some sweets one Sunday. But I'm afraid I shall be too late.
I hope Frances is getting on well with her English catechism; she must have that off pat by the time I get home so we can cracking on the Greek & Latin versions. The Hebrew can well wait. Better start her off on some Elementary Karl Marx, too, just in case. Incidentally I was conning over the christening group recently. Some detailed discussions must obviously be held with the Fairy Godmother. Name like Lavender of [sic] Petunia or something, wasn't it?
Yours,
[underlined] Norman [/underlined]

Collection

Citation

Norman Donaldson, “Letter to David Donaldson from his brother Norman,” IBCC Digital Archive, accessed March 19, 2024, https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collections/document/14907.

Item Relations

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