To Jessie from Harry Redgrave

To Jessie from Harry Redgrave

A letter and envelope from Harry Redgrave to his wife Jessie. Harry writes from RAF Finningley about his life including the bad weather. He describes a recent incident where, due to the weather, a Hampden was shot at by a Spitfire by mistake and the pilot killed.

1940-10-06

Three handwritten sheets and an 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.

ERedgraveHCRedgraveJM401006-0001,
ERedgraveHCRedgraveJM401006-0002,
ERedgraveHCRedgraveJM401006-0003,
ERedgraveHCRedgraveJM401006-0004,
ERedgraveHCRedgraveJM401006-0005

[Envelope]
[postmark]
[postage stamp]

Mrs. H. C. Redgrave,
155 Fletton Avenue.
Peterboro’,
Northants.

[page break]

[Reverse of envelope]

[page break]

[RAF Crest]

Sgts Mess
Finningley
Yorks
Sun. 6. 10. 40

Dear Jessie,
I do hope the weather is better down Peterboro [sic] way because I have never seen anything quite so miserable as tonight at Finningley. It is pouring with rain and the cloud is down right on to the deck. Visibility is confined to about fifty yards and it is mostly warm. How I long for our comfortable room at Redwood with us snuggled up round the fire with Pam playing with her dolls and a jolly programme on the wireless. On nights like these I can see no end to the war and just look hopefully forward to a few days [sic] leave.

Sorry about Friday nights [sic] letter I wrote but not having heard from you and the letter having your P.O. in I waited until Saturday dinner time to post it in case you

[page break]

had gone to Mansfield and after dropping it in the letter box I found it would not be collected until [inserted] Monday [/inserted] morning. I’m still waiting to hear what you would like for your [corrected] present [/corrected] and you had better hurry before I spend the money.

One of our crews had an unfortunate accident this morning when the bad weather closed down. They were flying through cloud and in a break in it a [deleted] t [/deleted] Spitfire dived down on them and fired at them whereupon they let off several signals and as it was found the plane had suffered some damage put down at nearby [sic] aerodrome and found that the pilot who had been acting as navigator on that trip had been shot dead. Its [sic] one drawback to a Hampden that its [sic] too like a Dornier and I am told that more have

[page break]

been shot down by [deleted] own [/deleted] our own fighters than by Jerries. [sic] I was up myself when this low cloud came down and we decided to turn back and I was able to pick up my position just [smudged] before [/smudged] we got to Doncaster. and landed in teeming rain. I am starting my C. T. S. course tomorrow so shall be off flying for a week and am hoping to see you next Saturday afternoon until Sunday evening.

Mum sent me a nice long letter which I will show you next week end and she is pretty fed up with sleeping in shelters and they have just got gas on after three weeks.

Well I’m nearly at the bottom of the page so cheerio my love
From your loving husband
Harry xxxxx