Letter from Bill Akrill to his mother

Letter from Bill Akrill to his mother

Thanks for parcel and letter. No leave for about 3 weeks, nearly finished course. Mentions pilot has injured his knee and may need to get a staff pilot soon to finish their training hours. Mentions local friends and stricter two-way censorship now in action, so has to be careful what they write about.

1943-01-25

Two page handwritten letter

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EAkrillWEAkrill[Mo]430125

1436220 SGT. AKRILL W.E.,
SGTS’ [deleted] AKRILL [/deleted] MESS,
R.A.F. Station,
Upper Heyford.
OXON
Mon. 25.1.43
Dear Mum,
Many thanks for parcel & letter which I got safely on Friday Cake & apples very acceptable.
Afraid now that we’ll not be getting any leave for about 3 weeks – weather being good. Almost finished but will have to hang on a bit. Well, I guess we can manage to wait a bit longer. In addition our pilot has damaged his knee & is in dock – we don’t know for how long. If he’s not out tomorrow I’m going to see the Flight Commander about finishing with a staff pilot. We’ve only a little left to do but we all want to get it finished. We may pick up another pilot later but I hope the rest of us will hang
[page break]
together.
I managed to rush down to Lower H. last night. Went down on Friday night & found them all unwell, but they were better on Sunday. On Saturday I was lucky enough to get about an hour & a half on my bike before dusk. It was a lovely evening and I enjoyed it.
Sorry to hear about the raid. By the way there’s now a rather strickt [sic] 2 way censor enforced so I shouldn’t say much about things like that.
Please thank Ros for letter. Afraid there’s not much I can write about. Not much doing these days.
Love to all
[underlined] Bill [/underlined]