Letter from Ursula Valentine to her husbands pilot's father
Title
Letter from Ursula Valentine to her husbands pilot's father
Description
Writes that her husband was the navigator of his son's aircraft when they were reported missing on the Cologne operation. She quotes from a letter from her husband about that it was thanks to his son's magnificent, cool and resourceful actions that her husband and most of the crew were alive.
Creator
Date
1942-07-20
Language
Format
Three page handwritten letter
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
SValentineJRM1251404v20014
Transcription
Lido
Tenterden Grove
Hendon N.W.4.
London
July 20th
Dear Mr Floyd,
My husband, Sergeant John Valentine, was the navigator of the aircraft of which your son was pilot when they were reported missing after the first big Cologne raid.
My husband was taken prisoner, and in his first letter to me he wrote as follows: -
Luckily I am safe and well, absolutely intact & much [indecipherable word]
I am afraid our Skipper was not so fortunate. Before being forced to bale
[page break]
out we had thirty minutes of hell during which he behaved magnificently. [underlined]Thanks to him [/underlined] most of the crew are alive today with me. Would you ask the camp Padre to send you the address of his parents, for I want to write to them.
I have just received your address from Squadron Leader Hulbert, the chaplain at Scampton and am sending it on to my husband, as he asked, so that he can write to you himself. But at least it will be
[page break]
several months before you can hear from him, so I thought you would like to hear the above high praise of your son’s conduct without any unnecessary delay.
With heartfelt sympathy to you and your wife,
Yours very sincerely,
Ursula Valentine
Tenterden Grove
Hendon N.W.4.
London
July 20th
Dear Mr Floyd,
My husband, Sergeant John Valentine, was the navigator of the aircraft of which your son was pilot when they were reported missing after the first big Cologne raid.
My husband was taken prisoner, and in his first letter to me he wrote as follows: -
Luckily I am safe and well, absolutely intact & much [indecipherable word]
I am afraid our Skipper was not so fortunate. Before being forced to bale
[page break]
out we had thirty minutes of hell during which he behaved magnificently. [underlined]Thanks to him [/underlined] most of the crew are alive today with me. Would you ask the camp Padre to send you the address of his parents, for I want to write to them.
I have just received your address from Squadron Leader Hulbert, the chaplain at Scampton and am sending it on to my husband, as he asked, so that he can write to you himself. But at least it will be
[page break]
several months before you can hear from him, so I thought you would like to hear the above high praise of your son’s conduct without any unnecessary delay.
With heartfelt sympathy to you and your wife,
Yours very sincerely,
Ursula Valentine
Collection
Citation
Ursula Valentine, “Letter from Ursula Valentine to her husbands pilot's father,” IBCC Digital Archive, accessed April 27, 2024, https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collections/document/22223.
Item Relations
This item has no relations.