Letter from Arthur Biscoe to his mother

Letter from Arthur Biscoe to his mother

His letter apologises for not writing sooner. He explains his training routines.

1944-03-28

One double sided handwritten air letter

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.

EBiscoeAEBiscoeVW440328-0001, EBiscoeAEBiscoeVW440328-0002

[two postmarks]
[postage stamp]
MRS V. W. BISCOE
35 PADDINGTON RD
NORTH END
PORTSMOUTH
ENGLAND.
FROM (Sender’s full name and address)
F/O A. E. BISCOE
36 E.F.T.S., R.A.F.,
PENHOLD ALTA
CANADA.
Mar 28th/44
Dear Mums and all,
First of all an apology for not having written for a couple of weeks, but again I’ve been very very [sic] busy, for this last week we, that is our flight have been flying from our releif [sic] landing ground just outside Innisfail, - and have we been doing long hours. – every day flying from eight in the morning
3. funeral, - so I managed to get the time off and go up there, - he had a very big funeral, - ( he was very well liked and well known around Calgary) It was quite a blow to the family, but I think Mrs S. & Yvonne are settling down a bit now.
Well Dear, I’m very nearly asleep here now, its about 2.30 in the morning, and I have a lot to do yet so I’ll say
Goodnight – God bless.
Tons of love to all
Arthur. XXXXXX
[page break]
2.
untill [sic] seven at night, then office work, and organizing the next days programme, and that used to take us untill [sic] midnight almost every night, - we never finished before eleven in the evening, - and this week it’s even worse, - yesterday I started at eight, - finished the day off by night flying untill [sic] two o’clock, - in bed at three up again at eight, - and on tonight untill [sic] about 4.30 that makes about five hours sleep for two days, - I’ve got six hours night flying to do tomorrow night, as well, - tonight I’m Officer in charge of Night Flying which mean I spend about nine hours in the Central Tower, seeing that things run O.K. – answering three different telephones, and spareing [sic] these few minutes to write this letter. You say that you haven’t had many letters from me, - well, as I think I said before, something must be happening to them, - for I don’t very often miss – I also haven’t had many letters from England recently, the mail is very bad, - but I have got one letter from you, and one from Merle. – I’ve written lots of times about your Xmas parcel, - I hope you’ve got it by now, your birthday gift I haven’t got yet, - just havent [sic] had time too, - I hope you had a good birthday, - the best one you could have for these times, - did you get my wire in time, - Clarices [sic] was a bit late so she says. Now about coming home, I’ve heard no news yet, - the trouble is the shipping points are all clogged with men going home, - I’m hoping to stay out here and do my Operational Training Unit, - but that remains to be seen – anyway it looks like a little while yet before I see dear old Blighty. Now for a sad peice [sic] of news, - Mr Skinner at Calgary passed away since I last wrote to you, - he collapsed and died very suddenly – a great shock to everyone, - Mrs Skinner asked me if I could get in for the