Letter from Terry Ford to his family

Letter from Terry Ford to his family

A letter from Terry Ford to his family where he writes about arriving at Desford and that he has been sent to the drome with 8 others. They are learning to fly Tiger Moths. John Fisher, Clem Fletcher and Alan Harris are at Desford with Terry.

1942-07-11

Two handwritten sheets

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.

EFordTAFordAG-[Mrs]-M420711-0001,
EFordTAFordAG-[Mrs]-M420711-0002

1585520 LAC Ford TA
“B” Flight, 3 Squadron
Braunstone Aerodrome
Braunstone
Nr Leicester
8–7–42
Dear Mum, Dad & Moira.
I am writing this in the mess room of the drome of [deleted] Friday [/deleted] [inserted] Saturday [/inserted] morning. We have just had our parachutes fitted, & helmets adjusted, & I am going up this afternoon.
We arrived at Desford, yesterday dinner–time & afterwards, we were split up, & nine of us came to this auxiliary drome. There are only a small number of us here, but it is quite comfortable, except for washing facilities. We fly here & go over to Desford for lectures. Desford is a much bigger place, & so we get more personal care here really.
It is our day off to–morrow & so we are going to Leicester to–night, & sleeping at the YMCA there
[page break]
John Fisher [deleted] is [/deleted] Clem Fletcher & Alan Harris are here with me, so I am O.K in that respect. I sleep in a hut containing 20 chaps, with Clem & Alan.
If we fly O.K, this course only lasts a fortnight, & I shall be coming home for seven days after that. If we fly well enough we go solo but quite a few chaps don’t. We are flying Tiger Moths.
–
Well it is now Sunday morning. It is a grand day. I had my flight yesterday afternoon. It lasted for 35 mins. I took over the controls for straight & level flying. it was grand.
We couldn’t get a bed at the Y.M. so we came back here & are going into Leicester to–day.
I am now getting settled down here, 7 we should have a thoroughly
[page break]