Letter from Donald Baker to his mother

Letter from Donald Baker to his mother

Writes of good war news and weather. Mentions athletics sports meeting and comments on national scores. Writes about play he had seen previous week and camp orchestra. Catches up with family news and says he would really like to go an work on the farm when the war was over.

1943-07-29

Handwritten prisoner of war letter form

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.

SBakerDA19210428v20123

[postmark]
[underlined] Kreigsgefangenenpost [/underlined]
[inserted] [underlined] MET LUFTPOST AB KAIRO [/underlined] [/inserted]
[four ink stamps]
[date stamp]
An MRS. C. BAKER
CHARLTON
Empfangsort: INYAZURA
Strasse: S. RHODESIA
Kreis:
Land: SOUTH AFRICA
[censorship stamp]
Absender:
Vor- und Zuname: P/O DONALD ARTHUR BAKER
Gefangenennummer: 665
Lager-Bezeichnung: M.-Stammlager Luft 3
[underlined] Deutschland (Allemagne) [/underlined]
[page break]
29:7:1943
My Dearest Mother, Well another month has passed & this one seems to have gone quicker than any other. The war news is very good indeed from our point of view. The weather has been perfect for the last couple of weeks & have a good tan and feel very fit. We had our Athletic sports meeting last weekend & it was very good entertainment. Most of the results were little better than school times at home but the competitive spirit was good South Africa won fewest points but has the smallest representation. Great Britain with the biggest was second last. Saw a three act play last week which would have been very enjoyable in a decent theatre but we appreciate these efforts as they are a break from the normal routine. On Sunday evening the camp orchestra played for a couple of hours. I [missing words] improving fast & is very good considering a lot of them have only [missing words] since becoming a prisoner. Was very pleased to hear from you again & a letter from Harry. Am so glad that you really would like me to come on the farm but I do hope that it is because I shall be useful & that you would need me anyway, & not just as a sort of reward for services rendered in the war. I only wish it would finish now & I could get back with you all & get started on some real work as I just can’t get interested in anything at all here apart from how soon the war will end and that looks like being very soon now. I expect it will be very hard to believe when they tell us its over. Well must close again now dear mother. I hope youre [sic] all fit & keeping cheerful. Much love to all, your loving son
Donald