Letter from Donald Baker to his mother

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Title

Letter from Donald Baker to his mother

Description

First letter since arriving in England after liberation. Gives account of liberation after a three week march from last camp. Writes that the weather had been good and they had had Red Cross parcels and plenty of cigarettes. Describes activities back in England and that they now had leave. Says he would visit Scotland and then be ready to come go home. Writes it was wonderful to be free and that he had put on weight. Describes London hopes they would not be disappointed that he had not managed to get straight home but says he was not likely to get to visit England again.

Creator

Date

1945-05

Temporal Coverage

Language

Format

Three page handwritten airmail letter

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

SBakerDA19210428v20171

Transcription

Rhodesia House
Strand.

My dearest mother,

This is my first letter since arriving in England nearly a week ago. There were three letters from you but none written after hearing of our liberation.

The British 2nd army captured our “camp” on the 2nd May and it took until the 10th to reach here. We had been marching for 3 weeks from our last camp near Bremen, towards Lubeck and the army caught up with us about 10 miles from the latter where we were billeted on a large estate, as there were no camps left for us in Lubbock. The weather had been absolutely marvellous, sunny every day, and we had started carrying a couple of R.6. parcels with plenty of fags - so with our chocolate - coffee & fags we were able to buy no end of food on the way as the Germans could not get those at any price in Germany.

[page break]

Well the result was that [deleted] were [/deleted] we were liberated feeling fit as fiddles and all with a good sun tan on.

Were flown back here on Lancasters and had a day or two filling in forms etc and are now on twenty eight days leave.

All being well will go to Somerset tomorrow and have a week or so there, then to Scotland, as I can get a free rail warrant, to spend a week with the Glasgow relations. Then I shall be ready to go home as soon as possible, and, as I believe we have priority, should certainly get away within a month for Rhodesia to see you all again, dear mother.

It is just wonderful being free again but I’m still pretty dazed and cant [sic] quite believe its [sic] true. How very worried you must have been about me - but you’ll be surprised how fit I am and have put on about 20lbs in weight - this mornings scale said 12 stone - 3lbs, heavier than ever before. It must be all the beer weve [sic] been having

[page break]

London is the same as ever except 5 times as expensive (just about) as last time I was here. Ticky Baggott says I may as well get some clothes as things in Rhodesia are even more so than here. I am absolutely bewildered by all the rationing & clothing coupons so the sooner I get on to the farm in my khaki shorts the better.

I hope you will not be disappointed that I have not managed to get home straight away. Anyway goodness knows when I shall ever have enough money to see England again [inserted] so [/inserted] I feel that its not time wasted, much as I should like to be with you all again now. By the way please dont [sic] make a fuss of me when I do get back - well not too much.

This note seems very disjointed - I expect Im still pretty unsettled so will do letter from Cary Hill. Have already been in London longer than intended but keep running into old friends. Saw Issy & had lunch with him. Fine [indecipherable word] he has.

Cheerio for now dear mother much love to you all from yr loving son Donald

[page break]

[postmark]

[two postage stamps]

Mrs C. Baker,
Charlton
Inyazura
S. Rhodesia

From D. A. Baker,
Rhodesia House
London.

Citation

D A Baker, “Letter from Donald Baker to his mother,” IBCC Digital Archive, accessed March 28, 2024, https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collections/document/25775.

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