Letter from Pat Hogan to his father

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Title

Letter from Pat Hogan to his father

Description

Mentions financial matters. Goes on to write of being without lights on base and of low temperatures when flying on recent trip. Tells of being congratulated and they would be away from their current location shortly. Mentions that they are enveloped in snow. Catches up with news of family and friends. Says they can ease up on food parcels as situation should improve but they would still remain acceptable. Mentions sending books home and catches up on family news.

Creator

Date

1945-01-05

Temporal Coverage

Language

Format

Four sided 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

EHoganPJHoganDH450105

Transcription

A436464 F/SGT HOGAN
RAF AUSPO
LONDON
5/1/45.

Dear Dad,

Although I’ve acknowledged in an airgraph to Eileen a couple of days ago, the receipt of the cheque from the Commonwealth Bank I might as well do so again. my savings bank is starting to look healthy again but I guess it will get a pasting, when i go on leave again. - Should be fairly soon too as we have done most of our flying here & should soon get a move.

We’ve been without lights in the mess & the billets for 3 days - hence no letter writing. Intended to start when they came on again last night but was too tired, besides my hands were still very blue & swollen [inserted] yesterday we were up for 6 hrs. [/inserted] The temp was -48°C. & the heating in my cabin went for a burton. Naturally I can’t work with gloves & so my hands swelled & went numb. The whole of my log & chart were covered in ice & every few minutes I had to break it away with a pencil or dividers to

[page break]

make an entry. The chief called me in today & congratulated me for sticking it out. With a little luck we shall be out of this hole in a week or two & then for something a little more fair dinkum I’m hoping for this hanging around can [deleted] not [/deleted] be very discouraging.

I think I’ve already told Ellaine the braces arrived as also did lotto ticket - many thanks.

We are once again enveloped in snow here. It apparently came down all night & I still fail to thrive on the beauty of it.

Pleased to note that Dan is feeling fit. I hope Kev does as well in the Uni exams as he did at school. - quite a good show. Half his luck on all this sun bathing. Strangely enough it is quite on the cards that I may have to in the very near future & then I’d really have something to moan about.

By the way, you can ease up a little on the parcels for meals & all round conditions should improve immensely as soon as we get away from here & we will not be so much in need of them as we have been. believe me they have

[page break]

great for us. Of course they will always be acceptable for that matter particularly the tinned fruit but there will not be the same urgency for it henceforth.

I’m hoping to write several letters tonight as the others are flying on a bit of a stooge - frost bite does come in handy sometimes.

At odd times I’ve sent home books, 2 & 3 at a time & some of them surely should have arrived by now. In the last lot I sent a group photo of 4 of us. At the same time I sent 3 envelopes containing 30 odd snapshots & I sincerely hope they finally arrive.

Eileen is fortunate getting Echuca again isn’t she? How did all the holidays go anyhow? I daresay a rest & a change would do you all a world of good. I hope you struck no bushfires again in Olinda this year. It is jolly hard to imagine the dust storms one plodding & ploughing through mud & snow perpetually.

Well, Dad, I’ll say aurevoir for the present. I know this has been very disjointed but that’s just how I feel. Regards & love to all at home. Pat.

[page break]

[ink stamp] BY AIR MAIL [/ink stamp] AIR LETTER IF ANYTHING IS ENCLOSED THIS LETTER WILL BE SENT BY ORDINARY MAIL, [postmark] [postage stamp]

Mr D H Hogan
67 Chapel St.,
Bendigo
Vic.

Sender’s name and address:-

A436464 F/Sgt Hogan P.
RAAF. Auspo
London.

Collection

Citation

P J Hogan, “Letter from Pat Hogan to his father,” IBCC Digital Archive, accessed March 29, 2024, https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collections/document/31869.

Item Relations

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