Letter from Pat Hogan to his father

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Title

Letter from Pat Hogan to his father

Description

Catches up with recent family news and mentions death of relative and a friend. Says he has no fear of death himself but tries to keep prepared as best he could. Writes of interrogation over his accident and relates eye witness account that only 40 seconds elapsed between them being hit and the aircraft crashing. Mentions meeting a colleagues with plans for crewing up. Writes about finances and visiting Madam Tussauds and spending an afternoon in Hyde Park.

Creator

Date

1945-03-21

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

EHoganPJHoganDH450321

Transcription

A436464 F/SGT HOGAN P.
RAAF AUSPO
LONDON.
21/3/45

Dear Dad,
I've just received Eileen's letter re uncle Jim's death. I realise, of course, there is nothing practical I can do. Actually I got rather a shock although I'd only yesterday received Marie's letter saying he was fairly bad. Poor old chap, I guess he's always had a lonely & fairly miserable existence.

I was wondering whether you'd heard or read of Alan's death before you received my cable. If so I guess you were also expecting an official cable on my account. It's pretty tough I know & it's just as well for your own sake that it didn't happen in the one week. Personally, although I very much like living, I can't say I've ever had any fear of death & I always

[page break]

endeavour to keep prepared as best I can. Having no real responsibilities & not likely to have any whist I'm in the war, I don't personally think it would matter so very much for myself if the chopper did happen to get me. At least I always realise that it does effect & would effect thousands of other much more than it would myself.

I had to go down amongst some of the big wigs at HQ for interrogation on return & do you think they dug up some questions. They told us that eye witnesses reckoned that only 40 secs. Elapsed from the time we were hit until the time the aircraft went into the deck so I must have moved.

22/8/45 Jack Mason, from McCrae St., was over here a while ago. He is a spare W/O on a nearby drome and has done about the same number of trips as myself. He is going to try to get over into a crew with the 3 of us. Bill & Rog have had their posting cancelled to try & stay with me.

Incidentally I didn't know Joy Brennan had been in an accident.

[page break]

The mission must have had you all on your toes whilst it lasted. You must have all been very fagged out, particularly with the funeral in amidst it all.

You're (that's Marie of course) telling me I'll be needing some hard cash when this is all over. I know it isn't very much but that lodge has been a dead loss just paying out quarter after quarter for no reason at all. Actually I imagined I'd have had a larger balance than that. My calculations must have been awry.

Naturally about all I can do for uncle Jim will be done in the chapel.

I had a very interesting time before coming back last Sunday. Started by going through Madam Tussaud's. It's remarkable what a wonderful exhibition they have there. Spent the whole afternoon in Hyde Park amongst the soap box orators. Plenty of ratbags but some of chaps there put over some really good stuff. Then, of course, there are many wits such as the “Hyde Park Brains Trust”.

Well, Dad, I've got to go for an interview with the C.O. Again so I'll write again one of these days.

Regards & Love to all Pat.

[page break]

[3 Opened by Censor]

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

Sender's name and address;-
AUS 436464 F/S HOGAN P.
RAAF AUSPO
LONDON.

Collection

Tags

Citation

P F Hogan, “Letter from Pat Hogan to his father,” IBCC Digital Archive, accessed March 29, 2024, https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collections/document/31872.

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