Letter from Pat Hogan to Eileen Hogan

Letter from Pat Hogan to Eileen Hogan

Catches up with news and acknowledges receipt of £20. Mentions going to Leeds for dance and shows of which he was not impressed despite good reviews. Also acknowledges receipt of photographs and mentions Christmas greetings received. Continues with chat about her exams and future. Comments on poor cold weather and little flying. Expecting posting shortly to a nearby location. Thanks her for hamper and list thing he would like her to send in future.

1944-12-31

Four sided handwritten airmail letter

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.

EHoganPJHoganE441231

A436464 F/Sgt Hogan
RAAF AUSPO
London.
31/12/44

Dear Eileen,

I guess you should be home from your Sydney spin by the time this arrives. How did it go anyhow? I hope you put your watch back the usual 2 hours on return. On is 4 now days since the completion of “[underlined] our [/underlined] clocks”.

Must first acknowledge receipt of the £20, which I can transfer to my savings bank over here – I'm holding fairly well at the moment having had no decent break for 8-10 weeks.

I've had 2 days in Leeds this week – went to a couple of dances & saw 2 shows. Nothing very exciting. I fact I was very disappointed in “The White Cliffs of Dover” which the London papers gave a good crit. when first released. It got very sloppy in parts.

I think Roger & I must have been the only 2 people in Leeds whom the Quake failed to awake – even the rest of the crew heard & felt it.

[page break]

However I made up for it the prev [sic] week when I heard all the explosions but thank God they were a fair way off.

Must also [underlined] also [/underlined] acknowledge receipt of your photograph. Excuse me for saying you have put on weight but I don’t suppose the camera can be blamed for that – or for the handover?

On the same day I had Christmas greetings from both Aunt Cis & from 64 Chapel St so you might acknowledge them. Tough luck you missed out on a subject. Pleased Doreen got through. And how is the nipper going? His should soon be coming out, should they not?

Heard anything further re your destination for next year. I imagine you are hoping for another high school in preference to going back to the “bush”.

The surrounding fields & potato patches here are covered in a thick coating of ice & the “Joe Erlas” have been skating on it for days. Hence we are still flying very little.

[page break]

However we are gradually waking through it & with a bit of luck should soon be posted. Could go anywhere but the odds are we’ll stay in the same vicinity. The weather wouldn’t be much better but conditions would improve a hundred per cent.

Thanks a lot for your most recent hamper which arrived last week & was most acceptable, particularly the tinned fruit of course. The tinned soups etc aren’t much good to us but you might occasionally send along a tube of Kolynos for I dest [sic] this English wartime toothpaste. The tinned milk was also acceptable although we’ve lately had to do without cocoa as the taps are frozen up. To get water means walking right over to the mess & if you walk [inserted] it [/inserted] there is no necessity to make your own beveridge [sic] as there is usually some up there.

In any case thanks a lot for what you’ve been doing for me. Don’t forget to forward your impressions of Sydney. Did you manage to get yourself a boy friend yet? Thanks for the photo.
Regards & the best for ’45. Love Pat

[page break]

AIR LETTER

Miss Eileen Hogan
67 Chapel St.
Bendigo Vic.
Australia

Sender

A436464 F/S HOGAN P.
RAAF AUSPO
LONDON.