Letter from Pat Hogan to Miss Marie Hogan
Title
Letter from Pat Hogan to Miss Marie Hogan
Description
Writes of his panned activity to initiate their new English flight engineer into their Australian crew. Discusses best ways to send mail. Mentions other mail received and current weather. Writes of conditions on his station and that they were keen on discipline and about getting into trouble. Mentions that snow is due soon and he was not looking forward to a white Christmas. Mentions that that they as the only fully Australian crew had now been joined by four others whose navigators were all old pals of his. Says he will be listening to the Melbourne cup on the radio. Reports arrival of her parcels in good condition. Concludes with other gossip.
Creator
Date
1944-11-10
Temporal Coverage
Language
Format
Four sided handwritten airmail letter
Publisher
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
EHoganPJHoganM441110
Transcription
A436464 F/S HOGAN P.J.
RAAF AUSPO
LONDON
10/11/44
Dear Marie,
I have to hand your air letter of the 27th & might as well answer it right away as I still have about 20 mins of my lunch hour to fill in. We are going down to the village tonight in force to initiate Wally Welsh our engineer, whom we only picked up about a week ago. We were in early to get a lad from the South so that we could understand him. Wally comes from Dorset & hardly knows what to make of us as yet for the boys have peppered him with so many fantastic stories with such obvious sincerity he doesn't quite know what & whom to believe. Incidentally Bill Bullen is adept on this story telling racket. Re your inquiry as to which form of writing is the quicker. These are on the average by about 3 days in that they do not have to be photographed. However it chiefly depends on how you catch the mail – which of course are not published. So it therefore doesn't really matter which you write. For instance I also had one from Doreen today dated 30th Oct. As for this district you're telling me its cold, particularly where we are now.
[page break]
2.
England had a gale this week & do you think she was the goods by the time it reached us from across the moors. When it is raining you are up to your knees & when it is not raining the pools are covered in ice & your face, ears & feet are perpetually bitterly cold. Hence since our arrival we've not budged out of the hut after the fire's alight of a night. To make matters worse we have struck a place for the first time where they are pretty keen on discipline & they really make it uncomfortable these nights for defaulters. So far we have been let off with two cautions pleading innocence & will probably “go for the race track” next time. I guess in another month or so we will have the snow & am not exactly looking forward to my first White Christmas. Up till today we were the only full Aussie crew & I was pleased to see 4 more arrive today, particularly as all the Navs are old pals of mine.
The Melb. Cup is run tonight & I'll be listening in on the Australian News on Tuesday night. Last week they were all for Sirius. No doubt Dad will be there & I hope he does alright. The tax refund must have been a pleasant surprise.
I think I told you about the
[page break]
arrival of your parcels in good condition. As a matter of fact the cocoa & milk has been very nice the last few nights. I must soon write to Daisey. It is rather awkward you know for the parcel she sent & [deleted] one [/deleted] a hamper whose sender I don't know were half hitched from Alan's trunk in transit from our last station.
My twenty minutes is up so instead of hanging on to this to finish it as is my usual custom. I'll post it now & write again in a few days.
Love to you all
Pat.
[page break]
AIR LETTER
RAAF AUSPO
LONDON
10/11/44
Dear Marie,
I have to hand your air letter of the 27th & might as well answer it right away as I still have about 20 mins of my lunch hour to fill in. We are going down to the village tonight in force to initiate Wally Welsh our engineer, whom we only picked up about a week ago. We were in early to get a lad from the South so that we could understand him. Wally comes from Dorset & hardly knows what to make of us as yet for the boys have peppered him with so many fantastic stories with such obvious sincerity he doesn't quite know what & whom to believe. Incidentally Bill Bullen is adept on this story telling racket. Re your inquiry as to which form of writing is the quicker. These are on the average by about 3 days in that they do not have to be photographed. However it chiefly depends on how you catch the mail – which of course are not published. So it therefore doesn't really matter which you write. For instance I also had one from Doreen today dated 30th Oct. As for this district you're telling me its cold, particularly where we are now.
[page break]
2.
England had a gale this week & do you think she was the goods by the time it reached us from across the moors. When it is raining you are up to your knees & when it is not raining the pools are covered in ice & your face, ears & feet are perpetually bitterly cold. Hence since our arrival we've not budged out of the hut after the fire's alight of a night. To make matters worse we have struck a place for the first time where they are pretty keen on discipline & they really make it uncomfortable these nights for defaulters. So far we have been let off with two cautions pleading innocence & will probably “go for the race track” next time. I guess in another month or so we will have the snow & am not exactly looking forward to my first White Christmas. Up till today we were the only full Aussie crew & I was pleased to see 4 more arrive today, particularly as all the Navs are old pals of mine.
The Melb. Cup is run tonight & I'll be listening in on the Australian News on Tuesday night. Last week they were all for Sirius. No doubt Dad will be there & I hope he does alright. The tax refund must have been a pleasant surprise.
I think I told you about the
[page break]
arrival of your parcels in good condition. As a matter of fact the cocoa & milk has been very nice the last few nights. I must soon write to Daisey. It is rather awkward you know for the parcel she sent & [deleted] one [/deleted] a hamper whose sender I don't know were half hitched from Alan's trunk in transit from our last station.
My twenty minutes is up so instead of hanging on to this to finish it as is my usual custom. I'll post it now & write again in a few days.
Love to you all
Pat.
[page break]
AIR LETTER
Collection
Citation
P J Hogan, “Letter from Pat Hogan to Miss Marie Hogan ,” IBCC Digital Archive, accessed April 19, 2024, https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collections/document/31944.
Item Relations
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