Letter from Mervyn Adder to his family
Title
Letter from Mervyn Adder to his family
Description
Letter and explanatory note. Reports arrival of family mail. mentions operations to Augsburg and Schweinfurt getting good photographs of the latter. Mentions an electrics failure on return from Augsburg and had to divert to airfield on the south coast. Describes activities while there including visiting Brighton and watching England play Canada at ice hockey. Comments on heavy snow on their return to base. Mentions his leave had been put back.
Creator
Date
1944
Temporal Coverage
Spatial Coverage
Language
Format
Four page handwritten letter and printed explanatory note
Conforms To
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
SAdderM175073v10090, SAdderM175073v10089
Transcription
Sgts Mess
RAF Station
Dunholme Lodge.
Wednesday
Dear All,
Thanks for your parcel Mother and for your letter Edith, I received them both today as I have been away for a few days and therefore had quite a large mail to collect. I also received a letter from Father last week and intend writing tomorrow
We were kept rather busy last week and towards the end flew to Schweinfurt and Augsburg. We did very well on the Schweinfurt raid and brought back some good photographs, and also got the aiming point which pleased us very much. We also had a quiet trip on the Augsburg raid but coming back all our electrics failed so we landed at an aerodrome on the South Coast, this was early on Saturday morning and we only reached base again at dinner time today.
We had a wizard time there, the fresh air and lazy time we had did us good, and we were sorry to have to come back
[page break]
to the frozen North. We didn’t have any snow down there and the sun shone all the day, it was grand, and quite warm
There was a small town, right on the coast and only two miles from the Camp so we spent quite a lot of time there going to the pictures every evening etc., although the money problem was acute until we managed to get some casual pay yesterday afternoon.
It was a glorious Sunday so Johnny, Gerry and I walked into the town soon after breakfast, and went to church, the other two are Roman Catholics so they went to their church and I found a very nice C. of E church. We met afterwards to walk back to Camp together.
After dinner we found that we couldn’t get back that day so decided to go into Brighton and caught the 3.58 pm electric train there. The first thing we did when we arrived was
[page break]
to have a meal, we didn’t like walking about too much as we were rather obvious in our flying boots, sweaters etc, and after our meal slipped in to see England play Canada at ice hockey. The time seemed to fly past, perhaps because we were having such a good time, and it didn’t seem very long before we had to go to the Station to catch the train back.
We came back to this place at dinner time today, and as we flew North we expected to see snow on the ground but we never imagined there had been such a heavy fall, as it had been quite mild where we had been.
I am afraid our leave has been put back again and we therefore will not be coming home on Saturday but I think we should make it in a few days time after this date – perhaps next Thursday.
[page break]
Well I haven’t anything else to tell you at the moment so cheerio for now.
Love to All,
Mervyn
[page break]
1944
I believe that this is one of Mervyn’s last letters. I cannot find any reference to Brighton in his 1943 diary and as he refers to snow in the north, it can be assumed he is referring to early 1944.
The crew had had a mishap whereby all the electrics had failed on the ‘kite.’ They had made an emergency landing on the south coast and, despite financial difficulties had managed to enjoy themselves in Brighton in full flying gear after receiving casual pay. They had watched England play Canada at ice hockey – presumably forces teams and had been to the pictures. His leave had been cancelled. I wonder if he ever went home again?
RAF Station
Dunholme Lodge.
Wednesday
Dear All,
Thanks for your parcel Mother and for your letter Edith, I received them both today as I have been away for a few days and therefore had quite a large mail to collect. I also received a letter from Father last week and intend writing tomorrow
We were kept rather busy last week and towards the end flew to Schweinfurt and Augsburg. We did very well on the Schweinfurt raid and brought back some good photographs, and also got the aiming point which pleased us very much. We also had a quiet trip on the Augsburg raid but coming back all our electrics failed so we landed at an aerodrome on the South Coast, this was early on Saturday morning and we only reached base again at dinner time today.
We had a wizard time there, the fresh air and lazy time we had did us good, and we were sorry to have to come back
[page break]
to the frozen North. We didn’t have any snow down there and the sun shone all the day, it was grand, and quite warm
There was a small town, right on the coast and only two miles from the Camp so we spent quite a lot of time there going to the pictures every evening etc., although the money problem was acute until we managed to get some casual pay yesterday afternoon.
It was a glorious Sunday so Johnny, Gerry and I walked into the town soon after breakfast, and went to church, the other two are Roman Catholics so they went to their church and I found a very nice C. of E church. We met afterwards to walk back to Camp together.
After dinner we found that we couldn’t get back that day so decided to go into Brighton and caught the 3.58 pm electric train there. The first thing we did when we arrived was
[page break]
to have a meal, we didn’t like walking about too much as we were rather obvious in our flying boots, sweaters etc, and after our meal slipped in to see England play Canada at ice hockey. The time seemed to fly past, perhaps because we were having such a good time, and it didn’t seem very long before we had to go to the Station to catch the train back.
We came back to this place at dinner time today, and as we flew North we expected to see snow on the ground but we never imagined there had been such a heavy fall, as it had been quite mild where we had been.
I am afraid our leave has been put back again and we therefore will not be coming home on Saturday but I think we should make it in a few days time after this date – perhaps next Thursday.
[page break]
Well I haven’t anything else to tell you at the moment so cheerio for now.
Love to All,
Mervyn
[page break]
1944
I believe that this is one of Mervyn’s last letters. I cannot find any reference to Brighton in his 1943 diary and as he refers to snow in the north, it can be assumed he is referring to early 1944.
The crew had had a mishap whereby all the electrics had failed on the ‘kite.’ They had made an emergency landing on the south coast and, despite financial difficulties had managed to enjoy themselves in Brighton in full flying gear after receiving casual pay. They had watched England play Canada at ice hockey – presumably forces teams and had been to the pictures. His leave had been cancelled. I wonder if he ever went home again?
Collection
Citation
M Adder, “Letter from Mervyn Adder to his family,” IBCC Digital Archive, accessed April 25, 2024, https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collections/document/33263.
Item Relations
This item has no relations.