Letter from Jimmy Doughty to his sister Winnie

Letter from Jimmy Doughty to his sister Winnie

Mentions that he had not done any flying yet and that he had three weeks left to do on his course. At the end he would return to previous base or be promoted to sergeant. Writes that he had had a smashing time the previous week with excellent accommodation and food and spent time looking round a factory.

1944-01-25

Four page handwritten letter and envelope

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.

EDoughtyJCDoughtyW440125

[postmark Barry, Glamorgan. 25 January 1944] [postage stamp]

[underlined] W [/underlined] 206227 Pte. Doughty W

c/o Mrs Williamson
Frog Island P.O.
Leicester

[page break]

[underlined] 1 [/underlined]

Hut B1. 4 Squadron
No. 2. Air Crew Training Wing
R.A.F. St Athens,
Glams
S. Wales.

Dear Win,

Thanks for the letter, to satisfy your queries, we have not done any flying yet, as for the course we have three weeks to do now on actual studies, then one week’s revision, & then we find out if we go back to Eastchurch or are presented with 3 stripes

Had a smashing time last week, it was nearly as good as being home on leave. My pal & I were in a smashing billet, we might have been members of the

[page break]

[underlined] 2 [/underlined]

family, by the way they treated us, we got smashing food, (got chicken 2 days running) a spare key so we could come in & out when we liked, & gave us permission to use the radiogram just as we liked, coming back here again has got us in a complete & uncontrolable [sic] flap.

We wandered round the factory with our hands in our pockets watching people work, dined in the junior staff canteen (got beer from the workers canteen), had a special bus to take us to & from the factory, got tea break in the morning & afternoon, boy it was like having landed in Mobeal.

[page break]

3.

The earliest night we had was 12 o’clock, & we were out every night, the last night I missed the last train back from Liverpool & that does’nt [sic] leave till 12.30, still I was lucky & got a lift in a mail van.

There seemed to be about 100 girls for every bloke down there, so we just couldn’t go [deleted] [indecipherable word] [/deleted] wrong (or viky-verka [sic])

Paradise has’nt [sic] any thing on a makers course beleive [sic] me.

Then we had our exam & came home, (passed the exam anyway) the moment we drew into Wales it rained & it still has’nt [sic] stopped yet.

Well thats [sic] the lot for

[page break]

4

now so,

Best of Luck

Love

[underlined] Jim [/underlined]