Letter from Jack Darby to Jean

Letter from Jack Darby to Jean

He talks about V-1 'doodle bugs' and Jean's fire watching. He has been doing a lot of flying. They have been raising money for the Army and had a really good concert and a dance.

1944-06-25

Two double sided handwritten sheets 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.

EDarbyCAHWellandJ440625

[inserted] 25 6.44. [/inserted]

[postage stamp] [postmark]

Miss. J. Welland
7. Queens Drive
Surbiton
Surrey

[page break]

25.6.44.

P/o. C. Darby, 154676.
Officers Mess,
R.A.F. Station
Barford,
Nr Bloxham
Oxon.

Dear Jean,

Thanks so much for your letter which I received today, from what I have heard a better postal address is my present one as although we are only 1/2 mile from Barford St John we are in a different postal area and we get our mail via Bloxham.

Am glad to hear you are still surviving in spite of the hectic time you are having, Dad said in his last letter that theres not much business about, everyone is apparently

[page break]

2/

looking for Doodle Bugs, luckily none have fallen on Claygate so far. Can imagine you dashing in and out during fire watching, expect the Chief Warden refers to you as the original of “Have you ever seen a dream walking” expect I shall get bullied for that next time I see you. According to our next day off should be Saturday next July 1st. if all goes well I should get home Friday night.

We have been doing a fair amount of flying, although the weather has been too cloudy for high-level bombing, however we’ve survived the

[page break]

3/

circuits and bumps stage, I've already had some dual and flew the kite for about 10 minutes, now our navigator has arrived from Heyford we shall start seeing the country.

Am sorry to hear your tennis is not so good, probably the effect of those sleepless nights, or have you been gardening? trundling the lawn mower about or rolling the lawn. I suppose.

The weather hasn’t been too good today, it started to rain at 10o/c this morning and has continued all day, not particularly heavy but enough to make things uncomfortable.

The local village is running

[page break]

4/

a Salute the Soldier week. the station target is £1,000, up to the moment we’ve got £300 in two days. The first night there was a camp concert and it turned out to be a first class show, last night there was a dance on but I did’nt bother, theres a mess dance on Wednesday, but expect I shall be night flying, however I may go if not, there are a crowd of nurses and other girls coming from Banbury, so there should be plenty of partners.

Well, must pack up now, cheerio for the time being, looking forward to seeing you on Saturday,

Take care of yourself.

Yours

Jack.