Letter from Peter Lamprey to W Gunton

Letter from Peter Lamprey to W Gunton

Peter Lamprey writes about life in the Royal Air Force while training as an air gunner.

Envelope and four page handwritten letter

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ELampreyPGuntonW[Date]-09

1384535 Lac. Lamprey. P.
Hut 1. Site 4.
RAF. Castle Kennedy.
Stranraer.
[underlined] Scotland [/underlined]

[underlined] Tuesday [/underlined]

My Darling Unk [underlined] etc. [/underlined]

From the land of eternal rain, mud, mist and urea I send a shot note. Proving once again that the human frame can stand a stupendous hammering and still function. Things, my friends, are grim. I was under the impression that I had reached what was near enough the easy stage. Only to find that, once more, the RAF had sold me a gold brick. Not content with stuffing me full of wireless they are now having the time of their lives

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beating machine guns into me. As a side line we are learning how to do everything else in a kite. Bar deliver the pilot of a baby. Personally I should think it will be the gunners who will [deleted] havg [/deleted] [inserted] have [/inserted] the babies. They dress us up in every bloody thing we can have hung on our frame, stuff us in a turret where we can just breathe and expect us to perform miracles with four guns that all jam in about forty different ways. How the hell a gunner ever finds the time to fire his bleeding guns is, at present, a mystery to me. After a forty minute flight I managed to get 400 rounds off after wrestling the bitches till they got tired. If I get a set like that when I get on ops I shall die of exhaustion before I have flown a

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couple of hours.

We have a wonderful Sergeant at this place. I don’t think he was born, he was quarried. He makes the possibility of being a prisoner of war look like going on a rest cure. Not that he has a hero heart. I think he is one of those perishers who manage quite well without one at all. The only thing that proves he is human is the fact that he was seen drinking beer on one occasion. After listening to his voice I imagined he drank nothing lighter than boiling oil.

There has been very little time to write these days and in any case there is little to write about. They work us as hard as they can and keep us going until 8’30 at night as a sideline [sic]. I hope the Three

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Stooges can still breathe and their feet are getting used to the RAF.
I should, with luck, get a spot of leave in a few weeks and if I do I shall give you the pleasure of buying me a drink. Remember me to the mob.

All the best.

[underlined] Pete. [/underlined]

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[postage stamp]

MR. W. GUNTON.
MACHINE ROOM.
WATERLOW AND SONS. LTD.
TWYFORD ABBEY ROAD.
PARK ROYAL. N. W. 10
LONDON.

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L O O P Y