Letter from P Lamprey to W Gunton

Letter from P Lamprey to W Gunton

Peter Lamprey writes about bombing operations to Bochum and then Kassel after which German aircraft followed them home and bombed runway as they went in to land, subsequently putting the airfield unserviceable with anti-personnel bombs. In conclusion he mentions that he has leave coming up.

Four page handwritten letter

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.

ELampreyPGuntonW[Date]-37

R.A.F. Ludford Magna
Market Rasen
[underlined] Lincolnshire. [/underlined]

Dear Unk. Others. Etc.
All right, I know. I haven’t written to you in heaven knows how long and you want to know why. Well you can just go on wanting as I can’t think of any excuse you are dumb enough to swallow – despite the scope it gives me. I can’t remember whether I wrote and told you that we were on Bochum and Kassel but if you can read between the lines you will know by now. Kassel actually was a piece of cake as Jerry never had a clue until we had unloaded the excreta and turned for home. However he has resorted to the vile and unfair tactics of following us home and bombing the runways as we go in to land so

[page break]

2
the excitement usually reaches its peak about ten foot from the deck these days. We wouldn’t care if he blew a hole in the concrete, but he just slings these six pound anti-personnel bombs in front of you and if the wheel should hit one it is just too bad for all concerned. So far he has been unlucky, except for putting the drome u/s to [sic] a couple of days.

There is a dearth of interesting news from this war front. The bright city lights have beckoned in vain for a number of nights and the way things are shaping will just have to go on beckoning. All when we had got us organised with a smart little pub with some of the usual fixings. It is a bitter blow and not the sort of treatment we were expecting. However the good weather cannot last forever and one of these nights we expect to

[page break]

3.
make a low level attack on a target where we shall be appreciated, always provided of course that the target is not covered and unapproachable.

Mr. Hunt will be glad to hear that I am not wasting my substance on riotous living these days, but if someone cares to explain the foregoing paragraph to him, he will see that it is only the exigences [sic] of the service that have caused the moral uplift not weakness on my part. I hope nobody shows old Sam this letter as it might give him bad ideas and he has enough of them to be getting on with.

[deleted] Eclo [/deleted] Enclosed you will find a few more nickels. They are free and what is more save me writing too much so I will have to keep up the supply. Give one of the Luftpost to the old man and tell him to treat it with respect and not do the first thing that comes into his mind.

[page break]

You might go out to the Minders Rest and remember me to the majority of the Chapel. Give my regards to the OPA’s. Engs. Elects. etc. etc. Keep the old finger out.

All the best
Pete.

P.S.
I should start my leave about the 30th so start saving up.
P.

P.P.S. I should like to see Bro. G again – I think this war must be driving me mad.
P.