Letter from Harold Gorton to his wife

Letter from Harold Gorton to his wife

He writes of his posting to RAF Silverstone.

1944-02-11

Five handwritten sheets

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EGortonHGortonLCM440211

[Royal Air Force crest]
F/O H. Gorton
Officers’ Mess,
R.A.F. Silverstone,
Nr. Towcester,
Northants.
Friday
Dearest,
Yesterday I very heartily regretted not catching the 8.0 a.m. train from Abergavenny. I reached Crewe on time but had to wait for the 5.10 for Rugby. That should have enabled me to catch a train to Blisworth, but we were an hour [inserted] & a half [/inserted] late in Rugby, and I had to wait till 10.0 p.m. for a train to Northampton, where I arrived at 10.45. I rang up Silverstone, & the S.D.O. was very snooty when he learned that not only was I a pupil (that low species) but also I was two days late! The best he could do for me was to tell me of a liberty bus leaving Northampton at 11.20. I couldn’t
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get a taxi at that time to take me to the bus stop, & in desperation was going to leave my bags at the Left Luggage office when a friendly policeman took pity on me & carried me & my luggage to the bus. I eventually arrived here just after midnight. I haven’t claimed any travelling expenses, as I thought it might involve too many awkward questions.
I expected to get a rocket this morning for arriving late, & the C.G.I., who interviewed me, obviously thought there was something fishy about the whole business. I told him I’d been on a course, & he asked when Cark had heard about my posting. As I didn’t know for sure, I said I didn’t know, & fortunately he was satisfied with that. If he’d asked
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me when I’d heard about it, there would probably have been ructions, because I’m not very good at telling lies yet.
The Mess seems to be a comfortable place, but isn’t as friendly as Cark. I’ve been lucky, however, as I’ve met F/O Durant, who was a wireless op. at Cark, and Macrae, who was an instructor at Ossington. Morris, our old friend of B Flight (?) is here too, but I haven’t seen him yet as he is at the satellite at present.
You will be amused to know that I am a “headless” pilot – strange phrase, isn’t it? It means that I shall not be
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crewed up here, but shall wait till I get to the Conversion unit, and so I [deleted] I [/deleted] shall probably finish this course in two instead of three months.
I asked the C.G.I. if there was any chance of getting on to Pathfinders, & he said that practically all of them were second tour people, but that just occasionally they were asked to recommend someone. It looks to me like a 99 to one chance against.
Thank you very much, darling, for the wizard time I had at Newhouse, I honestly think it’s worth any amount of risk I may run on Ops just to learn again how much you love me. I knew it before, but it’s the sort of thing
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that doesn’t grow stale with repeating.
All my love, darling,
Harold.