Letter from John Brittain to his mother

Letter from John Brittain to his mother

Written while under training at RAF Chedburgh. Thanks her for food she sent. Not flying yet but relates that he is very pleased with results crew obtained in examinations which shows they should be a good crew. Writes about their 'Geordie' engineer who has only been with them a week.

Two page handwritten letter

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EBrittainJTBrittain[Mo]441109

Sgt. Brittain. J.T.
Sgts Mess
R.A.F. Chedburgh
Near Bury – St. Edmunds
Suffolk.
Sunday.

Dearest Mum.

Many thanks for your two parcels, I thoroughly enjoyed the eatables, and the pillion seat is doing great service to the auto.

We haven’t been doing any flying yet, but I rather think that we shall be having one or two flips this coming week. We had our exams in ground work on Friday last and Bob beat me for the first time. I got

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82% and he 88%. The skipper was first in his sections with 93%, the engineer was also first in his with 91%, and the wireless operator 3rd in his with 83%. The navigator was 4th, as was I, and the bomb aimer was about 5th. Bob, incidentally, was 1st. So you see that altogether we should make a good crew. We only had the engineer with us for a week, he is a “Geordie” from Newcastle, and seems a jolly good type. He can recite Shakespeare and Burns by the yard, the annoying thing is that he was only a tool setter in civvy street!!!