Words from the past
This section looks at key letters that record some of the most memorable events of the war. By sharing Wyn’s journey, this collection becomes a bridge between personal memories and collective history.
On the “D” Day invasion, 6th June 1944
(“D” Day!) 6th June ’44
1.10 pm.
Irene – my dearest, adorable, wonderful, heavenly, darling, precious, Love of all loves – xxxx
I’m still so possessed by yesterday, dearest one, that I hardly know what to say about it all – the Second Front, I mean.
After all these weeks of tense waiting, the news took me quite by surprise this morning. I had just finished washing and shaving, and was confusedly casting about for shirt, collars etc, my head full of visions of you and the dear sound of your voice, when the fateful words came through the wall from the next room. Everyone just dropped what they were doing and stared with straining ears –
Through the wall Normandy sounded like “Norway” to us, and I was angry to think that they had not dived in the shortest and quickest way – “Still” – I argued to myself – “maybe it’s only a diversion”. Then at breakfast I learnt that it was Normandy and that this was the real thing – “D” day! The excitement here is immense, as it must be everywhere. Darling, let’s hope it succeeds without too terrible and crippling a loss of life; let’s hope that the Germans, subjected to relentless attack from four sides at once, will quickly give up the struggle. These coming weeks are going to be so tense, aren’t they dearest? I’m so glad it has happened at last. That awful period of “waiting for it” was a hellish time for everybody. Well, we’ll see how things go.
Next morning Wyn continued his letter while on duty as Regimental Orderly Officer, “and that means just sitting around all day long for the most part. So here I am, doing my first spell of sitting around.”
I’ve been reading all the papers for the Invasion news. Colossal stuff, isn’t it, darling? – And going extraordinarily well so far by all accounts. I suppose that it’s only the first of several blows really, but it’s terribly important that it should succeed. It seems to be doing so, thank God, although I don’t altogether trust the enormous spate of super-optimistic and cock-a-hoop reports. The landings themselves and the subsequent fighting until the beachhead were established must have been Hell. Did you hear Howard Marshal’s report on the 9 pm news last night? That sounded pretty authentic to me.
There is very little news yet on how the airborne and paratroops got on, only a lot of very vague and disquieting stuff about things not turning out half so badly as they might have. I very much want to know just what they we are trying to do, and how they got on.
It’s very odd about the German Air Force not showing up at all, isn’t it? Does it mean that they’ve been beaten out of the air already, I wonder? If so, that’s going to make things just about twice as easy for the Army.
Darling, don’t you find yourself wishing that you could’ve been there to see it, or take some part yourself? I do, very much. It’s practically impossible to believe that the most horrific event of the whole blasted war is going on just a few hundred miles away to the south, and almost in this country.
Here’s the 10 am “European” News now, Darling. I must listen…
On Victory Day in Europe, 8 May 1945
222465 Lt. J.C.W. Lewis R.A., 7/2nd Ind. H.A.A. Bty. I.A., India Command.
Dearest, dearest, dearest darling true-love – ****
Just a few minutes on this very special day, my Irene, in which to tell you … oh, I hardly know what to tell you, beloved – xxxx! It’s so wonderful, isn’t it? I can hardly realise it properly, although I heard Churchill’s speech at 7.30 (3 o’clock with you, of course); and afterwards all the hooters, horns, and sirens in the camp were sounded for two minutes. And just now the noise of the delirious crowd outside number 10 Downing Street was broadcast. It was very thrilling to hear it, but quite impossible to hear a word that Churchill was saying.
I believe I caught something about “… greatest day in our history”. Well, maybe it is. One wouldn’t really know. The main thing is, the greatest (and worst?) part of the war is over. England and Europe and all the seas and air around them have been freed of the curse of war. And YOU my own darling love, are ALIVE; and you love me still, and are only waiting for me to come back, to fill my life with happiness and content. Oh, dearest darling loved one, how close you have been to me all today, and especially for the five minutes or so after the announcement by Churchill. I have thought of nothing but you you you all the evening, and drunk you so many toasts in our favourite rum and lime.
On dropping the atom bomb on Hiroshima, 6 August 1945
© Alamy
Letter no. 135 – 6th Aug ’45 – 2220 hrs.
Dearest heavenly most adored Irene – xxxx
It’s all Debussy’s fault that I’m so late starting this tonight, sweet love. After the horrible news with its bombast and gloatings and glorification of all that is emptiest in the soul of Man, they announced a programme of Debussy’s music, my love. I stayed to listen and soon was lost in its enchantment, straying now among the sunlit laughing streets of Spain, now among moonlit gardens on a velvet-scented summer night, now back into childhood “with the feathered cap and the wooden sword”. …
My feelings on the matter you can guess of course – the same as yours I expect, on this latest achievement of our wonderful scientists. No doubt you will have been hearing with equal disgust all the blah on the radio about “the new epoch in warfare” and how “we must ensure that this terrible new power is turned to the advantage, instead of the destruction of Man.” All this in the same breath as a great gloat over the misery that we can now cause to the Japanese, and a great shriek of self-satisfaction that we beat the Germans to it in the perfecting of this new devilry. Aren’t people fools?
“Surely the second coming is at hand;
What a rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?”
[WB Yeats]
On the end of the war, VJ Day, 15 August 1945
Irene, my angel-darling, my only love, my wife-to-be – ****!!
How fitting, my Irene, that the war should end on your birthday! Clearly it is a day marked out for great and happy events. Dearest darling how glad you must be, if you are but half as glad as I am …
I heard the great news at 7.30 this morning. But I suppose you heard it at midnight, when it was broadcast by Mr. Atlee. How thrilling! I bet you are all having a grand celebration today, bless you.
The reaction in this regiment has been rather curious in many ways. Only about half a dozen of us were up to hear the 7.30 news, but we soon put it round. … Most of us, of course, were overjoyed at the news, but quite a number, especially among the senior officers, didn’t seem at all pleased about it, including the Captain that I am at present sharing a tent with. I have since found out the reason. You would hardly believe it, my darling, but these people actually wanted the war to go on, a) because they were doing extremely well out of it financially (a Major rakes in about 1200 rupees month sheer profit – i.e. about £80) – b) because of all the hard work that the regiment has put in these last three or four months to get ready for a certain big operation. You see the Army mentality in its lowest and most selfish form, of course. The higher you go in the Army, the more people you find like that, for obvious reasons.
The voyage home, on board SS Stratheden, 7 April 1946
Letter no: 260 (AND LAST!x)
Red Sea, (nearing Port Suez), 08.30 hrs 7th April, 46
My own Irene, my only-twelve-days-distant love
Already there are at least 2500 miles between me and India, which leaves another 3500 yet to go. … So if all goes according to plan we shall reach Southampton early in the morning of the 17th, and, if all goes smoothly after that, I shall meet you in the S.P. [Strand Palace Hotel] in the afternoon or evening of the 19th, my beloved Irene.
I have been re-reading your letters to me, right from the beginning, about twenty a day. They are so wonderful. I thrill to every word. Sometimes I weep when I read again all that you suffered in the early days of our separation, all the awful misery of heartache and depression, which you bore so bravely and eventually triumphed over so completely. But more often I laugh with joy to think that it is all over and done with forever, the story is moving inevitably – just like the old fairy-tales – to its happy ending. Some day we are going to enjoy rereading our letters together, reliving together all these months apart – yet another love-happiness in store for us, my precious one.
Well, since this is the last page of my pad, I must perforce stop here. Here ends, then, the last record of our long separation. May there never, never have to be another, my Irene.
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