728/4. All content of a sensitive nature has been removed by order of the Ministry of War.
Remember - CARELESS TALK COSTS LIVES!
076938964
Ypres Zone
Middlesex Regiment
Sappers Unit 2064
8th June 1962
Pvt. 761382 J.Fitzpatrick
Dearest Esme,
Still no word from you my love. I just wanted to write again, in case my last letter didn't get to you for whatever reason. Or perhaps yours aren't reaching me? Please know that I am hoping with all my heart that nothing terrible has befallen you and that you are safe, well and still thinking of me. Know that I am still well and, as ever, things progress slowly here at the Front. I suppose I am hoping that your letters are simply lost in the system; lost somewhere between England and France.
Please, please write soon, if only to tell me that you are safe and well my love.
All my love,
Jimmy
X
M.O.D Approved. Home Office Approved. This letter has been censored in accordance with War Office Directive 728/4c. All content of a sensitive nature has been removed by order of the Ministry of War.
Remember - CARELESS TALK COSTS LIVES!
Miss E. Wilbraham
41 Whitefriars Drive
Harrow Weald
Greater London
(Defence Zone F)
HA3 5HW
Sunday 10th June 1962
Dear Jimmy,
Please forgive me. I am so sorry that I haven't written but the most awful thing has befallen us and I am in despair. I did not know that I could write and tell you and even now as I write these words I don't know if I have the courage to talk of it.
This afternoon we had a funeral my dear Jimmy. A funeral for my poor sister. Yes it is true. Dulcie is gone. I can hardly see the paper as I write; the tears fall from my clouded eyes. Odd that it is only now that I cry about it, as I write to you. Now I cannot control the tears, I suppose I have held them in for so long.
I can scarcely believe it to be true. She is actually gone and only now as I put the words to paper can I realise it to be true. Really true. We have all been in such a mournful state of shock; it is as if our lives have been thrown into a dazed dream; a nightmare so hurtful that one shuts down. It cannot be possibly true that such a beautiful life can be cut short so horribly. Mother can still barely speak. It is only dear Aunt Mathilda that holds us together.
A month ago it happened. On the 11th of May. That date will forever be indelibly etched as a dark stain on my heart. The day before her birthday. A Friday. We were to have a party for her the very next day. On the Saturday. It was all arranged, a cake, the gramophone. Her parcel still lies unwrapped beneath the bed.
I don't see that I shall ever be able to celebrate a birthday again for as long as I live. Suffice to say that my own birthday passed like any other grief stricken day, not to be marked.
She was coming home from school with some of her pals. They decided to go to the high street; I suppose they wanted to look at magazines or buy sweets or something. I imagine them sitting together and giggling in the carriage of the horse-drawn bus. I heard the sirens above the din of the production line and we all walked quickly to the factory shelters, like we always do when there is a raid during a shift. It seems strange to me now, how all of this had become routine. All of our lives hiding from the bombs. You can become blasé about the reality of what it means. That is, until the reality hits you and your family like a massive hammer blow to your very insides.
They say that Dulcie and the girls headed to shelter in the basement of Henley's department store. No one knows if they made it. At first they said it was a particularly big bomb or a cluster of incendiaries. But there was only one explosion. One massive explosion; its size almost unheard of. Henley's gone. Most of the high street gone. There was much confusion about it.
One of the wardens has since told Mathilda that there were no enemy planes to be seen that day. And that the blast happened almost immediately after the sirens began; too quick for it to be bombers. Now the papers are saying it was some kind of new German rocket. Apparently a rocket that they can fire all the way from Belgium to land on London. They can rain death down upon us Jimmy. No warnings, all the way from where you are. There have been two more strikes since and even more innocent people are cut down instantly like they cut down poor Dulcie.
Why our high street? Why her? Why did she have to be there when it struck? Why didn't she simply just go home that day? I wish I had collected her from school, like I did on days when I had an early shift. Oh God.
So today Jimmy, we finally had the funeral. There is no body, so there was no casket. There is nothing left of her. The funeral was for all of those poor girls. All only fourteen years old and every trace of them is destroyed. The vicar said some fine words I am sure, but I couldn't take in a single word she said. I don't suppose mother did either; she just sat in the pew wringing a damp lace handkerchief between her black gloved fingers. I just stared at her distraught fingers pinching themselves and rubbing over and over. None of it is real.
How could those filthy Hun be so cruel? So arbitrary in their ways of slaughter? How can God allow this to happen? I wish someone could tell me Jimmy. Mathilda is right. This war is wrong and truly evil.
I don't think I ever really believed that before. Such a stupid naive child I was to believe that there was something noble, or even honourable about this war. But the fact is Jimmy, that they have been lying to us our whole lives; there is nothing noble or honourable about war. It has no purpose it is merely a senseless pattern of life that we have been duped into following. It makes us all into the lowest form of life possible. It makes us all lower than human; inhuman cruelty is all we can muster. Us killing them and them killing us. To what end?
I no longer care if I sound unpatriotic or disloyal. Why would, or should I show allegiance to a King and country or Government that perpetuates such barbarity?
I do hope you understand what I am trying to say Jimmy. I am so sorry to be so bleak and break such bad news to you. I can no longer see beauty in this world of hate.
Esme
M.O.D Approved. This letter has been censored in accordance with War Office Directive 728/4. All content of a sensitive nature has been removed by order of the Ministry of War.
Remember - CARELESS TALK COSTS LIVES!
076938964
Ypres Zone
Middlesex Regiment
Sappers Unit 2064
23rd June 1962
Pvt. 761382 J.Fitzpatrick
Dearest Esme,
My poor love. Please accept my deepest condolences for your loss. Dulcie was such a dear girl and so full of life. I too shed tears, as I read your words. Please be assured to know that I share your pain. I know I cannot possibly even attempt to make things better for you. I know this to be impossible in such times. But I hope it is of the smallest comfort to you to know that my thoughts are with you. I know the feelings of hurt that lie in the pit of your stomach when you suffer loss. I have experienced it myself here and still feel it keenly within me. All the time. I feel it for Dulcie and for you. Please send my best wishes and condolences to your mother and Aunt Mathilda. We must have hope, through all of this. I wish I could hold you.
Everything seems so dark right now. I feel the fear and precariousness of our fragile lives. As you do my love. It is such a dark time for us all. I am afraid to tell you but we too have had our losses. That poor boy Thompson is dead, along with many others. Two days ago we were sent out for an attack; out into the mud as the early summer dawn was creeping through the dank mist. The Captain instructed us to attack a German trench line in front of their wall. Our spotter planes had reported much digging and movement there.
The whole battalion was sent through tunnels in the Wall, there must have been over a thousand of us. It is unusual to send so many in one attack, unless it is a big push. Neither side can suffer large losses if it can he
lp it, so normally the regiment is split into smaller units and these are the ones to fight. So to send such a large contingent must have meant that the objective was seen as vital. Not that any of us knew what the objective actually was. As ever we merely follow orders.
An hour or so of creeping through tunnels and inching our way along the trenches and we came to the part of no-man's land where one of our deep trenches faced one of theirs. Ancient rotting sandbags lumped haphazardly high upon its ragged lip. Troops in front of us with ladders, slapping them against the deep set side of the trench and jumping on the bottom rungs to make them stick in the earth. 'No ladder must slip' was the stern order from the Corporals, for every man has to climb his ladder as quickly as possible to allow the men behind to ascend just as quick. Each man crouches low in the mud next to the ladders, for fear of snipers on their Wall.
This was only the second time, in the five years I have been in such a position, that I have been involved in such an attack, and it is entirely a fearsome endeavour. One that I can only hope that I will never have to experience it again.
Our trench line at this point was only about forty or fifty yards from theirs, but that is fifty yards of open ground. Fifty yards of uneven dirt with virtually no cover; apart from the odd shell hole. Fifty yards where every man is in clear view from the heights of their Wall.
At six-thirty the barrage started. Artillery mounted on our Wall and bigger guns further back trained their shells on