Description
Object description
271 letters from an insurance broker written June 1939 – March 1940 and July 1940 – January 1945 covering the international crisis prior to the outbreak of war and his war work as well as service with the LDV and Home Guard near Weybridge, Surrey and Westerham, Kent, air raids over London and south east England and service, eventually as a Lieutenant Commander in the RNVR (September 1940 – October 1945) including his training in HMS TORMENTOR, Warsash, Hampshire after being kitted out at the naval depot Lowestoft, officer training in HMS KING ALFRED, Hove, Sussex and, after he had been commissioned and a course in Portsmouth, attached to Combined Operations in Scotland (January 1941 – March 1942) based initially on HMS DORLIN, Acharacle and later elsewhere training off the Scottish coast until he was given command of a flotilla attached to HMS KARANJA (November 1941), with details also of his flotilla's part in the invasion of Madagascar (May and September 1942), his service in shore establishments in South Africa and India (1942 and 1943), training with 575 Flotilla (November – December 1943) and participation in the Anzio landings (January 1944), service in the armed merchant cruiser HMS ASCANIA in the Mediterranean (1944) including during the Allied landings in the South of France (August 1944)and shore based service as a Combined Operations Liaison Officer based principally in Liverpool (November 1944 – January 1945), with outstanding descriptions of the amphibious landings in which he took part and interesting references to raids mounted by Combined Operations and to life in the Navy, bomb damage to London, Denham film studios which he visited in March 1941, Edinburgh Castle and its German prisoners, Evelyn Waugh's military service and Noel Coward; also 208 ms and ts letters from his American wife, Charlotte ('Sharlie'), to him and to her family in America, September 1938 - May 1941 and February 1945 - November 1948, chronicling in detail her experiences during the Munich Crisis, during the build up to war in 1939 and after the outbreak of war as well as in America with her parents after she and her children, John and Janice, had been evacuated there in the summer of 1940 with descriptions also of conditions in Britain after her return, containing excellent references to life in Leatherhead in the early months of the war including her work as an assistant to a local billeting officer (also American) with whom she and her children had sought refuge, to the Home Front and to civilian war casualties, also an interesting account of her journey across the Atlantic on the SS ANTONIA in July 1940 with other evacuees and with useful insight into the American perspective of the war prior to Pearl Harbor, as well as good descriptions of her fund raising efforts for the British War Relief charity, her return to Britain on the SS RANGITATA in February 1945 and the complexities of life in Lancashire, London and Surrey under austerity conditions as well as the problems she and her husband faced reclaiming their home which had been requisitioned and badly damaged by the Army; also 26 ms and ts letters from their friend Lieutenant C T Letts RNVR dated September 1940 – November 1944, mentioning conditions in the anti-submarine trawler HMT WELLARD and the merits of fishermen as sailors as well as letters written from the trawler HMT PRODIGAL (1942), HMS BREEZE (1942 – 1943) and the patrol vessel HMS KILBIRNIE (1944); and additionally a receipt for gas masks, a list of items sold for the British War Relief charity and photographs.
Content description
271 letters from an insurance broker written June 1939 – March 1940 and July 1940 – January 1945 covering the international crisis prior to the outbreak of war and his war work as well as service with the LDV and Home Guard near Weybridge, Surrey and Westerham, Kent, air raids over London and south east England and service, eventually as a Lieutenant Commander in the RNVR (September 1940 – October 1945) including his training in HMS TORMENTOR, Warsash, Hampshire after being kitted out at the naval depot Lowestoft, officer training in HMS KING ALFRED, Hove, Sussex and, after he had been commissioned and a course in Portsmouth, attached to Combined Operations in Scotland (January 1941 – March 1942) based initially on HMS DORLIN, Acharacle and later elsewhere training off the Scottish coast until he was given command of a flotilla attached to HMS KARANJA (November 1941), with details also of his flotilla's part in the invasion of Madagascar (May and September 1942), his service in shore establishments in South Africa and India (1942 and 1943), training with 575 Flotilla (November – December 1943) and participation in the Anzio landings (January 1944), service in the armed merchant cruiser HMS ASCANIA in the Mediterranean (1944) including during the Allied landings in the South of France (August 1944)and shore based service as a Combined Operations Liaison Officer based principally in Liverpool (November 1944 – January 1945), with outstanding descriptions of the amphibious landings in which he took part and interesting references to raids mounted by Combined Operations and to life in the Navy, bomb damage to London, Denham film studios which he visited in March 1941, Edinburgh Castle and its German prisoners, Evelyn Waugh's military service and Noel Coward; also 208 ms and ts letters from his American wife, Charlotte ('Sharlie'), to him and to her family in America, September 1938 - May 1941 and February 1945 - November 1948, chronicling in detail her experiences during the Munich Crisis, during the build up to war in 1939 and after the outbreak of war as well as in America with her parents after she and her children, John and Janice, had been evacuated there in the summer of 1940 with descriptions also of conditions in Britain after her return, containing excellent references to life in Leatherhead in the early months of the war including her work as an assistant to a local billeting officer (also American) with whom she and her children had sought refuge, to the Home Front and to civilian war casualties, also an interesting account of her journey across the Atlantic on the SS ANTONIA in July 1940 with other evacuees and with useful insight into the American perspective of the war prior to Pearl Harbor, as well as good descriptions of her fund raising efforts for the British War Relief charity, her return to Britain on the SS RANGITATA in February 1945 and the complexities of life in Lancashire, London and Surrey under austerity conditions as well as the problems she and her husband faced reclaiming their home which had been requisitioned and badly damaged by the Army; also 26 ms and ts letters from their friend Lieutenant C T Letts RNVR dated September 1940 – November 1944, mentioning conditions in the anti-submarine trawler HMT WELLARD and the merits of fishermen as sailors as well as letters written from the trawler HMT PRODIGAL (1942), HMS BREEZE (1942 – 1943) and the patrol vessel HMS KILBIRNIE (1944); and additionally a receipt for gas masks, a list of items sold for the British War Relief charity and photographs.
History note
Cataloguer AC