Letter from Harry Massey to Barbara Massey

Major J H Masssey, 6 Palestine Coy, The Buffs, Middle East Forces.

Letter No. 54. Wed 25 June 41.

My own darling Barbara,

I have just written you an Airgraph, to say that my letter writing was becoming a little disorganised. But up to now, I have, this month, written four letters, totalling 39 pages, 3 letter cards, 4 Airgraphs, & sent you one parcel. So that is not too bad. The trouble is that when I am v busy, so many things happen, & about which I want to tell you, & I have no time to write, & so I feel very much behindhand. As I seem to have told you so many times before, it is an infuriating life in many ways. I was all set to begin writing at 7 o'clock this evening. Then I got a message & had to go out - & now I have just had a snack supper, written the A.G. - & as it is 10-45 p.m., I feel ready for bed. Last week, I have started P.E. again in the Coy, which means rising at 6-15 - for P.T. at 6-45. and tomorrow, I have to leave here at 8-0 - drive quite a way - & be president of two Court Martials. So I must go to bed, & get up fresh - & so that means going to bed now, & returning tomorrow, even further behind in my news for you. Oh, I do want to come home to you, darling. I think of very little else. Goodnight sweetheart. Thank God I can still think of you, & do, in bed xxxx.

2. Thursday - 26th June. This P.T. in the morning is a fine thing. I have now quite a good instructor in the Coy, a young Corporal, called Spatz (not to be confused with Spitz) who I sent on a P.T. Instructors course in Egypt, for 4 weeks. But I must say I hesitated a few days before beginning it. All the men go on it irrespective of age - & I fixed the age limit for the officers at 35, so as to catch everybody. I was a bit loth to go on it myself on account of the early start, as I normally go to bed pretty late, being usually kept going until about 9.0, & then I write to you. But I felt I had to set the example, & now I am very pleased that I did. We do P.T. from 6-45 to 7-10 & then trot down to the sea & go right in. It is really lovely at that time of the morning - the sun gets up about 5-0 & P.T. is done in bathing slips. I am really fitter, & healthier now than I have been for years. I have changed my second bathe of the day to 6-0 p.m. - this allows me to do more work in the afternoon - & fits in nicely with the 7-0 o'clock news. I have now stopped wearing any bathing shorts - it is far pleasanter just to go in naked. This raft is about 150 yards out, & I go there & back twice a day - & so am swimming 600 yards every day.

This Court Martial business is becoming almost a regular part of my work. It is extremely interesting in many ways, but it does mean so much extra work - both reading up & preparing for the things- & then having to catch up in my own work after wards. On Monday, I had to preside over one on

3. an Arab soldier who had deserted with his arms & equipment all complete. I got another nice compliment from H.G. about this, as they said it was an important case, & they must have an intelligent & sensible President! It lasted from 10-0 in the morning, until 8-15 at night, & I felt pretty exhausted at the end. I awarded the wretched man three years penal servitude, which was quite a decision to have to make. I must say, I never quite pictured myself having to interfere with men's lives to that extent. It is such a temptation to deal leniently with a man & give a light sentence, & hope that he will amend his ways & appreciate your kindness. but this sort of case has such serious complications, & it is necessary to be very strong minded & even ruthless.

The two cases today were comparatively simple & rather like a pantomine. They concerned two soldiers from Cyprus - Cypriots - who were charged with malingering, that is feigning illness in order to evade duty. They came in shuffling like old things of 85, & said they had rheumatism but the surgical specialist said there was nothing at all wrong with them. I had a long technical x-examination of him, on the subjects of arthritic change & heredity - & finally found them both guilty & gave them each 112 days detention. But their limps were so terrific that either they are the biggest fakes I have ever seen, or else they are very lame men indeed. So I have added a recommendation to the proceedings that the General, before confirming sentence, should have them seen by another specialist & was careful to

4. add that this was meant as no reflection on the other man's professional ability, but only to make certain there was no miscarriage of justice.

The other business of course is this mess up of Thornton's, the bloody little nuisance. Only 2-3 weeks ago I had had him up for being generally unsatisfactory & too pleased with himself - & had given him a fairly effective telling off & a week's duty as Orderly Officer. and now, as officer in charge of a detachment at a very important place which we guard, he had some t--t into the place & into his room , & got one my Sgts to help him to get her in, & interfered with all the sentries so as they would not see her come in. So now he is in arrest, & I have applied for him to be Court Martialled. I took the summary of evidence myself on Saturday night - 17 pages of foolscap. What a shocking waste of my good writing time & energy.

And now I am going to fix up my second in command again - Captain Tony Bennett. He really is pretty useless, & has the brain of a flea, & is quite incapable of independent or original thought or effort. I explained it all to Col Leicester on Sunday, & he is going to cut his career short, & I hope, send me somebody really good this time. Do you think I am too severe on people? I really don't see why I should put up with inefficiency, idleness & gutlessness - & I really do feel that the sooner C.O.s begin to encourage their good officer, & get rid of or reduce their unsatisfactory & unsuitable ones, the better it will be for winning the war a bit quickly, & allowing people to come

5. home again. They are, I think, going to allow Jewish seconds in command in after 6 months time, & I wish they would allow it now. Ben-Arzi is by far the best of my officers - he is keen & intelligent & always working & doing something, & would be a marvellous help to me. And he is such a darned pleasant, amusing, & interesting little man too. he is very useful at the moment, now that Russia is among our allies, because he speaks Russian perfectly & can listen to their news. He also speaks Polish, French, German, Hebrew & Arabic. Amazing, isn't it?

Well darling, I sent you another parcel yesterday by good old sea mail. Three pairs of silk stockings, one set of pants & petticoat, & a string of ivory beads. I do hope you like the knicks & petty - but it seems to be quite impossible to find real silk things here, & these are therefor good quality art silk. but they are quite pretty, I think, & seem to be well cut. They are pink, & covered with rose buds & spriggy bits. I have another three pairs of stockings for you too, my sweet - & I will send these later on, so as they don't all go on the same boat, & just in case anything does happen.

This new turn in affairs with Germany attacking Russia is full of interest, isn't it? Up to now, I have felt quite confident about the eventual outcome, but I could not see where & when it was going to end. But now, there seem to be many possibilities.