Letter from Harry Massey to Barbara Massey

No. 17 Monday - 8 June Major J. H. Massey 6 Palestinian Corp, The Buffs M. E.F.

My own dearest darling, I have sent you 5 letters during the last 17 days - all 8 page, 10* ones, in the hope that they will arrive more regularly. The last one was posted off this morning & here I am beginning another one to you. I seem to have lost the faculty of reading at the moment--and have quite got over my skill of being more sociable. All I want to do is think about you & write to you. But I have nothing new to say. I'm afraid- at least not of any real importance or special interest. I do hope my letters are still satisfactory & satisfying. I have a new system now, which I quite enjoy-especially since I began early morning P.T. again. And that is to have my breakfast in my room & during this , is the cigarette which I have with my second cup of coffee. I read one of your letters, which I am now going through again only backwards. It is a very pleasant feeling & gives me a sensation of having a letter from you every day. And also, I wonder if the supply will hold out until I leave for home. I read No 7th this morning. I would love to think that I shall be on a boat for home before I come to no. [ ] Another thing, which is extremely annoying, is that I have started again that horrible crotch rash which I had in Haifa last year. So my privates & around & about are painted brilliant green again but I am hoping that this time it will be cleared up in a few days. At least, it can be guaranteed that I do not bring such a business home with me. I had no case of it during the winter months. It is only the last few days of heat which have started it again.

Wednesday - 10 June I had my first bathe of the year

yesterday - which only goes to show what a dull & apathetic sort of life I lead, because the sea is but 10 miles away, & general bathing therein began about 6-8 weeks ago. But the Brigade Major, Brooks, (my friend!) wanted me to go to a place called Herghelia, between Tel-Aviv & Netanya, on duty - & we took the opportunity of going into the sea. It was grand & lovely & warm, & would have suited you very well. But there is a tremendous drag all along this coast, & one has to be pretty careful. Tomorrow, I am having a day out with Burnstein - I am meeting him for lunch, & then he is taking me to a Jewish colony, about 20-30 miles from here, & where he has been wanting to take me for some time. In the evening, I hope to see a film - I have not seen one for ages. The camp cinema is so bad & has such poor films - & Tel-Aviv is so expensive. Lt. Col. Leicester came & inspected the corp & its detachments on Friday - everything was in perfect order, of course, as it is every day, & I think he was quite pleased. But he did not really say so, & I thought again what an uninspiring little man he is, this corp has been inspected by him quite often in the last 1 1/2 years, & always he just asks a few men exactly the same things - let me see your identification discs - let me see your pay book - let me see if you've got nails in your left boot - take the bolt out of your rifle - do you speak English - how is the food. Never any more & never any lessGoodness knows what the men think. He brought another officer with him, & so I was unable to badger him with awkward questions as I intended to do. By God, darling, but I am flat & dull & fed up with this life. I just feel I have nothing to tell you except that I love you & want to be with you. I think I will try & have a read & hope to be stimulated by my trip tomorrow, & at least have something about

which to write. O curse the fates which keep us apart - I am nothing without you, my love. XXX H. Friday 12th June. I seem to be full of inspections these days - & today the Area Commander came & had a good snoop round. He is very much more thorough & intelligent than Col. L. & had quite a few chats with various men about things in general, & he seemed very pleased with everything & said so. I took the opportunity of thanking him for recommending my application - & he said he was sorry he had not the power to do more than that, & he advised me not to build up my hopes, as chances are so slender. He had no need to tell me that I'm afraid, & I have pretty well given up hope already, as it is high time for me to have heard, were the news to be favourable. But he is a decent little man, & it is kind of him to have done what he has. I'm feeling bloody depressed today, as the news is not so good again. We have evacuated Bir Hakeim - & the Chinese have had to evacuate somewhere else - & the Germans are hammering at Sebastopol [Sevastopol] & massing men at Karkhov [Kharkov]. And all we can show is this treaty with Russia - which should have been made in 1938 or 9, & so prevented war - & a vague promise of a second European front in 1942. It is all going to be alright, of course, - but there is very little sign of a speedy end to it all. And meanwhile, we are breaking our hearts for each other, & mine is additionally broken for Maxie - & there now seems to be nothing more we can do. The less you lose a startling success at the W.O. But I must not drag on about this sad & seemingly hopeless subject - & instead I will try to interest you about my day with Burstein yesterday.

We had a pleasant lunch in Tel-Aviv - & then went on to visit the settlement, which was a place called Gan [ ? mowel ?], just north of Hadera, & about half way to Haifa. This a communal settlement & therefore on the same system as [ ? ? ?], which I described to you long ago. We were welcomed by a man called Rudi, who is a great friend of Burstein's, & who was an officer in the Austrian army in the last war, was captured by the Russians, & escaped to Palestine & stayed here: & by the Mukhtar, who was a v. pleasant man & suited the whole time but could not speak English. We had a good look round & it really was interesting. Trees & fruits, of orange, lemon, grape fruit, lime, pear, apple, plum & many vines, & many tropical trees in an experimental stage. I learned for the first time, that a big, old orange tree, say 40 years old, produces 10,000 oranges, & they are all on the one tree as the one time. It is amazing really - & that is on a tree of about 20 ft high, & the same spread. These people have been very clever & farsighted on account of the war, & I will tell you why as I go along. About oranges - obviously, their market has shrunk to far below what is necessary to absorb their output. So, for export, they now take the juice from the orange, evaporate it under a pressure of 75 lbs to the square inch, where boiling point is reached at 50 degrees centigrade, instead of 100 degrees at atmospheric pressure, by this low temperature evaporation, the vitamins are preserved intact. The concentration is seven [ ?], & the juice is shipped in barrels as a jelly almost. Much of it is going to England, & this is the first year they have done it. I made careful enquiries about this, thinking of you & Maxie. There is nothing at all

original in this process - but the thing is that they have had the energy & initiative to make the necessary machinery for themselves & get the thing done. Necessity is the mother of invention - & war even more so. Another of their troubles was that their seed potatoes all came from Ireland, & that is no longer possible - & the Palestine climate is too hot. So, they have built themselves a large refrigerator - 100 ft x 40 ft - made of their cheap wood, two layers & with an insulating layer of straw in between, & cool air, cooled on a simple ammonia system, is circulated by electric fans - & in this building they keep their seed potatoes. Nothing very original or brilliant again, but they have done the thing. And all their seeds in general come from Europe - & now they cultivate their own. It would seem that those particular markets are lost for ever to us. This settlement, by the way, is of 250 men, women & children. They also keep bees, & this year have had 18 tons of honey. They grow enough corn & crops for their own use & their animals - also vegetables , also cows - also poultry, all of which is done on the incubation system. We had the usual good tea when we arrived, of bread, & butter, & jam, & fruit. And after our look round, we had an excellent dinner, the same meal as everybody else. Fish & fresh salad - meat & pototoes & carrots - & then soup at the end instead of at the beginning - & fresh fruit & coffee. What more could you want? The people really seem to be very happy & contented - they all lead a hard & healthy life - there is no synagogue & no religion - they all go to school in their own place until they are about 10 or 12, & then they go to the central school, for all the communal settlements at Mishmar [ E ?], until they are 17, & then they begin