Letter from Harry Massey to Barbara Massey

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Letter written by Harry Massey from the No. 6 Palestine company at the Bluffs to Barbara Massey.

This is a scanned version of the original image in Special Collections and Archives at Middlebury College, Middlebury, Vt.



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Letter No. 59 11 July 41

Major. J. H. Massey. 6 Palestinian Coy. The Buffs. Middle East Force.

My darling sweet Barbara - Have you noticed how often I have used this beginning to my letters? When I think about it now, it seems that I have used it very often. I do hope that you like it as much as I do. I love using your name it is very pretty, & because of you it has a lovely, warm, & very satisfying sound to me. And I love to call you mine - I think of you so much as my darling - & the word sweet is overwhelmingly applicable to you - & to the way in which you treat & look after, love me.

I am thinking more & more of how & when I shall be home again. The news is so encouraging & interesting the last few days. Russia seems to be doing marvellously well, & even more interesting news may be coming from that quarter. Our air raids on Germany are mounting heavily & we are promised much more to come - & by God, it serves them bloody well right. America is moving into Iceland - a highly significant & promising event. The Syrian business is, it seems, about to end. And this, together with Russias new role, will guide Turkeys future actions, I should imagine. And the voice reactions of the British Empire became more & more unified, solid & determined. Whereas Germany, presuming her failure in Russa, the answer to this should be settled by the time you get this letter - is having to fight a more & more difficult war. Her own people must be getting pretty discouraged - the only allies she has are the people she has conquered & ill treated, or frightened into submission - & the bloody woks Wishful

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thinking - hackneyed expression - it may be, but there are very solid grounds for hope & speculation as to how soon it may now be over. I really do feel that it is rapidly becoming a question of how long can Germany stick it - & what we are going to do, & the U.S.A too to give her more to put up with. The very fact of Russia being in the war will have the excellent effect ofmaking us intensify our efforts, & fromnow on, it should be a staedy & increasing process of piling it on. But ^it is perhaps rather pointless to write about all those things, which in any case are always in the papers & on the wireless - & which will be much effected by the time it will take for this letter to reach you. But I think about the whole business so constantly, in the light of my return to you, & so it seems natural to talk about them. And then when it does all end, I have to extricate myself from the Middle East. I wonder so much about how soon after it will begin, & what the system & order will be. At least we shall be able to use the Mediterranean, & perhaps we shall use the French railways too. I think daily, of myself getting off a train at Victoria, & running wildly along the platform, with Peter on a piece of rope - & the ecstasy of suddenly seeing you again. I don't know how we are going to stop talking, to make love - or how we are going to stop making love to roll each other about everything. I rather feel we shall have to do both at the same time, it will be marvellous heaven. I suppose we shall spend a few days with your ma - , then we shall go up & have to see my family - single beds again & then I shall be seeing Peter, he will say how

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3. much holiday we can have - thank goodness when we don't call it leave any more - & when I must start work. And then will come the terrific problem of finding a place & a house in which to live. I expect we shall do something of a temporary nature - & look for perfection at our leisure. There is no limit at all to ones thoughts & ideas about this. Sunday 13 July. You asked me in one of your recently arrived letters, to tell you about the country - the towns & the lives & so am. Well, it seems I have told you quite a lot from time to time in my letters, & when I go away anywhere, I try to tell you as much as possible of what Ihave seen. I do wish I could go away more & see more - but it is always so difficult to get away, there is the trouble too of who to go with. If only poor Frank had came up here with me, we could have done & seen so much together, & enjoyed ourselves too. Ben Amis is a good little man & v. interesting too but it is a little difficult going off work with somebody who calls you "Sir" all the time - & it is a shade awkward with the other Jewish sets too, who look a bit askance, I think Ben is my favourite! It's a bit schoolboyish, isn't it? Jerusalem I have hardly seen at all, as each of the three times I was there, I was in a rush. Once, I arrived in darkness & left again at 8'0 in the morning -, the other times, I just drove straight to H.Q & then away again. The impression I got was of a large modern city, with first class roads & pavements & shops & hotels & cinemas & so on. All these modern

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4. buildings are built of an almost white stone, which is very largely used in Palestine, & it looks very clean & handsome & effective, & of course, remains white. but of course, in Jerusalem, there is obviously any amount of interesting things to be seen, & by one means or another I must get there & see them before I leave. I'm only afraid that when the war ends, I shall have too much time for sightseeing. Tel Aviv is a completely modern city, much bigger than Jerusalem & slightly industrial. But, though it is very well planned & laid out, & very clean & new, it seems to have such masses of concrete & to be rather ferry built, unlike Jerusalem, Haifa. Tel Alviv is 100% Jewish - the Arab population living in Jaffa, the two towns run into one another. I must look at Jaffa properly the next time I am there with Ben Ami - up to now there never seems to have been time.

Altogether my connections with the Arabs have so far not been very great. For which, on the whole, I am truly grateful. Had I had an Arab Coy I don't really know how I should have gone on, they are such a handful Deserting & going absent is common practice, & they are the devil to train - & of course, the language difficulty is chronic, as very few of them speak English, 90% are probably, coy orders, as I do in English, Hebrew, because they just could not read them & every mortal instruction has to be given to them usefully. I hadmy very first Arab lunch last week, & very good it was too, an entirely new experience, which I

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5. enjoyed immensely. This was with Moscovitz & a friend of his - a very interesting man maned Zaharaff, who has seen Dr Wigmans private secretary, & is now doing some other job in the Jewish Agency. He had been in England when war started - then went to America & was there for 1 year & saw how American opinion & sentiment changed & charged in our favor - & then came back to Palestine, by air, by way of New Zealand, Australia, Singapore, & India. I enjoyed listening to him so much. We sat over lunch until 3.30. The place we had lunch was in an Arab restaurant, so the surroundings were reasonably civilised. The proceedings began with a glass of "Arag" (I do not know how to spell it) which is clear as water but blows your head off. You put water into it, it then rains cloudy, like Quinine - & it tastes like Coal or some disinfectant. Then comes the food, which consists of various parts of the sheep, all very nicely roasted or fried - special little sausages, liver - brains - kidneys - & various other strange parts, & all very tasty. Also some excellent salads, & one very piquant tasting salad mixed in with cream. And some special bread. All these are an seperate dishes on the table, & the system is to dip the meat into the creamy salad - take off a piece of bread & scoop up this or that all else regardless of anybody else dipping in too.

Last edit almost 3 years ago by logiebear
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