p.

Letter No 86 Saturday Dec 6th

Major J.H. Massey
6 Palestinian Coy, The Buffs
M.E.F.

Sweet darling Barbara,

What a strange & altogether bloody life this is.
Always very nearly no matter how clear the day may seem one
thing or another turns up & I am kept going until late in
the evening. So it was again today. After dinner, at 8.30 I began
this letter & now it is 11-0 o'clock, but the baseless [?]
is not the result of work - I'm afraid I was not in a
writing mood. So I wrote a couple of reports I had to do,
& then read this week's copy of "World Press Review" the
latter is a weekly put out by the Information Propaganda
Department of G.H.Q. M.E. & is a selection from British
& American newspapers & magazine writings. It is popularly
supposed to be edited by Major (2nd Lieut, Acting Major) Randolph
Churchill who is certainly not in the M.E. At first
about 8 weeks ago, it infuriated me almost beyond words.
It seemed to be practically 5th Column - all about the low
moral of the American army & their anti-Rooseveltism,
the marvels of the German army & Luftwaffe & the
matchless commanders - sympathy for France - snobbish
condescension towards Russia - belittling of ourselves.
The first issue invited comment - critical & otherwise
& I had a furious reply boiling & forming in my mind
but was a bit loth to put it down on paper &
send it off, as after all, the thing did emanate from
G.H.Q. & must have been seen & approved by brass hats.
So I stormed down to see the Area Commander
about it. He said that he rather agreed with me but
that I had better not write as I felt in case of