Letter from Harry Massey to Barbara Massey

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about 45 & was a Turkish Officer in the last war. He speaks beautiful English, French, German, Arabic better than most Arabs, Turkish, Russian. He is very delicate looking - small hands & fingers. I noticed his ears, which were small & thin, just like a girl's. Naturally, I could not understand a word of his speech but it was obviously very powerful. And Ben told me that half of it was based on & built round my speech. It seems I was alright because I got lots of hand shakes & thank yous very much afterwards. I have now been asked to go & speak at a place called Zikhran Ya'acu on Tuesday. I wonder what you think about all this business, Barbara dear? It certainly does me a great deal of good & has already given me far more confidence in myself on such occasions & also, I feel, a steadier command of words. And I must say that I enjoy it too, though I don't quite know why. One thing is that it is a test. I am interested to see how I go on. I had notes last night, just of the headings of my speech for the sequence & was able to hold this paper in my hand quite steadily & my voice was alright too. Whereas, in my first attempts, when I was 21, to the B.C.S.N. Foremans Assn - & to the Bing Terrible Society, I was so nervous I could hardly hold the paper & my voice was quite uncontrolled, hollow & peculiar & seemed to come from someone or somewhere else. You must know the feeling

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from the stage. I was nervous before starting last night because though I have had quite an amount of practice with the Coy, it is comparatively easy to speak to 200 men under military law & your own command & anybody making a noise or not paying attention is put under arrest by the Sgt Major.

I wonder how all this will affect my eventual attempt to be sent home, which was the original reason for my pushing myself into the breach. It certainly cannot do any harm, the publicity may do good. I saw Col Leicester this morning about some things. He was all beams & smiles & inquired how my speech had gone on; his permission had to be sought beforehand, I had to ask him about the Zikhron meeting in which he said was all right & gave me a free hand to go whenever I wanted to. It seems he is going to be given command of the Area & it was as Area Commander that I saw him. You asked me in your last letter what sort of a man he was & said that he must have great faith in me on account of this second i/c business that was not so great a test of faith really because he did not approve of the appointment of Belreas who was thrown a bone by Force H.Q. as a Captain. I was the unlucky one to get him. And in the case of Burnett, when I put in my report, a Major from Burnett's regt was at hand to agree with what I said. In point of fact neither of them are any worse than McCallaum, but in the Army they can relieve people of appointments & rank whereas in business, or in the Assn anyway, they

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do not seem able to think [?] and enduring an insufficient man or sacking him. I suppose it is partly to do with the fact that an officer cannot easily go over to the enemy, whereas a manager or salesman can join a competitor. But about Col Leicester. He is a smallish, rather [weakly?] looking man of 45 to 50 & wears spectacles - but he is said to play a very nifty game of tennis & squash. I heard that he had been relieved of his command of the Bn for not being strong enough & also for being so much disliked that eventually a gang of rowdies had chased him & he had to lock himself in his room. Personally, I do not believe these stories because all the people from the Bn I have met have been high in his praise & liked him. Possibly he is not suited to command a M.G.Bn in war - so they changed from Infantry to M.G. when he was a little too old to begin learning all over again. So, probably, that was the reason for him being transferred. He is very unpopular with many people at the Depot F in Coys - but this is mainly becuase numerous 3/60 [?] & expect to be Capts & Capts expect to be Majors & it is obviously impossible to promote them all - even if they were all suitable for promotion. I consider him to be very able, to have a very good brain - he works extremely hard too. A rather remarkable feature for the Regular Army. He is very kind rather too much so if anything. He goes to immense amounts of pains in his work. But he is quite hard headed too. It is virtually impossible to

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bluff him. And he is incredibly observant & has an excellent memory. I must say that I get on very well with him & he has always been very kind to me. The only thing is that he complains to me from time to time that I am always different to everybody else. For example, he quite often writes all COs for their views on a particular matter & always for some reson, my view seems to differ from the majority. I myself am quite convinced that I am always right but he is sometimes a shade peeved that I never fall in with the majority & I sometimes wonder if I should not be more tactful. Practically always, I can feel what reply he wants to receive & apparently the others can too, & give it to him. But I feel that he wants a "view" - & if he did not, he should not ask for it. But it is not a serious matter. I like him very much & I'm hoping that, as Area Commander, he will one fine day forward my application for posting home.

Time for bed, ducks. Goodnight again XXXX Harry XXX

Sunday 12th Oct. The enclosed newspaper cutting might interest you darling. This business has been going on today too, when there was a big parade & march through Tel-Aviv, followed by a military display at the stadium. But, there is nothing to tell you about that, it was quite normal & rather unnerving. I am afraid they have got rather a lot on with this recruiting. I'm told that the results so far are rather disappointing. In a large city like Tel-Aviv there are a tremendous number of European Jews. I think that they are only using Palestine as a place of refuge & will certainly return to Germany & Poland, & Romania, Bulgaria & so on when the

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war is over & those countries are open again. The result is that they have little or no national feelings & they are not prepared to fight or make any sacrifice they don't have to make. It is a disgusting spirit & many people would like to use compulsion. But how can the Government introduce conscription here, when even in N. Ireland they have not got it?

I have been to the Garrison cinema tonight, saw "Intermezzo" with the new girl, Ingrid Bergman. It is a lovely film & I liked it very much. Though it is sad. Have you seen Ingrid Bergman? she is most attractive & acts beautifully & with any amount of guts & fire.

I am not in good letter writing mood, I will finish on this page. I bought a new pair of suede shoes today with crepe soles. My Cairo ones for 25/ & with which I was so pleased, were worth no more than their price & are now in pieces. So this time I paid £3 & they are excellent shoes. I'm afraid too, that some of my shirts & shorts are on their last legsThe dhobis knock such hell out of them. I hate spending money on new clothes out here, but I am really getting to the end of all possibilities with my 3 good Cole shirts - having bad a piece from the tail transferred to the collar twice already.

I'm sorry to finish this letter on rather a dull & flat note darling, but I feel hellishly flat. But I am very well, of course & being very careful about myself. So don't worry sweetheart. A big fat kiss & hug to Maxie & all the love in the world to you my sweet darling. Always your Harry XXXXX