Letters from World War II : J.H. Massey

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I suppose - but I cannot see any definite goal to aim for, such as I had for the command of the Coy. It is annoying really; because I feel complete confidence in myself - I would like to be a Lieut Col - get a bigger job & see what I can make of it, & perhaps get into a position to influence my own future. But I'm afraid this job is very much of a cul-de-sac - & about the only real chance of a move is for me to agitate to go to the 1st Bn in which case I would go as a Capt. - & lead a Coy into battle - which you would not like at all - although I feel tempted at times. I always remember my promise to you & also my own paramount & overwhelming desire to come back to you safe & sound.

Friday Aug 22nd I stopped rather abruptly last night to change into long trousers & go to the Garrison cinema & see Fred Astaire & Eleanor Powell in Broadway Melody of 1940. They really do dance superbly & it is such pleasure to watch them. I believe it is the first time I have seen her, & though her face is not too beautiful, one does not need to look at it muchher legs are so shapely & she dances so well - far better than Ginger Rogers.

On Wednesday we had rather a boozy party. I think I told you about calling on some chaps of the Motor Torpedo Boats & how they had signed up

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up pretty well. They are in again, so we invited them along & also a dear old thing of an R.A.F. Adjutant with snow white hair , who I know rather well. We drank steadily away from 7.0 to 10.30 & then they all agitated to go out. I was determined not to go but my subs rather kindly really insisted so we went to different cabaret places. But these places are hopeless & useless & nearly screamed with boredom. And such a shocking waste of the 17/6 I spent on one round of rather inferior wisky party drinks. These places have very poor bands, a pathetic floor show, a lot of silly looking badly behaved officers, & a number of rather plain, dirty & smelly looking girls in evening dresses, who are merely prostitutes & who I am told charge most ridiculous prices for their disgusting bodies. The last time I visited one of these joints was about four months ago - the next time will be at least another four months, if at all.

I had two pcs from you yesterday - July 19 & 24telling me that all was well & Max lovely. They really are a good thing, these pcs for the one reason that they give me news of you 3-4 weeks old, instead of the 8, 9 & 10 weeks of normal our letters. And as you say, they are almost as good as cables, unless it is something very urgent. I hope the next cable that passes between us will be from me, to say I am coming home.

The most fortunate man in my Coy is my C.S.M. Jack. His wife & family - 2 daughters - were evacuated from Palestine to Durham, S.A. And this week , I

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managed to get him a job escorting prisoners of war, to Durham. It is a 6-8 week round trip there & back & he gets 10 days leave there. What a piece of luck for him, he was so delighted. I was very pleased to be able to fix it for him, as he is a good husband & father, & has not been doing any mucking about up here.

Thornton & Biblings were duly Court Martialled on Monday - found guilty of course although I do not know this officially - severely reprimanded. It really is ridiculous, such a waste of everybody's time & so bloody gutless & weak on the part of the president in particular, the members too. I have a hell of a lot I could say about it which I had better not put down here. But when I know officially & the sentence is confliced. I intend to give "Higher Authority" the benefit of my views, in a letter - or shall we say, a memorandum! Anyway, I managed to get rid of Thornton on Wednesday, by means of palming him off onto Col. Leicester at P.R.T.D. - he was a bit browned off about it, but agreed that I could not do with the bloody youth hanging about on my hands. Biblings I have to hang onto - but I have confined him strictly to barracks, just to make things unpleasant for him.

By the way darling, you will probably understand anyway - but just to make quite sure - my

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address is unchanged after the move, just M.E.F. as usual. Oh blast & damn it, as you say, why did we ever leave N. Ireland? As I can think of no new or original reason, I will just leave it at that rhetorical statement. On looking up "rhetorical" in my Fowler (I often check on myself nowadays) he says "the assumption is that only one answer is possible, that if the hearer is compelled to make it mentally himself it will impress him more than the speaker's statement". In other words, you know it was a fool.

Do you remember the day we left Warrenpoint, the awful train journey & the worry of out our mistake, & then that ghastly midnight trek round Belfast to find a room in a Hotel - how we eventually had some tea in our room, & then in spite of being so very tired, we slipped into one bed & made love very quietly & gently. It was always so lovely sweetheart when we made love in that way - & then we very quickly and surely went to sleep marvellously close together, happy & content that was Max's last chance to have been conceived in Ireland.

I was talking at the beginning of this letter about having our reward when we meet again - & I have been thinking quite a lot lately - especially since Max was born, that I am a believer in compensations. Not for any superstitious reasons or because of luck - but as a matter of act

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& certainty. I am quite certain & I think you are too, that our new life together is going to be happier & more interesting & more exciting in every way than ever before. The very fact of this posting has made us think of each other in a more detailed way than ever before & then I was leaving you to the dangers of child birth & bombing & perhaps invasion - & you saw me going off to join an unknown campaign in the Middle East. I think our marriage was a miracle of happiness & love & passion & contentment & you my darling (you said in your letter before the birth that you had been happier than you ever thought was possible. Neither of us dared say more - & yet now I know that nothing is impossible, that now we really have even greater happiness & love to look forward to - & that it will last forever. That will be our reward & compensation for the pain & misery of this posting. Our everlasting love was assured before - beyond all doubt, & we could very well have done without - this rending asunder of our lives - but now it has happened I insist on my theory of our reward. Who will insist that we begin to have it soon? Please sweetest angel darling. wish for me like I wish for you & somebody may answer our prayers & wishes. Love & XX to Max And all dearest love to my lovely beloved wife Barbara. XXXXHarryXX

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now Iraq, Syria & Iran, & all in four months - Russia on our side & doing well - & the Americans in Iceland. You must admit it is all very interesting: encouraging too. And it indicates Churchill's ideas of not indulging in wholesale slaughter against strong lines of defence & probably gaining nothing - but biting off the easy bits & steadily improving our position. And in the meantime, the Navy & R.A.F. continue to blockade & bomb. And all the oversea countries begin to see more clearly into the future & do their part to harass & [harry?] the Nazis. How long can they stick it? I feel certain that the answer to that question is more important than - when are we going to invade France & Germany. I also have the feeling that the U.S.A. will not declare war unless it is absolutely necessary. American public opinion is so strong; & if she suffers large casualties in Europe or the M.D. she is going to have that revulsion of feeling, which she had after the last war, & isolate herself again from all affairs except her own. And that would be as much a tragedy again, as if was before. & her Navy is working for us now - probably more than we know or realise. Her army is only wanted if & when we use ours in a great invasion. And I doubt very much if we shall do that - except to walk over & occupy a Europe & Germany in particular, which has more or less given up - & in which public opinion & the public voice is at last more powerful than Hitler's tyranny.

I must admit that I am very much under

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the influence of Churchill's book, at the moment. But I doubt if he has changed his views so very much, & I'm quite certain that he deviates & controls our policies & methods.

In addition to America, how are Australia, New Zealnad, South Africa, Canada & India going to feel after the war, if they have all suffered enormous loss of life & limb. Patriotism & invigorism may keep them going during the war - but there will be bitterness afterwards when all is said & done. Ramsay MacDonald, Baldwin & Chamberlain were our exclusive products & our votes put them in power.

And where are we if we lose a million of our best men, probably more. An embittered nation will assist in imposing another Versailles - & a weak minded nation, without those million or more men, will then allow Germany to rise again, & next time, perhaps make no mistake. No - I have deep & boundless faith in Churchill & also the people with whom he has surrounded himself. I think he knows how to win this war, & I think he is looking a very long way ahead. So that we, if we have to be apart longer & wait longer for it, will have a better country & better world in which to live - & so will Max & any sisters or brothers he may have.

But the waiting is terribly difficult & painful, isn't it darling. Every time I think about you & look at your photographs, I almost cry out with sadness & pain. There is nothing else I want in all the world - & you are far away & I just cannot have you. It is cruel.

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It seems to me, my darling, that I tell you very often how I love you, how I miss you, & almost always in the same words - I hope it does not seem or sound like this to you. But, you know, I do not say these things because I think you want me to - I think & say them to myself so much, & only way I can say them to you is in a letter. So even if they do become monotonous, sweetheart, remember that they come from the very bottom of my heart. Perhaps, & I hope I am wrong to have doubts about my letters, because you have paid me very nice compliments about them up to now - or at least up to May - You have told me I do marvels - & that they are very interesting, loving - & well written. Thankyou darling one - I try very hard, because I know the pleasure & intense satisfaction which your letters give to me & I want so much for mine to do something of the same for you. But life is so dull & I find it increasingly difficult to be interesting - & so often when I sit down to write to you I go into such depths of misery, longing for you. Today, I look like writing this straight off & posting it in the morning. But normally, I think the better system, & I must try to do it more, is to begin another letter the same day that I post one to you & try to write some each day. By that means, I give myself the feeling of having had a talk with you each day, & also, odd things which I would write down the same day or the day after, when they are fresh

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in my mind, do not seem important or interesting enough if left a few days - or else they make me feel that I am making too much of a little thing, & you will think I am becoming silly & weak minded. I notice so often in your letters, that you write about some very ordinary & every day things, but you write in such a delightfully easy, free & amusing way, it gives me tremendous pleasure to read it. Nobody could possibly write better & more loevely letters than you do, & I can promise you my darling sweetheart, that nobody could possibly appreciate them more than I do. They arrive in my office, usually at about 10.30, & I read them at once; my pot of tea arrives at about the same time, & so I have a cigarette or two & settle down. I read it in my room again after lunch - then again in the evening with a whiskey & soda before dinner. So, on top of everything else, I make the most of them. And of course, for the next few days, I am in & out of there & writing back to you. My bundle of letters is quite a big one by now, it was pathetic in February, when I had two, & a few cables & your three letters to Oswestry & your [wire?] to Oswestry - & I used to read them again & again, wringing the last ounce & shred of meaning out of them. You must know the feeling too.

You know darling - I feel now that when we were together I did not tell you enough that I loved you or how or how much I loved you, & how sweet & beautiful & lovely & gorgeous & wonderful you were, & how pretty & clever & funny & amusing & interesting & kind & how smart & attractive & seductive, & how you feel & how you smell - & all the

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Yesterday - Monday - let me know - there was no letter from you - nor today either. I came skipping back from my Court Martial yesterday at lunch time much earlier than I expected, full of hope & almost certainty. And my table was bare. I suppose I should not look forward, but I always do expect I always will. Two of the cases yesterday were put off - one accused was in hospital & he was a witness in the other one. So I was just left with one other and a funny one, which would have been a curtain raiser & provided some relief for the other two which were for theft. This was a solider who "whilst on active service" - had committed "conduct to the predjudice of good order & military discipline" - in that he -- 'at --? on July 1, created a disturbance at 2330 hrs by shouting. In this chap's unit there are three officers, Capt Connolly, Lieut Cook & Major Noon: & at 2330 hrs - raucous tones were heard floating up through the night & shouting "Fuck Connolly" " - "Cookie can man the fucking guns" - "Noon can man the fucking moon". It wasn't altogether easy to keep a straight face during this part of the evidence. However, there was considerable argument about the time, & nobody actually saw the accused shouting, but only recognised his voice - so we found him "not guilty". He is probably a lucky chap but it seemed to me that he should have the benefit of the doubt. It also seemed to me that with a bit of tact &