Letter No. 92
24th May ’43
Dear Mum,
I had hopes of getting up to
Tunis again but the day after I wrote to you last we had to pack up & move
back about 350 miles. We are now settled down again & tomorrow or the next
day our kites are going to start flying again so that the new pilots can get in
a bit of training so my hopes of getting a rest are pretty slim.
Our canteen truck arrived back
from Algiers shortly after I wrote to you last but unfortunately they didn’t
get as many supplies as they expected, but what they got was very nice. We were
issued with five bottles of beer each, ten Cadbury chocolates, 100 Craven A’s
& 50 Three Five cigarettes. Tunisia is a duty free country hence we were
able to get Craven A’s for fourpence for ten. I suppose they area shilling or
more at home now. If you can get them. The five bottles of beer cost six
shillings. We got four bottles of Canadian & one Scotch.
After I wrote to you last I went
& saw the adjutant & he gave me the rest of the day off to go up to
Sousse & see Rex’s grave. Rex was buried in a special part of the civil
cemetery which is set aside for British troops. When I got there I saw that the
grave was nice & tidy & there were fresh flowers on it. I was told that
each British grave is adopted by two children from the Sousse school &
every second day they go down & attend to it.
There has been no reply back
from the War Graves Commission regarding my enquiry about Elliott’s grave at
Derna so I have asked the squadron padre to see what he can do about it.
It’s hard
to come back to the desert again after being in such good country, as we were
in at Kariouan, for a while.
I meant
to tell you before that when we were up at the battlefield near Enfidaville I was
poking around on the back of a truck when I found a dozen one pound tins of
Marmite so now we have plenty to spread on our biscuits & bread. These tins
of Marmite are British issue & must have been amongst supplies which were
captured by Jerry at some time or other.
No more now but I will write
again soon.
Much love to
Dad & Betty & my regards to Leo
Lovingly
Yours
Frank
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