Monday 7 March 2022

Air Letter No 10 Dancing in the streets for VE Day

Air Letter No 10

AUST. No 34171 
LAC Cooney, JF 
461 Squadron 
R.A.A.F.,
AUSPOST LONDON ENGLAND 

28/5/45

Dear Mum,

               At long last I can settle down to write to you again. After I wrote to you on V. day we went up to London for the celebrations & believe me I’ve never had such a crazy time in my life.

    We had several beers to celebrate the victory & whilst in the pub we met a man & his wife & nothing would suit them better than to take us out to their home in “Bomb Alley”( the worst blitzed part of London) for tea. After tea we all went back to Piccadilly Circus & sang & danced in the streets until it was time to catch the 5.20AM train back to our transit camp at Brighton. Straight after parade at 8 o’clock we caught the train back to London & the celebrations were still in full swing & we stayed there that day & night & caught the 5.20am train back to camp & slept the round of the clock. What happened the following few days is still rather hazy because Brighton had a V-week.

Pubs were thrown open & as we hadn’t seen beer for about three years we certainly had our Quota. During the week we took part in a Victory parade in Brighton & the following day went up to London for a similar parade. We met about 15 of our pilots who had just been released from P.O.W. camps & of course had to have a 3sqdn reunion or two.

            Last Friday we were all posted & because the squadron we were posted to from Italy does not exist we were all split up. I went to 461with Bo & Ben Dodd & from what I have seen of the place it seems alright. We are on Sunderland Flying Boats & stationed at the most westerly point in Sth Wales.

            The first day we arrived we put in for leave with the result that I am now in Brighton again on 11 days leave. We are going to stay here until Friday or Saturday & then go up to Leeds or Manchester for the rest of the time.

Next time you write to Betty tell her that I may not have a chance to write whilst I’m on leave but will do so as soon as I get back to the squadron.

            By the way, our “working hours” at the squadron are 8.30 to noon, 2.30pm till 4.30 so I won’t be overworked 

                        Much love to Dad

                                    Lovingly Yours 

                                                Frank

 

 

Link to photo of the party in Piccadilly Circus on V day

https://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/205125104

 

 

No comments:

Post a Comment