1224/5 Shipworking sections RE. CMF.
Dearest:
So we have had the counterpart of our day in the hills in 1939! The Germans have paid for defying our order not to invade Poland, & we are alive, no parachutists have descended on Great Alne & I am unharmed! All this is a matter for thankfulness. But for me the finale is not yet; it is when I walk into the house again and find you there, & Candy, & so I am led to believe, an extra male member of the family.
We had our “VE” day on Wednesday; and a very exhausting day it was, too! On Tuesday we had an ordinary day, yet different. All the morning arranging the celebration for the soldiers & in the afternoon a happy game of cricket. On Wednesday we had a parade & broke a brand new & very proud Union Jack on the top of a new 40 foot flag pole & then the men marched off while we prepared the camp. We hung R.N. signal flags all over the lines & set tables arranged in a gigantic horse shoe so that all 500 could sit down at once. The men came back and sat down, the Col & party came for drinks in my office & then we perambulated & chatted to the men who feasted prodigiously. Many had splendid bellyaches by 4 o/c. Then they had an???? concert in the evening & that was that.
I called on the G— family, the Bari branch, in the evening, & romped mildly with Leonardo & Michelino & flirted with Bianca until they went to bed, me assisting. Then we all drank vino & ate little yugoslav cakes, & talked. The end of the war is nought personally to them. Rosa, the mother of the boys, has “lost” her husband and three sisters in Concentration camps & they have no Yugoslavia to return to, it being violently communist & they being more of the “Freedom from Fear” advocated in the Atlantic Charter! They rejoiced that the end of the killing had come & that the evil was over. But like millions of other ‘Displaced Persons’ they are still lost. Pathetically they ask if they can get to Britain, where the eyes of all hunted and persecuted people turn. They are contenting themselves with America. It is a very choice honour to be free born British. Only by meeting others can we realise that. This family, Jews, unjewish & very cultured have suffered very harshly. They are haunted by the Concentration Camp & are terrified of Communism, and carry little red handkerchiefs as an insurance in an emergency. They have known so little tolerance in life, and now it is tolerance in the world we must pray for. To comfort them I produced an epigram- “War does not make peace, it only makes peace possible.”
Thompson writes today that the pictures have arrived. I’ll see Lanave this afternoon with the glad news. Your Friday- Saturday letter came while I was writing this. Bless you. People were telephoning and asking when I come home. Ah when. We have work to do. Garrisoning Italy & Austria, Greece & so on, and feeding the troops. Feeding also the Italians & other nations. And my Arabs may be sent to SAEC for all I know & I’d have to get them to Mideast, ?????? them & hand them over. So we must plod happily on and be patient. The time will come. Certainly the finish of Hostilities is a very important step in the right direction. So ?????? the ???????. So good the little compact arrived. It is very Florentine, & has the Florin arms. Has it 6 Balls? If so that’s Medicis, or was it a fleur de lys with 2 lilies and a bun? They are Florenes?
Yes you’ll come to Florence, & Boheme, & San Carlos, & Lanave. I think I’ll send a box of things home. First swallow:
Bless you. All my love. “I’ll be seeing you”
Ever David X