[September. Clem Clifford takes to the Air Force. Tom Wheeler fed up with army. Leningrad besieged. Income tax £185!]
Monday, Sept 22nd
[No entries for] another month while I was away in Devon, and now Leningrad is besieged, the central front before Smolensk holds, but the Germans have had a big victory in the Ukraine…..A conference on supply between G.B., U.S.A and U.S.S.R. is about to start in Moscow and a ”tanks for Russia” week is to be worked in the factories. One American expert said that by 1943 !!! we might catch up with Axis production….. R.A.F. fighters have been sent to eastern front, but how many of course is secret.
First air raid warning for some time the other night, but quite a lot of gunfire and bombs one night at Budleigh Salterton.
Sunday, Sept 28th
Two visitors this week, Tom, the caretaker, in R.A. [Royal Artillery] for six weeks and Clifford in R.A.F. Intelligence for same time. Tom talks of grouses and morale (? like that of the Army) low. Hard work combined with large amount of spit and polish and no facilities for drying clothes or lamps to shave with in the morning, which seems everlastingly typical of army arrangements, had made him utterly fed up. Desertion is not uncommon and when they leave all papers behind they hardly intend to come back! Food not very good, discipline hard, and language of N.C.O.s foul and abusive.
Clifford on other hand full of his work and thoroughly enjoying it. After course at Uxbridge he went down to N. Cornish coast, where he is on duty in control room of fighter station. Saw a car on road, always stayed there, no one used it, and it appeared to belong to no one; asked about it. “Oh, he’s in France.” Owner missing over Brittany, just didn’t come back one afternoon, so car left there as no one liked to touch it. Don’t use phrase “shot down” but “in France” instead.
He has now come up for course at Harrow so secret that all notebooks have to be left in lecture room and consulted there. Believes our method of radio location far ahead of Germans and that night bombing this winter will be countered. R.A.F. believe they have the measure of the Germans.
War reaching another critical point. Will the Germans be able to seize the Crimea, Kharkov with its iron and steel plant, and Rostov, or have the Russians still sufficient troops in the south to hold the eastern Ukraine? If not they may have to retreat to the line of the Volga and then what will happen to the oil fields. It is not so very far from the Crimea to the western end of the pipelines. Things are getting pretty desperate……
Paragraph in paper last week reminded me of For Whom the Bell Tolls – Montenegrin mountain village of guerrilleros wiped out by dive bombers….The creation of an Allied Council includes all overrun peoples, except the Danes, will help to make possible a coordinated revolt when the time is ripe.
Meanwhile, income tax £185!
“Tanks for Russia” output last week surpassed all expectations and broke all records. I notice the Primrose League in Henley has been having a talk on Russia! The effort of the factory workers shows what a difference the attack on the socialist state has made to the attitude and feeling. Wonder if the Primrose League will note. We have come a long way from Chamberlain, thank God.
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