My Family History

Eileen’s brother, my Uncle Bert, joined the RAF, leaving Auntie Gwen to run the flower shop in West London. After initial training, Bert was told he wasn’t fit to fly but became a radio operator and was posted to North Africa. A chirpy Londoner, Bert sent a series of letters and cards as his units travelled across North Africa and then through Italy. He finished his military service in Vienna in November 1945, just as the post-war election was taking place. These were two last letters he sent before returning to London: 09/11/45 HQ, Royal Air Force, Vienna (Austria), C.M.F. Dear Eileen I have been in Vienna about four days and am very happy with the whole situation. This posting is the one that should have come through to TAF in May. Our old S.O. is here and was quite pleased to see us. All the installing of equipment has been some of course and the duties for which we were posted, Reuters receivers, have been filled by Austrian civilians. Two of my old ...

Eileen’s brother, my Uncle Bert, joined the RAF, leaving Auntie Gwen to run the flower shop in West London. After initial training, Bert was told he wasn’t fit to fly but became a radio operator and was posted to North Africa. A chirpy Londoner, Bert sent a series of letters and cards as his units travelled across North Africa and then through Italy. 16/2/45 Dear Eileen I am afraid I have been rather a long time answering your letter, the first one you wrote from your new address, but I have been on the move. I have left my mountain home and am now in a climate so much milder that we shall be sunbathing very shortly. The climate is not the only change, we are living in comfortable billets in town, the same one that I spent my leave in last summer. It has the atmosphere of a peacetime town in many ways. There is no blackout and everything is just so. In our billets shoes have to be polished and left in a certain place under the bed for inspection every day togeth...

Eileen’s brother, my Uncle Bert, joined the RAF, leaving Auntie Gwen to run the flower shop in West London. After initial training, Bert was told he wasn’t fit to fly but became a radio operator and was posted to North Africa. A chirpy Londoner, Bert sent a series of letters and cards as his units travelled across North Africa and then through Italy. His first letter of 1945 followed news of his fat her's - my grandfather's - death from a heart attack on Christmas Day, 1944. 21/1/45 RAF Signals, “G” Air Section, 15 Army Group (B.S), C.M.F . Dear Eileen  "Mum and Dad" - Ealing, 1944 Thank you for your two letters explaining things so nicely. I received those two and Gwen’s together on the 20 th – three weeks after they were written…  You refer to two letters written by Gwen saying that Dad was seriously ill. I am afraid they have not arrived. The fault was in using an American address, they go to America fi...