End of the War - A Letter to Home

The following transcript is a letter sent by my father Arthur Haynes to his father Arthur Haynes, at the end of war in europe. At the time he was stationed in Greece.

May 7th 1945

7601869
Cpl Haynes AWJ
12th Infantry Brigade Workshops
REME CMF

Dear Dad,
Well Dad this is a letter to keep and remember. Today peace was signed with Germany and it as been layed down two days general holiday, so we are stopping work for I hope two days to celebrate it.

There is a lot I think I would like to say in this letter of the places I have been to and the things I have seen, of Dunkirk a memorable place the British Army on the way out of France, the Germans blasted us with all they had, I was terrified at the time, I did not know till then what it was like to have some one who was trying there utmost to kill you.
But we got back home and we had it again he hit us on the coast, but he never took England, little Stourbridge town was defended miles away by thousands of poor armed at time but good spirited lads who at no time thought of defeat, and defeat was very near.
So when we were trained we went to North Africa, and although I will not tell you what happened there, you can be sure we did a grand job and we did finish the Germans in Africa that was his first defeat and it was our first victory, our first bit of assurance that we would not lose.

Then we had a do in Italy here the going was hard very hard indeed, you have no idea of the difficulty of the fighting, the first big drive there was Casino, and I am proud to say that my division was the division that opened the attack that night on Casino, there had been attacks before us, but it had not been taken, and now a British Division was going to have a try, and eleven o’clock that night, as the Germans will well remember we struck, the artillery barrage was enormous one line of flame from one end of the valley to the other, the Germans, who where took completely by surprise could not stand and the were forced to fall back, and run as fast as they could and we went after them as fast as we could, and the Germans who had some of there best troops against us put up a hard fight, and there was three times in particular in which little Arthur might have been no more but luck held and here we are the Germans are finished and everybody’s happy.

But don’t start building castles there is still the Japs left, so I may not be home for a bit yet. But anyway lets hope so.
God Bless you all.

Love

Arthur

Remember me to Mother and Dolly.

I received the letter you sent on May 1st on May 5th.

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