I discovered the letter after my father (John Hilton) passed away. The letter was written by his uncle Stanley. My father was 7 at the time and he was living in Sydney, Australia.
Transcript:
Hello There!
This is England calling John Hilton aged 7 who lives with his Mum & Dad at Edgecliffe, Sydney, N.S.W. that is just what you would hear if this letter came to you by wireless John instead of by post, isn't it if we could use wireless we would all be able to speak to you, Auntie Maggie, Uncle Herbert, Grandad, Little Mark, Mark's Mum & Mark's Dad who is writing you this letter, you know John, I've never written to a little boy before & its a lot of years since I was seven myself so I don't know just what to write about but if you are & I'm sure you are, just like any other England boy will be interested in war & all things our soldiers see out in the Desert in Africa, in North Africa & in Sicily, I've seen them all John & very interesting & exciting they are.
I'll tell you first of our trip out to Cairo from England on a great big ship, if conditions on board had been better we should have had a wonderful voyage John, we went in & out the great big Atlantic Ocean & then to Free Town in [unclear] West Africa, you've no idea how hot it is there John, its so hot that when you try sleeping in your hammock without any clothes at all, everyone looks as if they have just got out of a hot bath & forgotten to dry themselves, you know, all blobs of water & red. There are flys & midges & mosquitoes & millions too & what a nuisance they are, we didn't stay there very long, when you get older your teacher will tell you that Freetown used to be called the "Whitemans Grave" so you will have to ask Mum what that means whilst we were there some of our biggest battleships "Men of War" came alongside us & what a thrill they gave us, we were all terribly excited for even old boys get excited when such ships, as the Rodney, Hood & Nelson are near. from Freetown we sailed to Cape Town & the first thing we saw was Table Mountain, do you know why its called Table Moutain John? Its flat on top & just like a table to look at, our ship stayed there for a few days & we were allowed to go on shore & have a good time, we did have a good time & lots of good things to eat, every kind of fruit you could think of John, lovely oranges, juicy pineapples, grapes, passion fruit & lots and lots of ice-cream.
After our stay here we went into the Indian Ocean & by this time we had changed our thick clothing for shorts & thin shirts & felt just like schoolboys again. The next post was Aden but we only stayed to take water on board, no one wanted to go ashore for there is nothing but rock & sand & a few camels there & it looked very very hot John.
From there we went into the Red Sea & after a few hundred miles voyaging our Padre showed us things of interest that are mentioned in the Bible & read to us how Moses, at Gods will, parted the Red Sea & allowed the people cross & our Padre said that at the same time as he was reading to us, we were passing the very spot where it had happened John.
Eventually we arrived in Eygpt & we went up into the Desert ready for the Battle of Alamein & we got our new trucks, cars, tanks, ambulances, Bren-gun-carriers, guns & everything an army needs. I had a brand new ambulance given to me & what a beauty it was John, very smart, terribly powerful & ever so fast, it would do over 80 miles per hour on the road John, what a thrill to go at that speed son, we had no windscreens in & the wind gets in your hair & blows in your face, its great, it was a British one too & the best that is made anywehere, it never let me down once & I took into every battle all the way up the Desert, I carried wounded men of all nations in it from English, Scotch, Irish, Australian, New Zealanders to Indians, French, American, Germans, Italians in fact men of almost every nation & now John, my pen is getting empty & its bed time too, its only 9.20 but I didn't get to bed last night or rather this morning, [unclear] 1 am & I'd walked 8 miles back to camp so Goodnight John & I'll try & finish this letter tomorrow.
23.2.44
I must try & finish this letter tonight, I could go on writing pages & pages of stories & tales of things that happened in the Desert but, you know if I make this letter any bigger the Post Office people will be charging me double [unclear].
What would you like me to tell you about tonight, lets see, shall I tell you how I met General Montgomery or of a battle or two or would you like to hear about boys & girls in Egypt or maybe Sicily. If I was a little boy I should like to hear of that great "little man Monty".
"Monty" is only small you know John. I'm only 5ft 7in myself and General Montgomery is shorter than me, he makes up for being small by being great in other ways. He's a wonderful leader of men and knows just how to plan battles so that we can beat the enemy. He know just where to send his tanks & Bren-carriers to make the best use of them, I have had to take wounded men out of tanks John, have you ever thought what a little space the men inside have to work in, they have shells, bullets, smoke, bombs & hand grenades all round them, even a wireless set. They can speak to another tank even in action over the wireless you know but then, I was talking about Monty wasnt it.
I've met him three times & seen him lots of other times, I shook hands with him in [unclear] & again in Gabes in Tunisia & then again when he pinned the medal ribbon on my chest in Sicily John. I was very proud that day. It was a very impressive big parade, there were three rows of men with a hundred men long & twelve men deep, dozens of officers & Generals & Brigadiers & those that were to receive medals, all stood in a row in front of everyone else. There were twenty men & officers who were there to receive the ribbons (I'll put a bit of the ribbon in for you that General Monty actually gave me John.) We all stood then & waited our turn to march up & be presented to the General. He shook hands & spoke a few words to us al, he asked me how my family were, how Mark & his Mummy were & how old Mark was & oh lots of questions I didn't feel too nervous but my knees did shake a bit. He also asked me what I'd done to earn my medal. I'd to tell him of course, would you like to hear about it John, you're favoured you know, I don't tell grown ups about it all.
Well it was one night when we attacked the Germans in the Mareth Line, we were in a gully in the sand all ready to attend to the wounded & take them back to a field hospital 2 1/2 miles away. We started shelling with our big guns & the Germans returned our fire with 88MM guns & all their shells were landing just around us. Men were wounded, a lot of hem too so we'd to fetch them in & attend to them & then take them to hospital. The shells were falling all the time, I took my first load of wounded men down & came back for more. We got hit coming back & our tyres were punctured, a truck was also hit & set on fire. We had to pass this truck often & the Germans could see both us & the burning truck. He fired at us then with machine guns, rifles & lots of other things. The ambulance was hit often but we were able to carry on for another six hours & during that time (we worked all night) we carried 52 wounded men to safety.
It wasn't too bad really John, another night we had to go from miles behind the Italian lines to fetch some of our own men who had gone out on patrol & had been blown up by mines. We got them on to the ambulance & were coming back when the Italians saw us & fired at us with everything they could. I had men on the roof & bonnet who had machine guns but dare not fire them, you see John, an ambulance is not supposed to have any thing to do with fighting, these men had their guns with them when they were wounded of course, anyhow, we only got a few holes in the sides that night & now John I really must finish this letter.
It's bed time again. I hope Mummy that I have written this so that you can read it. I am going home this weekend on leave, with a bit of luck Maggie is going with my wife & myself to Buckingham Palace next month, I have to see the King & two friends can go to see the ceremony to so Gladys & Maggie are going along.
I have never met you but, if you are anything like Maggie, you're [unclear], we all think the world about her, Mark especially, theres no one like his Auntie Maggie & now I'll close with
My very best wishes to you all, Cheerio
P.S.
John, I almost forgot to say thankyou to Mark for the transfers you sent, they were grand & worked fine.
English (UK)