11-28-43 The B.B.C. tells us that during the past eight days the R.A.F. have bombed Berlin five times, dropping in all six thousand tons of bombs on the city. This is awful. It makes me weep. I weep for Berlin, as well as us, and for all the dead, the dead in Berlin, and our boys who will never return.

• Sunday November 28, 1943 Advent Sunday 

The B.B.C. tells us that during the past eight days the R.A.F. have bombed Berlin five times, dropping in all six thousand tons of bombs on the city. This is awful. It makes me weep. I weep for Berlin, as well as us, and for all the dead, the dead in Berlin, and our boys who will never return. War, damned ghastly fiendish war! Is this the only way men can settle the affairs of he world? One wry joke comes in. The B.B.C. reports that a spokesman on the German air told the Germans that Berlin was carrying on in the debris, life as usual, including even the theaters, and listed two of the plays still running as, “Queen of the Night,” and “Love’s Glamour Over All.” What irony!

http://blog.forces-war-records.co.uk/2013/05/17/bounce-bounce-boom/

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=410738015700910&set=a.360179474090098.85364.201240463317334&type=1&theater

10-24-43 We have now had nine consecutive nights of bombing again. It is most wearing. Oh this damn war, this lunacy.

• Buy on Barnes and Noble
  
  Buy on Smashwords
  
  
  
• Sunday October 24, 1943 
We have now had nine consecutive nights of bombing again. It is most wearing. Oh this damn war, this lunacy.


• Saturday November 6, 1943 
Today the Russians have retaken Kiev. The Germans captured it in September Nineteen Forty-One. The B.B.C. broke into program at eleven this morning to broadcast the news.


• Tuesday November 9, 1943 
A bad raid in the night, and also two on Sunday night. On Sunday a dance hall was struck, a milk-bar, and two cinemas, and the crowds of young people on the streets in the vicinity; it was London, though we may not have been told exactly where, probably the Tottenham Court Road. We have raids now practically every night. Only a few bombers come over, but they do a lot of damage. It is only sixteen minutes flying time from the airdromes in France over to London, as Gerry can make quick dashes and get away again almost before we are aware of him. Hitler made a speech in Munich last night, urging loyalty on his Germans and promising vengeance on the British. It is true the R.A.F. now does more damage to Germany than the Luftwaffe did to us, but who started this business? Germany has to be licked, and licked forever, but at what frightful price! Oh God, let the war end soon.

Volume 2 Free on Smashwords 10-18-43 There was a very heavy raid again last night. Rockingham Avenue, about a mile or a mile and a half from here, got a direct hit, ten houses down and six people killed outright, several others injured and taken to the hospital.

• Buy on Barnes and Noble

          Volume 2 Free on Smashwords

• Monday October 18, 1943

There was a very heavy raid again last night. Rockingham  Avenue, about a mile or a mile and a half from here, got a direct hit, ten houses down and six people killed outright, several others injured and taken to the hospital.

• Tuesday October 19, 1943 

There was a raid again last night. It’s moonlight of course. Nothing fell here, thank God. Yet somewhere else got the bombs. Oh, when will this damn war finish! What frightful times we are living in! What infuriating ones, for none of the world’s troubles need be. Men have made the world the way it is. Men destroy society and civilization. Fool men. Wicked men. Goddamn men! God does damn men. We are all damned.

• Wednesday October 20, 1943 

I am very restless and very tired. Another raid last night so we are all losing sleep, and that’s making us all cranky. Ted is on my nerves excessively. I do think him a fool. He fusses about nothing and too pious for words. I loathe his piety. Why oh why can’t he be a normal man? I think he is a maniac, and I am so tired of him I do not know how to go on living with him any longer. He’s good and he means well, but the fact is, I can’t bear him. I’ve had too much of him. Marriage last too long. I hate marriage. One night soon, perhaps tonight, he will want his pleasure, and he’ll take it. Will he say his prayers over that? Of course not. In the morning he’ll be up and off to mass, as per usual. Habit.

• Thursday October 21, 1943 Trafalgar Day. Salute to Nelson. 

We had another very bad raid last night, between one and two this morning. I trembled so incessantly that this morning my limbs ache as though I had climbed a mountain and even my arms ache. I retched so much I am feeling my ribs are bruised, as though somebody kicked them. I am so tired from lack of sleep my eyes are smarting. During a raid like last nights it is easy to understand how human beings can die of shock and fear. Once I held my breath thinking the house was surely hit, but it wasn’t, nor anywhere immediately near, so far as I know. War. This fiendish war, the sport of men.

• Friday October 22, 1943 

There was a raid again last night, between two and three a.m. and another this evening about half past seven until nearly nine. This evening was a very heavy one. The Gerry’s have got through to London every night now for a week, but it was the last quarter of the moon yesterday, so we may hope for quieter nights next week. We are all very tired. Since Gerry came early this evening we hope for an undisturbed night tonight.

may-16th-70th-anniversary-of-the-dambusters-raid

may-16th-70th-anniversary-of-the-dambusters-raid

10-8-43 We have had air raids every night since Sunday. Last night’s was the heaviest yet. Two bombs dropped on the Golf Links. I actually went outside to look at the sky and saw a Gerry caught in the searchlights.

• Barnes and Noble
  
  
  smashwords
  
  
• Friday October 8, 1943

We have had air raids every night since Sunday. Last night’s was the heaviest yet. Two bombs dropped on the Golf Links. I actually went outside to look at the sky and saw a Gerry caught in the searchlights. The moon up, the stars shining, the lights criss-crossing, colored flares dropping, it is a beautiful night, but what a devil’s beauty. During the evening Ted wrote me two checks, one for my hats, the other to cover Jo Tibb’s dressmaking bill. I duly thanked him.

9-21-43 It is the first day of autumn and the re-opening of Parliament. There was a long speech from Mr. Churchill, who returned from America on Sunday. He said that the bloodiest part of the war is yet to come

• Available on Barnes and Noble
  
  
  
  Available on Smashwords
  
  
• Thursday September 16, 1943 

The Germans were over this area again last night, and dropped bombs in three different London areas. Nothing dropped here, but it might have done. What’s the use of money in the bank to a dead woman? So I went and bought two new hats and very becoming ones at that. At least I’ll look all right, even if I don’t feel it. Now I have got to cook this afternoon. Mushrooms to be fixed for tea, and I suppose I had better do something about the pastry. What a life!

• Tuesday September 21, 1943 

It is the first day of autumn and the re-opening of Parliament. There was a long speech from Mr. Churchill, who returned from America on Sunday. He said that the bloodiest part of the war is yet to come.

9-8-43 Italy has surrendered. At half past five this evening General Eisenhower broadcast from Algiers, that our armistice terms have been agreed to, without reservations and the Italians having laid down their arms, fighting against Italy has ceased, the armistice commencing at once. So Italy is out of the war. Eisenhower also added a promise to the effect that if Italy is attacked by any other power, we, the United Nations, will help her fight her attacker. This, presumably, is for the benefit of the Germans. Will the Germans round on Italy? Quite possibly. They signed a peace pact with Russia in 1939, but that didn’t prevent them from invading and attacking Russia in 1941.So what next?

• Barnes and Noble

          SmashWords

• Wednesday September 8, 1943 

Italy has surrendered. At half past five this evening General Eisenhower broadcast from Algiers, that our armistice terms have been agreed to, without reservations and the Italians having laid down their arms, fighting against Italy has ceased, the armistice commencing at once. So Italy is out of the war. Eisenhower also added a promise to the effect that if Italy is attacked by any other power, we, the United Nations, will help her fight her attacker. This, presumably, is for the benefit of the Germans. Will the Germans round on Italy? Quite possibly. They signed a peace pact with Russia in 1939, but that didn’t prevent them from invading and attacking Russia in 1941.So what next?

9-1-43 Four years today since Hitler attacked Poland and started the World War. The Pope announced last week that he would make a broadcast “to the world” today. So far have heard nothing from Rome, but shall probably do so this evening. Yet what can the Pope say that anyone will pay attention to? Hiherto he has always condoned his Italians: condoned war. The non-Italian and non-Catholic world, I think, will turn a very deaf ear today to his holiness the Pope.

• Buy on Barnes and Noble

          Buy on Smashwords

• Saturday July 17, 1943 

Yesterday Churchill and Roosevelt; to capitulate, to save them, and not to continue to die for Hitler, to throw over Mussolini and his Fascist Government, broadcast appeals to the Italian people. How can they? In Sicily over twenty thousand Italians have surrendered, but they are soldiers, what can the people of Italy do?

• Wednesday September 1, 1943 

Four years today since Hitler attacked Poland and started the World War. The Pope announced last week that he would make a broadcast “to the world” today. So far have heard nothing from Rome, but shall probably do so this evening. Yet what can the Pope say that anyone will pay attention to? Hiherto he has always condoned his Italians: condoned war. The non-Italian and non-Catholic world, I think, will turn a very deaf ear today to his holiness the Pope.

• Friday, September 3, 1943 

The fourth anniversary of our entry into the war, today the fifth year of the war begins. It begins well, for us, for it is announced that at four-thirty this morning British and Canada made a successful landing on the toe of Italy. The allied invasion of the continent of Europe has begun.

• Wednesday September 8, 1943 

Italy has surrendered. At half past five this evening General Eisenhower broadcast from Algiers, that our armistice terms have been agreed to, without reservations and the Italians having laid down their arms, fighting against Italy has ceased, the armistice commencing at once. So Italy is out of the war. Eisenhower also added a promise to the effect that if Italy is attacked by any other power, we, the United Nations, will help her fight her attacker. This, presumably, is for the benefit of the Germans. Will the Germans round on Italy? Quite possibly. They signed a peace pact with Russia in 1939, but that didn’t prevent them from invading and attacking Russia in 1941.So what next?