More than a year had passed since George Edwin Farrar spent his last day marching across Germany and his ultimate liberation on May 2, 1945.  We Americans that know of the Black March probably picture the marching prisoners in our minds as American, but my father’s companion on the march was a British soldier, not American.  From this letter my father kept since 1946, I must assume that he was housed in a Stalag Luft IV barracks that was a mixture of American and British prisoners.

July 15, 1946
6 Forest View Cottages
Belton
NR Loughborough
Leicestershire
England

Dear George,

It seems a long time since those unhappy days at Luft 4 & the three months marching but I haven’t forgotten the many Yank friends that I made & thought that I would give you time to settle down before I dropped you a line. I hope this finds you in the best of health old-timer & settled down to your home life again, enjoying all those good things that we used to dream about, steaks, chocolate, ices, etc. I’m sure you deserve them all.

I hope that this letter also brings back a few pleasant memories of England with its small hawthorn hedged fields & narrow country lanes. It looks very lovely at the moment as the crops are just about ripe & everywhere is so green. I am writing just after my Sunday tea & it is one of those rare sunny days that we get so few of over here.

I have been demobbed 12 months now & am back at work with promotion to shop foreman. My family has also risen to two boys since I got back. I expect you are also out of the Army Air Force.

Have you ever come across any more of Room 12. Old Mac Whorter lives down south at East Bernstadt, N London, Kentucky but I forgot that your states are as big as England. If you do write any of them please give them my regards.

I have been keeping my eyes open for some card-views of England, but I am sorry to say George that they are not yet back on the market but I shall remember. Try & get me some of those railway view that you told me about.

I’m afraid there’s not too much of anything yet over here & rations are as strict if not stricter than they were during war-time. Now bread as gone on rations due to the state of the continent, the capitalist clique over here are making a lot of party capital out of it but we shall pull through this the same as everything else.

Now that the American loan as gone through we expect to get more petrol, newspapers & a bit more variety in our very dull meals. I’m sure that you won’t regret it when you know what good it will do. It’s no good to anyone as money alone & a thriving Britain means more trade for the U.S.A. as I see it. Anyway our two countries must stick together.

I never saw you again after the day we were liberated. I understand that nearly all your boys stopped the first night at Boizenburg but most of the RAF went straight on to Luneburg & I got there that night. From there I went to Emsdetten near Holland & then flew to England in a Lanc [possible abbreviation for Lancaster bomber].

Well George I expect I could write all night about the past but most of that’s best forgotten, don’t you think. I hope this letter finds you, & I shall be looking forward to your reply. By-the way are you married yet. Write & give me all the news. Please give your family my regards.

Well I must draw to a close as I’m going up to the local pub which my father-in-law runs. I should like to have you here & treat you to a pint of good old mild which I know you used to like.

Cheerio for now old pal & all the very best.

Your Limey Pal,
Laurie Newbold

Notes:

“Old Mac Whorter” was Cecil C. McWhorter of Kentucky.  He was a Staff Sergeant with the 351st bomb group.  McWhorter was a left waist gunner on the Charles E. Cregar, Jr. crew on the 351st’s October 3, 1944 mission 213 to the Nuremburg railroad marshaling yards.  All on board became POW’s with the exception of bombardier John F. Dwyer, who lost his life on that mission.  MACR9358 contains details, but I have not yet been able to locate a copy.  McWhorter died February 10, 1965 and is buried in Evergreen Cemetery in Louisville, Jefferson County, Kentucky.

© Cindy Farrar Bryan and The Arrowhead Club, 2014