WW2 Era Letter Written by British Crusader Tank Crewman while in a Convalescent Depot after being seriously wounded in North Africa during the Battle of Gazala.

[Heartfeltzero]

This letter was written by a Lance Corporal Stanley Thornton to his wife. He was an MK.VI Crusader Tank Crewman serving with the 9th Queen's Royal Lancers, 2nd Armoured Brigade. About 3 months before writing his letter, he was severely wounded in the fighting during the withdrawal from Knightsbridge, south of Gazala, in the retreat to El Alamein in early June 1942. He suffered the loss of an eye, as well as damage to his face and wounds to his legs. The letter was written while he was in a Convalescent Depot in North Africa.

Throughout the letter, Stanley conveys his appreciation for the simple joys of life, like nature and family. It seems to me that his near death experience gave him a new appreciation for life. The letter reads:

“7914398 Lcorpl S. Thornton
No.5 Convalescent Depot
M.E.F.
23rd September 1942,

My darling,

Really and truly, my darling, especially so today because today I have received your airgraph A.I. after a fortnight and more without anything. It was grand, even though it did set me longing for 4012 which you say you had just posted, telling me of Bessie’s wedding and your Grange holiday. For 9 months now I have been waiting for letters about weddings, no sooner have I got the full story when there is another wedding. So did I tell you what Cousin Emma said? She said all our weddings had been lovely, because there was that feeling of sacredness about them which makes a wedding. Well, I wasn’t at the last three, but I know ours was sacred and I keep thinking of what Henry said to you about it!

Five guineas certainly isn’t too much for a present for Bessie and Stan. I know from your letters how well they have looked after you since I donned khaki, and now you and Joan from your own experience will be able to help her through her time of separation. Here’s to the time when we are all drinking coffee together from that table. I was always fond of coffee and I am fonder still of our all being together. Good old Albert and Mary, lending them the house. I shall always be grateful to Teadel for the little time we had at their house.

While waiting for mail to come from you, I have kept re-reading the air-mails I got just before I left camp, and savouring once again those tid bits. Guildford in the late spring or early summer, when it is warm enough to be nice on the river but not too drowsily hot to be romantic, evening in Wharfedale, when the sun is setting in golden splendour behind the moors Spinton way, and among the grey stone houses of the villages bats fly around and martins whistle shrilly.

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Mabel and her dreams! Well she’s probably quite right about what I should say concerning the sand, and I should probably continue by telling you yarns which bored you all to tears. Well, by now I hope there is a fine little Hudson(?) and a new mother progressing nicely. Isn’t it a shilling you put into the infant’s hand first time you see it?

Did you ever get that trip to Altham and the shop window (?) in Manchester? I suppose the week-end in June would fall through, as you would get word of my being wounded and have the inclination to go knocked out of you. I have a nasty habit of disturbing your visits to Altham, haven’t I? It was twelve months ago, my last flying visit home, when I sat up with your Mother fire-watching then dragged you out of bed by phone to return to your “Lord and master”. I think though that you wouldn’t mind that so much as you would the shock in June, however that’s past too and here I am, back in khaki, drill, not finished with doctors yet, but feeling alright, eating alright, sleeping alright, and doing a useful job while I am here.

It is quite interesting really, there are all shapes and sizes pass through here seeing Major Harper, with all sorts of ailments, real exaggerated and some maybe mainly imaginary. It is clerical work, which I don’t mind after a two years break, and the Major is quite good to work for, so it suits me for the duration of my stay.

September 25th 1942,

I haven’t had anymore mail from you since I laid down my pencil, but I had an airgraph from Mary Knaptom and a letter from Kenneth Green. The latter has made a friend who plays the organ and you can imagine how pleased he is with that. By the way, he had ideas like me about weather, it’s all very well having this lovely sunshine, but he would give a lot for one of those icy winds we get at home!

Yesterday i was reading an article in an old magazine on the “Spirit of England” and I found the following quotation, which somehow I think you will…

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appreciate.

“O native Britain! O my Mother Isle,
How shouldft thou prove aught else but dear and holy
To me, who from thy lakes and mountain-hills,
Thy clouds, thy quiet dales, thy rocks, and seas,
Have drunk in all my intellectual life,
All sweet sensations, all ennobling thoughts,
All adoration of the God in nature,
All lovely and all honourable things,
Whatever makes this mortal spirit feel
The joy and greatness of its future being?
There lives nor form nor feeling in my soul
Unborrow'd from my country”

How much have we drawn upon the tranquility of the countryside, the peace of the lakes or the mystery of the hills when the wreaths of mist are trailing across their tops! Thank God for his relation to us of his wonder, beauty and majesty through birds, beast, insects, the wind in the trees or the sparkle of sunlight on the water, “He gave us eyes to see them, and lips that we might tell how great is God Almighty, who hath made all things well. Out here I have watched many a time the ants, some tiny, some big ones, going about their business, pushing, pulling and maneuvering things much bigger than themselves, and have marvelled at their industry, persistence and determination to carry out their task; I have yet to see them abandon anything they have undertaken to move.

I wonder what you are doing today. It is Saturday, end of September, the trees should be changing colour, I wonder if perhaps you are on your way to Judy, down the lane to Royds Hall, with the dam on your left, it’s surface ruffled by the breeze? Somehow I think you may be, and perhaps after a quiet contemplation in that dearest of spots, you will return to Netherlands for an evening with Flo and Stewart. Or perhaps meet Bessie for tea in town and then the pictures? Or maybe you will settle down to prepare for Sunday school…

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and then write your airmail to me? Whichever it is, I hope you are enjoying it as I am enjoying writing to you, I think you will be, I can feel it somehow!

I have been wondering if you have seen anything of George and Muriel and the bairns recently. Henry will be a big boy now and Ann should be lovely and full of mischief. I should just love to see them all now, to go over to Leeds complete with wife and drop in as they always like us to, no fuss, just a real Askwith welcome, with all George’s rude remarks and a twinkle in his eye, a game of darts and a chin wag, it would be grand.

Forgive me if this letter is disappointingly short, but I have been broken off so many times I really must get it away, but before I close, let me take you to a tree in a little patch of woodland where together we worshipped the God of beauty and love, whose we are and ever shall be, and there tell you that forever I love you,

wife of Stanley,

xxxxxx
x……..x”

Stanley would make a full recovery and would live a long life, passing away on July 17th 2007 in Bradford, England. His wife would pass away 3 years later on August 3rd 2010. The two are buried together in the Bowling Cemetery in Bradford.

[BlackCat1982]

A beautiful letter, truly a soldier who appreciated how lucky he was in so far as getting wounded with the chance to get home.