B.E.F.
EXETER DEVON
1 JUNE 1940

Mrs KENNETH PENMAN
MAYCOT
12 COMMONSIDE
KESTON
KENT

June 1^st, 1940

My Darling,

Did you get my two postcards of the day before yesterday and the phone call from my benevolent clergyman? I tried to phone you myself, darling, last night, but everybody else seemed to have the same idea. After two hours, I had to give it up. We are at Exeter. Why Exeter for a city of London regiment? I don’t know. But as you may imagine, everything is in such a colossal muddle. The unit, those of us who managed to get through from Dunkirk, are split up all over the country. For that reason, I don’t think I should write to me here as we expect to move to some other place where the regiment will assemble and then we hope to get leave. It may only be for a little while, because we have got to win this war, but…

…darling, I don’t want to pile it on. I expect you can guess something of what it’s been like. I don’t feel I can go back again without seeing you and holding you very close to me, although we lost nearly everything. I’ve still got your photographs, albeit the glass was smashed and the frame was cracked. It’s been continually cried on and fallen on every time Jerry came over. I’ve got such heaps of things to tell you; it’s wonderful how terribly kind people have been to us.

We first met the Navy when we crowded onto the destroyer HMS Whitehall leaving Dunkirk at about 11 p.m. on Thursday morning. She had been at action stations since 2 o’clock, and they fed us on bread, tinned meat, and steaming hot tea, despite having hardly anything themselves. And here too, the people of Exeter treat us as heroes, instead of as we are, a beaten army. The papers try to gloss it over, but don’t think it will mean we shall lose the war.

I must see you, darling, which can’t be too soon. Every bit of my love, Kenneth