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WWII 70 letters with blunt views-Very rare archive not destroyed by censorship
$ 417.12
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Description
A remarkable World War II correspondence archive of more than 70 autograph letters sent by a British soldier Ken Hipkin to his wife Susan just after the end of WWII (from 1945 to 1947) making his own and some of his companions observations on the war, the politics, and the personalities involved +7 original photographs of Hipkin and his wife + 5 used shooting cards + small diary with manuscript pencil annotations.
Some letters are accompanied by
newspapers
fragments.
Hipkin’s letters provide a valuable insight into the thinking of an ordinary soldier in the wake of the end of World War II and the dawn of the Cold War. Some soldiers saw with skepticism what was happening in the world and did not think of Churchill and Montgomery as heroes.
It is remarkable that most of these letters were not destroyed or heavily obliterated by the censor such were the forthright views expressed in them.
In one letter he remarks about the fate of the 243 British paratroopers imprisoned for mutiny in Kuala Lumpur in what was known as the ‘Kluang Incident’:
‘...what a vile and terrible crime has been committed against these men who risked their lives for their country – a country which if it does not get these men acquitted is not worthy of the victory it has won but only fit to be stamped beneath the heel of a foreign power. The men who passed the sentences on these heroes should be shot without a trial. It is high time England had a purge and got rid of all the Nazi elements...the MPs of the
British Army make the German Gestapo look like a bunch of Boy Scouts.
..’
On the effects of the atomic bomb he writes:
‘...
they were the most ghastly sights I have ever seen shown on a screen far worse than the horror films of Belsen and Buchenwald. Most of the victims were women and children and it is a grave thing when one realises that a supposedly civilised country America used this most hideous form of warfare not on military objectives not on troops but without warning on defenceless people and what is more they openly boast about it. I wonder what we would have said if they had used it on us first
?’
His views on Montgomery are also revealing
:
‘
...
Montgomery is regarded by the men who came through the fighting in Italy as being a butcher. They say he used to completely disregard the loss of life a battle might cost...
that ‘idiot’ Montgomery known as the Butcher says we still need large forces of infantry even though the atom bomb has come.
..’ ‘...it’s a pit we have not got a stronger man for Minister of Labour than Isaacs someone who would refuse their demands. I think it would be a good idea if they threw out all the Jews they are a dead loss and are only interested in themselves...
’ ‘...
we may as well be under German rule it couldn’t be much worse than this. As I have said many times before the British race is just as cruel and evil as
the Germans and a
large proportion of the English are descended from the same races as the Germans. They are military maniacs. Even our King is a pure German.
..
’
About [Churchill]:
“
is nothing but a wicked old war monger and will never be happy till he sees Britain fighting Russia.
Like all Tories he is afraid of Communism spreading and thinks he and his type would loose their power and their money and to prevent that happening would be prepared to start a war that may cost thousands of men’s lives
...’
About the Labour Party and Conservative Party:
“Major N. Fisher
(referring to Sir Nigel Thomas Fisher 1913-1996, conservative party politician in United Kingdom)
a horrible man, the typical officer type cannot bear to be contradicted. He said he supports the Imperial Chemical Industry, the company which supplied mustard gas to Japan as one heckler pointed out
”.
About economics
:
“
Unfortunately many of the wealthy people think that the working man should be kept down and made to work for low wages so that they can make greater profits, and have complete control of the industry of the country.”