46421 Dvr E.A. Henderson 18th N.Z. Tank Transp Coy N.Z.A.S.C. 5th March 1944 2nd N.Z.E.F. M.E.F.

Dear Dorothy, Yesterday afternoon I received a letter from you dated 25th Dec with a note from Dad enclosed, and was very pleased to hear from you. At last my mail is beginning to catch up with me so should have my mail and parcels in a few days time. It is doing a fair bit of chasing round but now that I have settled down with the unit, mail and parcels should soon come to hand. I wrote you an Airgraph yesterday morning, so will answer your letter now. I can see you managed to get over your Christmas dinner O.K. I had mine in hospital. Lenore and Duncan must have had a good time with their Christmas tree I would liked to have seen them.

I certainly hope I am home for the next one. I am waiting to hear if Frances and Stuart’s new arrival will be a boy or girl, I expect Stuart will have a royal time wetting the baby’s head. Give Uncle Alex, Aunty Nan and Margaret my regards next time you see them, I have written to them twice but have not had any reply. You were lucky not having many patients in hospital during Christmas. You are coming on with the nursing doing a sister’s job, by the way give Dr Crawford my regards. He should have received the letter I wrote him by now. I will write a few lines now In answer to Dad’s note, I suppose you finished up on the broad of your back after Christmas dinner Dad, and under the Elm tree. Lenore must be very fond of their foal, it won’t be long until she is old enough to ride it. Give Jeff Williams and everyone at the store my kindest

regards. Tell Jeff that Italy is a long way different from Egypt, plenty of rain and mud just now. However it won’t be very long now until Spring in fact next month, and in May we will have the jolly old Summer. I am pleased to hear you are getting plenty of petrol for your motor-bike the tyres however will be a bit of a problem. You will have to be like the Italians over here, stuff them up with all sorts of things and sew them up. However you should be able to get them re-treaded. I am a pretty good hand at crib now, so look out when I get home. I will be taking you on. I am afraid I haven’t much in the way of news just now but will be able to write you all better letters as soon as I get my mail. I haven’t done anything so far since being in this new unit but I expect we will get going some of these days. The

weather these last few weeks has been awful, plenty of rain and mud but shows signs of clearing up now. I am on a 3 ton truck now and feel more like a general carrier than an Ambulance driver, one thing while on this job, I will not have near as much night driving as when I was in the Ambulance, in fact I haven’t driven at all since being in this unit. The wrist is as good as ever now, and does not interfere with my piano accordion playing. I never ever thought I would land in a hospital and I can tell you I did not like the appearance of the jolly old operating room, but there is nothing in it. All the operation was, an anaesthetic and while under it they tied the artery and stitched the wound. Yesterday I went down to my old unit to see all my mates and had dinner with them and came back to camp in the afternoon.

At present they are camped about six miles away from where I am. I told Bob Halliday that you had received the photo of him and when I told him you thought he was a bit of a sheik he got all hot under the collar. He said I should never have sent it. We are now over in the fifth army front, and believe me there are plenty of Yanks about. Last night we walked half a mile along the road to the Yank Hospital and saw a picture. Well Dot I am afraid this is all the news for the time being so will sign off now and write again later on . Give my love to all at home and remember me to everyone. Lots of love and kisses. Your loving brother Eric xxxx xxxx xxx