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Dear Trudie,

‘Aya Toots?’ as they say in the States. How’s things?

Being Sunday morning I listened to the 9 a.m. news in bed (lout!) to hear that Hitler had declared war on Yugoslavia. What a world we live in!

The 20th Feb letter has been lost with a snap of you in it (tears!!). I’ll bet the fishes are admiring you at the bottom of the Atlantic. So remember you owe me one now. So send one pronto d’ye hear?

My patience won’t allow me to wait until the end of the war to have a little part of our debate now. You can make a reply to what I’m going to say and then when we’ve explained each other’s point of view we will say no more. Agreed? Remember we’re great friends and what we say about each other’s country has nothing to do with our own friendship. Okay. I’ll fire away.

Your statesmen have admitted time and time again that we are fighting America’s battle. Why then, should we who are going a little hungry, standing the strain of air-bombardment, watching our cities destroyed and our own flesh and blood killed in cold blood while America sits tightly, says the bloom of her youth will not die on Europe’s battlefields but we will send you the tackle and your youth can die for us. Remember, America’s population is three times as large as ours. Admitted it has a great moral effect, that we can get equipment elsewhere. Remember all this is my personal opinion. I hope you don’t think I’m rude but one of the things we are fighting for is freedom of speech. I hope you’re not vexed with me, you are not, are you?

By the way, I might say I admire your country greatly, life is much pleasanter there but give me good Old England any day.

Well, I’ll close now with my suggestion. Keep well.

Lots of love

Brian

That spring, while the Luftwaffe continued to bomb Britain’s cities, the Axis powers pushed ahead with their campaign in the Balkans. In Paris, Micheline followed the news closely and kept to her New Year’s resolution of fighting the ‘Bosche’ whenever she could.