This is an entry in a year-long project to post-blog the demobilisation experience for British servicemen at the end of the Second World War. See here for an introduction to the project and here for a brief overview of the demobilisation process.
"I hate to say it of a friend, but I fear that Sympson is developing fast into an Incurable Ex-officer Type," complains a Punch writer:
Nobody can help being an ex-officer, of course, but the man who was at Alamein or Anzio or Arnhem, as soon as he is demobilised, reverts to looking as much as possible as he did before the war, with nothing but a few grey hairs and a wary expression to give him away.
The Incurable Ex-officer Type, however, who was usually Deputy Director of Domino Pips or something like that, retains his military moustache and much more military bearing than he ever dared exhibit overseas. He walks into a bar with the air of just having relinquished control of ten thousand men, and drags the "Awmy" into the conversation every other minute., usually saying that ectually he is browned-off with civilian life and wishes he was back in the dear old desert.
Far from controlling ten thousand men, Sympson and I during our last year in the Army had control only of Driver Obongo, and it was always a moot point whether or it was not Driver Obongo who had control of us ...
It would serve Sympson right if I decided to set myself up as an Incrable Ex-Officer myself. If I were to wear my British Warm with cuvvy buttons and exaggerate my slight limp, which is ectually due to chillblains, I might get away with it in a dim light.
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