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.
In New Generation, a journal for aspiring young writers both in and out of uniform, Peter Graham discusses the idiosyncrasies of wartime promotion. He remembers an excellent sergeant who had been turned down by the colonel three times for a commission because he was “too useful where he was ... six years in the army proper, I thought, probably two or three before the war in weekends, and all he had gained was the stripe-by-stripe, snail’s promotion to Lance-Sergeant, Paid Bombardier." Graham reflects: "What could I offer in balance but three months in the ranks, and eight months at an OCTU rewarded by a fortuitous pip?”
Meanwhile, Ray Allister receives a letter from the sweetheart of a demobbed soldier in this month's Modern Woman: “My fiancé has been in the army since leaving college. I have done well-paid war-work and saved. He is now demobilized and needs about 300 pounds to help him take a technical course. I have offered to lend him the money but he says no decent man borrows from a woman. In the name of common sense, why not?”
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