BRITISH TANKER'S WORLD WAR II CORRESPONDENCE
Fine grouping of 30 A.L.S.'s with censored covers (some from Nazi offices) of Lt. Timothy F. French-Mullen of the 2nd Armored Irish Guards, second in command of approx. forty British tanks, about 70pp. overall, Dec. 2, 1944 to Feb. 15, 1945 to various family members in Belfast. The fairly routine correspondence opens with a 12pp. letter from "France" in which he describes a choppy crossing of the Channel to arrive in France and debark as German POW's are onloaded. He then travels inland, where his correspondence continues. In small part: "...Some people of the neighboring town actually starved to death during the occupation...[the stationmaster] pointed out the positions of some flying bomb launching platforms and said that a great number crashed on takeoff and a lot more in the sea...one passes miles of burnt out trucks and guns in every station...I inspected the cookhouse and found some Germans peeling spuds. They looked quite happy...This unit I am with now occupied the Gestapo headquarters at some town and dug up a few members of the F.F.I. who had been done in. Nails removed, eyes out, arms & legs broken...shot or having their throats cut...I came from the Battalion in a captured SS car. Originally American called a Lincoln Zephyr, a V12 engine...The Russians seem to be getting along quite well but they have yet to cross the Odernear Berlin...a doodle bug [V-1 rocket] came over this morning but could not cope with the snow and ice and just collapsed a mile or two away...the new tank suits that we wear make us look simply vast...glorious sun but a little work and a V-2...we came through Rochefort and passed the blunted spearheads including several Panthers and Tigers and I must say I considered them...formidable...an officer in the Scots...failed to stop when challenged. The sentry fired his shots...the unfortunate officer was hit in the shoulder...I gave one man a piece of chocolate, he said it was the first piece that he had for five years...not an unbombed stretch for 20 feet in about a mile...I saw the prison at Amiens which the Mosquitoes bombed...". Overall very good to fine. French-Mullen would be wounded by "friendly fire" in mid-April, 1945.