Love to all.
Ever your loving son,
Harold.
L.
To his Mother.
Hotel Burlington, Dover.
20th February, 1916.
Dearest Mum,
Another raid on Deal to-day, five bombs dropped and one man killed. I took over the War flight this morning, and had a patrol in the air at the time. I myself and others were off within a few minutes of receiving the signal, but no one even saw the machine.
Over sixty ratings arrived this morning without warning, and I had to make all arrangements for them to be fed, housed and washed. All of them were Derby recruits and had been in the Service 24 hours, mostly graded as A.M. 2nd class. None had seen an aeroplane before. They were butchers, grocers, cotton spinners, weavers, etc.
The C.O. goes away to-morrow for 2 weeks. Sippe, Andreae, Husky, Viney [T. E. Viney, D.S.O., Flt. Lieut., R.N.], etc. go to Paris in a day or so, and I am left to run the Station, School and War flight, keeping up a continuous patrol with four machines.