David Holbrook
Page from a letter to his parents
Meanwood Park, Leeds, [Summer 1944]
From MS Add. 9987

Transcript:

the first things to reach Europe & were a great success, although we didn’t have them for this job. The most wonderful accompaniment to the task was the training of all our chaps in the Davis Submarine Escape Apparatus. We practised in a swimming bath at Oulton, walking about on the bottom, breathing oxygen. Then surfacing rapidly. I’ve never enjoyed anything so much – how it was all kept quiet I don’t know. The most frightful thing was the final escape training. We were put in a deep pit inside an old tank, with our apparatuses on. Then a great tank of thousands