Contents of the Red Leather Bag

My father left a red leather bag, containing his wartime gear that he valued so much that he had managed to save hidden from my mother's desire to "throw that old stuff" away. He had joined the TA in 1936 when he saw Hitler's rise. He was called up 2 weeks before the declaration of war and spent 1939-1944 Iight ack-ack defending the airfields of Lincs and Norfolk. 2 weeks after D-Day he landed in Normandy and spent weeks near Caen trying to persuade the troops to eat all the huge stocks of Camembert which had been stuck there by the battle. The Officers were delighted by this glut!

Leslie and his men were not in the vanguard of the advance across N Europe, but the armies moved so fast that he found it difficult to keep track of the exact position of the front line at any one time. When he realised he was near Brussels, he decided to go to see his old friend, A Deladriere, a Commercial Engineer, who lived in the SW, and therefore nearest, suburbs of Brussels at 12 Boulevard van Haelen, Foret-Bruxelles. (His uncle and aunt, Arch and Berthe had evacuated to Leicester with their children at the time of Dunkirk and spent most of the war in Norwich, where Arch ran a shoe factory). He and Halewood, his batman, took their jeep and set off late in the day to find their way to the outskirts of Brussels. After a while they found themselves in No Man's Land, with shells exploding and no possibility of getting through to their destination. Leslie recounted this as an amusing story but it can't have been so funny at the time. The spur for this foolish excursion may be found in the Army Bag. It is a letter from Deladriere to Leslie, written after the liberation of Brussels survive, kept in Leslie's army bag.

Deladriere is waiting for Leslie to visit him when he wrote on 17.10.1944 to Capt. L H Smith, RA, BAOR"On Active Service"."My dear Captain, O.K. Dede [his wife] is looking at this letter as I am writing it. As I think to my words, I don't find them. Well, we are awaiting you and your friend. You may come with or without rations. Be sure of a good welcome. You will find Brussels very different: lights and lights, fewer English soldiers, more amusement. You will have to profit by your last leave. (make the most of?) Very soon Leicester, you know, a small city just in the center of England; very soon your family and we hope, next year, a visit from you, your lady wife and your daughter."

Deladriere had written to Leslie's uncle Arch, almost as soon as the Allied Forces arrived in Brussels, to give him the history of the shoe factory which they had both managed under the Nazis, sending it care of Leslie, who does not yet seem to have managed to visit him at home.

He also made light of another mishap. He was billeted in a large building but this too came under fire so he decided to sleep outside. Halewood, poor man, dug Leslie a pit into which his camp bed could fit and Leslie slept so soundly, despite the air raids, that he failed to wake up when the orders came to move out. Halewood to the rescue again.

He spent VE Day by the Kiel Canal and was not demobbed till March 1946. He had become a Captain by then, later rising to Lt. Col. in the TA.