Percy Howard Newby, RAMC, in Egypt and Europe
Creators: name: Project Team, Their Finest Hour
Publisher: name: University of Oxford
Year: 2024
Subjects: classificationCode: 430304
subject: British history
classificationCode: 430308
subject: European history (excl. British, classical Greek and Roman)
classificationCode: 430316
subject: International history

description: Siblings Gabriel and Tabitha Schenk stated that they had quite a few different items from both sides of their family, in particular letters from their grandfather, Howard Newby. He was born in 1918. Pre-war, he was a teacher in Cheltenham and volunteered. He assumed that if he volunteered, he could choose where he was to be sent.Whilst in Egypt as well as in Europe, during service in the Royal Army Medical Corps in the Second World War, he wrote back to his fiancée, Joan, in Wendover (a town in Buckinghamshire near Aylesbury), amassing a collection of perhaps 1,000 letters. These were love letters, but also letters describing what was happening in Egypt and Europe. Joan worked on a farm during the war. She was not an official Land Girl but volunteered because she could stay nearby. She was the first girl to drive a tractor. If she had joined the Land Army, she might have been sent elsewhere. There were Land Girls on the farm, though she wasn't an official one. Joan also worked in an ammunitions factory. Her father owned a bakery. Gabriel and Tabitha had looked at few of the letters which provided incredible description of Egypt during the war, and his experiences as a medical orderly. When serving in France in 1940, he was one of the last to be evacuated, and survived the sinking of the HMT Lancastria, eventually getting back to England. (HMT Lancastria was divebombed by the Luftwaffe off St. Nazaire and sunk on 17th June 1940, with very large loss of life. The losses were covered up on Churchill's orders.) He was reunited with his fiancée in 1940. He later wrote about the episode in a novel, 'The Retreat', but never spoke about it to his family. They found it interesting to find this out from a lot of letters of Christmas 1940. In France, he must have been in Brittany or Normandy. From England, he was sent to North Africa. Letters from Egypt are dated from December 1940, sometime after the sinking of the Lancastria. There are photos of him in Egypt. They have more information on him, such as his regimental number, at home.He was not a conscientious objector but did not like the idea of killing anyone, so joined the RAMC. They don't think he was in the Territorial Army.From the photo if looks like as though he is in the desert with the 8th Army. He did not go to Italy with the 8th Army. He stayed in Egypt post-war (presumably after the Axis defeat in North Africa). He taught in Cairo University after the war, having a job teaching English Literature including to the royal family. His fiancée came out to Egypt for him, but they were not married there but in England. After VE Day, he was shipped back to UK, but they were not sure when he was demobbed.After the war, he went on to become a novelist and the head of BBC Radio 3. He wrote a lot, drawing on his war experience and the years after war when he stayed in Egypt.When he came back to England, he started making money as a novelist, then worked for BBC Radio. He started off at BBC Radio as a producer, then eventually became head of the Third Programme. He stayed in broadcasting for the rest of his life and wrote as a novelist. His name in radio was Howard Newby, and he wrote under the name of P. H. Newby. The interviewees brought two letters from Christmas 1940 but have about 1,000 at home. Their dream is to transcribe, catalogue, and put them online. Most letters are handwritten, and seem very detailed, but there are some microfilm letters amongst them. They also brought a poem thought to have been written by Joan, about freedoms gained by women during war, "are we going to go back to before war?". It is not signed by her but is in a box of her items.On the other side of family, their Schenk grandfather was a Jewish refugee from Prague. He was writing from Oxford, back to his parents in Prague. There are letters sent by him and his brother, living in Oxford. They have no idea what they say as the letters are in German. Their parents stayed in Prague, and survived the war, but their mother later came to Oxford as a housemaid and is buried in Oxford. The letters include letters to the Home Office,Their Schenk grandfather went to Bergen-Belsen Concentration Camp either with the British Army or the Red Cross, looking for Canadian prisoners of war. The interviewees have a report he wrote at home, in English. He spoke fluent German. He was teaching in Manchester during the war, and somebody may have said, 'would you like to do it?' It was at the end of war. He didn't really speak much about what happened.