Problem Solving
Many Servicemen brought personal problems to Edgar Whitehead at Rhodesia House.
One day a flight lieutenant, newly returned from the Middle East informed Edgar that Salisbury earlier that year had discontinued the family allowance for his wife and two children. His dilemma was awkward. He had married in Britain in 1940 and been posted to the Middle East in 1942. In late 1943 he had been sent to a Palestine Rest Camp where he was very bored. A US pilot offered him a lift to Britain promising him he would be back in Palestine in ten days and nobody the wiser. He accepted, and spent a happy week with his wife.
Nine months later a child was born. This had become known in Salisbury and since they believed he had not visited Britain since 1942 they stopped the allowances.
If the Air Ministry discovered his unauthorized visit he expected a Court-Martial. On the other hand he desperately needed the allowance.
He asked for Edgar's advice. He solved it by writing a personal letter to Huggins who ordered the allowance restored together with arrears without disclosing his reasons to Air Headquarters.
Another Rhodesian pilot who came for advice had completed two tours of operations with the Rhodesian Squadron of Bomber Command. He was transferred to Transport Command, shortly before VE-Day. He flew over to Paris carrying VIP passengers one day, but was not told who they were.
After landing at Le Bourget one of the passengers who he described as fussy little civilian in a bowler hat told him, "Pilot, I shall be only about two hours. Just wait here until I have completed my mission and then take me back to London. I must not be delayed."
This annoyed the Rhodesian. He had recently married and had promised to buy his wife certain items of clothing unobtainable in London. He went into Paris. When he returned he found the little man waiting for him in a towering rage, having been kept waiting ninety minutes.
On return to base he discovered he had been carrying Churchill's emissary to General de Gaulle. He was ordered to report the next day personally to the Prime Minister to explain his conduct.
Baggott and Edgar assured him his only hope was to tell Churchill the precise truth and not give any excuses.
After a first class telling off Winston asked him why he had done it.
"Well Sir, I didn't know what right the bloody little civilian had to order me about. I had no written orders on the subject. I had only recently been married and my wife particularly wanted me to do some shopping for her in Paris."
Winston burst out laughing and said, "Forget it my boy, forget it! It's lucky for you you told the truth.
The historical novel Whitewashed Jacarandas and its sequel Full of Possibilities are both available on Amazon as paperbacks and eBooks.
These books are inspired by Diana's family's experiences in small town Southern Rhodesia after WWII.
Dr. Sunny Rubenstein and his Gentile wife, Mavourneen, along with various town characters lay bare the racial arrogance of the times, paternalistic idealism, Zionist fervor and anti-Semitism, the proper place of a wife, modernization versus hard-won ways of doing things, and treatment of endemic disease versus investment in public health. It's a roller coaster read.
- References:
- Sir Edgar Whitehead's Unpublished Memoirs, Rhodes House, Bodleian Library, Oxford, by permission.
- Photo Credit: Galleries Lafayette, Boulevard Haussmann.
Emma Petit