My dad wrote this letter to me from the frontline – I was 18 months old at the time
Lynette Flinn, 73, shares a very special letter that her father wrote her when she was just 18 months old whilst he was fighting in New Guinea during World War II.
This letter was written to me by my father whilst stationed in New Guinea, around the year 1944. I was only 18 months old when my father wrote this letter to me to explain his decision to become a soldier in case he didn’t return home. He thankfully did, and lived to be 90.
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TO MY BABY DAUGHTER:
Dearest Lynette
The thought has just struck me that you are fast approaching the age when you must be trying to puzzle out why your Dad is not around. I feel that some sort of explanation is due to you, so just in case I am not around in later years to explain personally I am putting my case before you in the hope that you will forgive me not being there with your dear mother to attend to the thousand and one favours that a young lady like you most certainly deserves.
When you were quite a tiny baby and lived in a little world all of your own, your Father decided to become a soldier, though to be honest at the time, he wasn't quite sure he was doing the right thing by you and your Mother.
But a voice inside kept telling him it was the right and only thing to do.
Now after two years of soldiering he finds that the voice told him the truth. For it was on those rare and delightful occasions when he was able to go home to this Baby and her Mother for a few days' leave, that he truly realised how precious are the possessions he is defending, along with thousands of other Fathers, all cogs in the machine which will someday make this world a worthy dwelling place for our daughters. For there are people in the world today who have so far forgotten the teachings of one who said "suffer little children to come unto me" that they must needs make war and attempt to kill, or enslave all those that oppose their ideas. If we had not left our homes to go out to stop them, you would have found yourself in a land ruled by hate and fear instead of inheriting the joys and freedom which are your birthright as an Australian.
This is hardly the legacy I would leave my daughter, and so that she will at least be able to enjoy the liberty and privileges that my father passed on to me. I with all the other fathers am far from the sunshine of those we love.
God grant that we may soon return, our job well done.
Your Loving Dad
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
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