Mail Correspondence with Soldiers at War (“Feldpostbriefe”): Farewell letter from the English pilot Michael A. Scott to his father in August 1940 (Published on 17/04/2025)
Many Royal Air Force pilots wrote a farewell letter before their missions over Germany, which was to be sent to their relatives in the event of their death. The pilot Michael A. Scott wrote the following letter for his parents in August 1940 (source: Roberts, Letters from the Front [2014], p. 137 f.):
“Torquay
21/8/40
Dear Daddy,
As this letter will only be read after my death, it may seem a somewhat macabre document, but I do not want you to look on it in that way. I have always had a feeling that our stay on earth, that thing we call ‘Life’, is but a transitory stage in our development and that the dreaded monosyllable ‘Death’ ought
not to indicate anything to be feared. I have had my fling and must now pass on to the next stage, the consummation of all earthly experience. So don’t worry about me; I shall be all right.
I would like to pay tribute to the courage which you and mother have shown, and will continue to show in these tragic times. It is easy to meet an enemy face to face, and to laugh him to scorn, but the unseen enemies Hardship, Anxiety and Despair are very different problems. You have held the family together as few could have done, and I take off my hat to you.
Now for a bit about myself. You know how I hated the idea of War, and that hate will remain with me for ever. What has kept me going is the spiritual force to be derived from Music, its reflection of my own feelings, and the power it has to uplift the soul above earthly things. Mark has the same experiences as I have in this though his medium of encouragement is Poetry. Now I am off to the source of Music, and can fulfil the vague longings of my soul in becoming part of the fountain whence all good comes. I have no belief in a personal God, but I do believe most strongly in a spiritual force which has the source of our being, and which will be our ultimate goal. If there is anything worth fighting for, it is the right to follow our own paths to this goal and to prevent our children from having their souls sterilised by Nazi doctrines. The most horrible aspect of Nazism is its system of education, of driving instead of leading out, and of putting State above all things spiritual. And so I have been fighting.
All I can do now is to voice my faith that this war will end in Victory, and that you will have many years before you in which to resume normal civil life. Good luck to you!
Mick”
Michael Scott initially returned alive from his missions, so the above letter was not sent and was later replaced by a new version. Pilot Scott was killed on 24/05/1941 while on a mission for the 110th Squadron, Bomber Command. He was one of seven children, including three sons. His brother Mark was also killed, he did not return from a mission at sea in 1942.
(Head picture: Air bubbles and light reflection in the White Main creek
near Bischofsgrün/Bavaria, September 2023)
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