[I am unsure as to why he has given the date as June as the text would seem to continue on from March 11. The only explanation I can think of is that the text was written in June but he was writing about March.]
The following day there was another raid in which leaflets were dropped, which we were not slow in collecting. They contained considerable information of the “Cherkassy Kessell” [Cherkassy Kettle or Cauldron] which was called the second Stalingrad. [The Battle of the Cherkassy Pocket took place from 24 January to 16 February 1944. In it the 1st and 2nd Ukrainian fronts encircled German forces in a pocket near the Dnieper River in Ukraine. During weeks of fighting, the two Red Army Fronts tried to eradicate the pocket. The encircled Germans attempted a breakout, resulting in heavy casualties. For further information see here.]
All through March the tempo of the raids has steadily increased. Literally thousands of American bombers flying unmolested in the sky whilst the Germans and ourselves stand and gape. These large scale raids have continued into May and we are getting 5 raids in 7 days excluding night raids. A night or two ago provided us with a very amusing incident. The chaps at the lower billet had given pieces of chocolate to some of the children when later in the evening a German woman complained to the guard that her child had not been given any chocolate.
On May the Eighth I received a new pair of boots after being in dire need for 5 or 6 months.On Sunday 14th May we had our best day since our captivity. The weather was glorious when we started a march through the countryside to the “dorf’ Strach where we visited the cinema. The cinema here had a charm of its own especially to the beer drinkers. It was in fact part and parcel of the local “Gasthaus” [Inn] and in orderly sequence amongst the seats were tables on which every man had 2 or three glasses of lager. The films were in German but that really didn’t matter. The change was everything. After the film we walked back through the “Walde” [forest] and called in at the local “Gasthaus” for some beer. Harold Beamish did Trojan work at the piano and everyone had a rare sing-song. We eventually arrived back at the billet at 6pm having been out for 10 hours. Since then visits to Schmilkendorf [Wittenberg, Germany] have been fairly regular events.