Daughter of Kate Jamieson who washed the laundry for members of 486th Bomb Group. She befriended Samuel Lum.





Correspondence from Betty Rice (nee Jamieson), daughter of Kate Jamieson.



"My Mother (Kate Jamieson) was the lady who washed the clothes of a whole crew of a Liberator B24 and my sister Greta was the girl in his story . I had talked to her several times about Sam.

When she passed away in 2014 aged 87 , I asked her daughters If I could have a copy of

the letters that she had kept of those days I remembered Sam who was a lovely man

and very polite. I would have been 11 years old at the time, all the crew would come to

our home either to bring their washing or pick it up, and enjoy a cup of tea and apple

pies that mum would make for them, she said that,’ she would do what she could do

for them, as she had three of her own children in the services . One son was fighting in

Burma. I remember those days as a child and can remember the Christmas of 1944

when the Americans picked up the children from surrounding villages and taking them

back to Base for a party it was lovely all the food we could eat, films, games and each

child was given presents, and when it was all over being taken back home again. I still

have a little broach of a soldier I was given . Many of them would come up to the Green

and play Golf and I and my friends used to caddie for them and earn a little pocket

money, Their boxes of candy and chewing Gum was a real treat. . We used to stand in

the garden and watch the aircraft taking off to join other aircraft above from nearby

USAAF airfields and counting them back home again seeing the damage they had

suffered while they were away over Europe.

After the war we learnt that Greta's husband who was fighting in Europe had been

captured in Italy, had done the same long walk back from Poland as Sam had done. "



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Samuel Lum made it clear in a postscript to one of his letters (See Samuel Lum Record) how close he felt to his English friend from Newton but they never saw each other again.

Greta married a Scottish soldier and had a son and two daughters.