A letter my grandfather wrote my grandmother on 5 May 1945

A transcription of a letter my grandfather Ashley Smith (author)wrote my grandmother on 5 May 1945 — two days after this letter. I believe he is based close to Rome, Italy, and writing to her in England (Olive Avenue, Leigh-On-Sea, SS9 3QE)

Please feel free to correct me, or add to my understanding of this.

WO I A Smith 10673705 34 Special Training Barracks CMF 5 May 45

Dearest sweetheart in all the world,

This wicked husband of yours is still trying to catch up with all your lovely letters. There is so much happening that I can hardly keep pace with all the developments. This morning a million men have surrendered to Field Marshall Montgomery, and you can imagine how I am asked everywhere I go how the war is going and when I expect it to finish. Strangely enough for the past four or five months I have been giving the month and even the day — the 11th of May — it doesn’t look as If I’m going to be very far out and — not for the first time — the chaps are beginning to look on me as something of a prophet. But I still can’t realise that we are so near the end. I shall not be able so to do until the end actually comes — and then what a grief it will be to me that I shall be away from you — it seems to me impossible to feel anything or understand anything while I am living this unnatural life away from you — that is why I am so glad that my book ‘You Forget so Quickly’ is being published shortly — that has all the feeling of peace in it…