Tuesday 22nd July 1941

News: Smolensk thought to have fallen. Kiev, Moscow and Leningrad not taken yet. Raid on Moscow by 200 planes, (rather small compared to the raids they get in Blighty!) driven off; little damage.

Hot and thirst weather. I feel languid physically and empty mentally. I've been trying to write a letter for three days and failed. When I did get a couple of pages done, in the coolness of night duty, I had to destroy them, as, on re-reading, it sounded, what it was, blithering nonsense. Macnoon!