by John Willis
Are you being harassed by the tricks of German propaganda, cursing their allies of yesterday? It won’t make a difference to what you think, my Love, but it’s terrible to be a prisoner in a mental cage.
He was desperate for his wife and children to escape, a plan full of danger. Geoffrey could not even send letters to his family in German-occupied France. It was just too risky. There were informers everywhere, happy to tell the Nazi authorities where children with Jewish blood might be hiding out.
The couple’s only realistic hope of secure contact was through brief messages smuggled through friends in Clermont-Ferrand, the Renards, which was inside Free France. Geoffrey was wracked by worry for his young family in danger.
Soon I’ll have the courage to take your photo out of my wallet and to look at my babies. I don’t do it because it hurts too much. They can’t destroy my faith and confidence. Whatever happens, I’ll always trust you, My Luvvie. There is something that binds us together that’s so strong that all the bombs in Europe can’t smash it. You know you can trust me, Ducky, and that does me good.
Geoffrey was conscientious and professional and refused to let his anxiety for his family obstruct his crucial wartime job. As intelligence officer for one of Fighter Command’s front-line squadrons in the Battle of Britain, Geoffrey Myers was close to the centre of the intense conflict on a daily basis. It was Geoff’s job to observe, note, analyse and report all incidents involving 257 Squadron. This information was passed to 11 Group HQ of Fighter Command, based at Bentley Priory in London; a piece of the larger intelligence jigsaw needed to fight the Battle of Britain.
At one level this was a technical job but, with so many young pilots killed or injured in the first few weeks of conflict, Geoffrey was also desperately needed as an emotional support for those young men who were lucky enough to survive. It was also his melancholy duty to write to the families of those who had been killed. In his notebook he wrote:
September 8 1940
For the first few weeks after joining the Fighter Squadron as intelligence officer, I was like a living ghost. I knew it but, try as I might, I couldn’t shake off the pall. I’ve done it now. I’m a normal human being again. I’ve taken myself in hand and stopped living in a bad dream.
The gloom was of no use to you, my Loves, and it was depressing for those around me… I can’t help getting these day-nightmares about you all in German-occupied France. At first, they were such that I longed for the night, because although I had nightmares, they were as nothing compared with those of the day. But I’ve almost stamped them out. I’m calmer now and more useful again to the boys.
As the letters begin, the primary focus was not on his family but on the desperate plight of the Battle of Britain squadron to which he had been attached. Geoffrey Myers would look around the faces of the pilots, and they all seemed so very young.
Most of the boys had just finished their training. I suppose the youngest was about nineteen… I was struck by their youth, but they soon realised that I was not a Big Brother from Group HQ, but an uncle.
Geoff was thirty-four, almost twice the age of the youngest pilot, and the young flyers soon understood that Geoffrey was there to support them.
The squadron had originally been formed in Dundee in 1918 but was disbanded after less than a year. It was hastily re-formed over twenty years later, on May 17 1940, at RAF Hendon. It was also called Burma Squadron, because the Burmese people had helped to support the squadron financially. Translated from Burmese, their motto was ‘Death or Glory’. As the operations record book (ORB) stated, 257 would have an establishment of one commanding officer, ten officer pilots and ten airmen pilots.
One of those airmen, newly arrived Sergeant Pilot Reg Nutter, observed that ‘Most of the pilots joining the squadron had never been in a fighter squadron before, nor had they flown Spitfires.’5
So the pilots trained on the speedy Spitfires but, apart from their excitement for the sleekness of their new aircraft, the recently re-formed 257 made an uneasy entry into the war. On May 24, the ORB stated, ‘There is still no ground equipment available, work going on with what we can borrow.’ Just as bad, it reported a few days later that ‘the maintenance units from which our aircraft have been delivered failed to wire them up properly,’ and that the radio frequency was ‘most unsatisfactory.’ Never mind the urgent need for combat readiness, on May 26 it was reported that 257 ‘went to Church Parade this morning. Today is a National Day of Prayer.’6
The squadron had been drawn from far and wide. In terms of class, 257 ranged from the Honourable David Coke from Holkham Hall in Norfolk, son of the Earl of Leicester – the perfect image of the British aristocracy at war – through to sergeant pilots like Jock Girdwood, Bob Fraser and Ronnie Forward from working-class Scottish families. The three sergeants from Glasgow were the first men to arrive at 257 when it re-formed at RAF Hendon. Then there were university graduates like Alan Henderson, the sons of Britain’s professional classes, and a sprinkling of pilots from the Commonwealth including Jimmy Cochrane and Camille Bonseigneur from Canada and John Chomley from South Africa.
Although they were a disparate, relatively inexperienced group, there were still some good pilots in 257. Flight Lieutenant Hugh Beresford had been transferred from Group HQ at Stanmore and was a little older than the others at twenty-four. He was given the leadership of A Flight and had both expertise and some leadership skills.
The difficult and disorganised start to the war continued for 257. On June 10 they were unexpectedly informed that the pilots were to be retrained on Hurricanes, instead of flying their beloved Spitfires. The next day, eight Spitfires were swiftly flown away to storage and eight Hurricanes arrived. On June 12 eight more Hurricanes arrived at RAF Hendon. The squadron was surprised and disappointed but, as one pilot optimistically pointed out to Myers, ‘we can take it.’7
Roland Beamont from 87 Squadron summed up the strengths of the Hurricane, ‘The Spitfire always looked like an elegant and beautiful aeroplane but I felt somehow that the Hurricane was more rugged. You got this immense feeling of power… it was very stable and it had a wide undercarriage which was very forgiving and it was not difficult to land.’8 Sergeant Reg Nutter, from Hampshire, was one of the pilots in 257 forced to convert to Hurricanes. As the Battle of Britain Monument website records, he was less than impressed: ‘I found it much heavier on the controls and far less responsive and somewhat slower than the Spitfire.’
Geoffrey Myers was fully aware of the dangers ahead, having been based as a journalist in Berlin before the war. ‘I spoke German and had seen the rise of the Nazis. I saw them come into the Reichstag with their Heil Hitlers. The likelihood of invasion was obvious, to be followed by occupation. But the effect of Churchill’s fighting speeches was incredible.’9
In June, Churchill said in one of his famous speeches, ‘We shall defend our island, whatever the cost may be. We shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender.’
After the Battle for France, Fighter Command was in disarray, having lost scores of both aircraft and men. They needed to be replaced urgently. Money spent on building front-line aircraft for the RAF was dramatically increased to £55 million a week by June. Modest food rationing began. In early June, road and rail signs were obliterated and holiday beaches were covered with barbed wire to make any German invasion more difficult.
Myers was told in late June that 11 Group of Fighter Command needed the squadron to be operational on 1 July. According to the ORB compiled by Myers, the reply to Group stated that 257 would have twelve pilots operational within six weeks, by 16 August. Although the lull after Dunkirk had given Fighter Command vital time to re-equip and regroup, 257 Squadron was still underprepared.
Geoffrey Myers instinctively knew, however, that the impending air battle was too urgent for his squadron’s entry into the war to wait until mid-August. Sure enough, a fe
w days later, on July 4 1940, 257 was moved from RAF Hendon to a more operational airfield at RAF Northolt in West London. All this movement and retraining did not help the young pilots. ‘They were scarcely operational, these boys,’ recalled Myers later.10 They had never flown together before and had been hastily assembled with no squadron identity or history to fall back on. This meant that the role of squadron leader was more critical than it would have been for a more established squadron. Here, in the view of Myers, 257 was well placed.
For three weeks at the start of the Battle of Britain their squadron leader, David Bayne, relentlessly drilled his new unit in the skills of aerial combat. As Sergeant Reg Nutter observed, ‘By the end of June, Squadron Leader Bayne had licked us into pretty good shape. We had all done a good deal of formation flying, air-to-ground firing and air-to-air firing.’11 The operational records noted many hours of training, for example, ‘individual crowd flying, oxygen climbs, air fighting as the programme of the day.’
David Bayne was, to Myers, the ideal squadron leader for a squadron that lacked cohesion, and where everyone was new to one another.
Just the sort of man we needed. Determined, conscientious and brave. Two years ago, he had a flying accident which left him with a wooden leg. You couldn’t have guessed this, because he walked round with a stick and scarcely limped. That was the sort of man he was.
This single-minded man, with the eyes and chin of a hero, seemed destined to lead our squadron into battle and give it the inspiration of his own quiet courage. It was a happy squadron.
Bayne was vastly experienced and an exceptionally able pilot, with years of operational flying in Waziristan and on the North-West Frontier of then British India under his belt. But in 1935, Bayne had a serious accident when landing a Bristol Bulldog at RAF Duxford in Cambridgeshire on a very foggy night. He was badly injured, and this was how he had lost a leg. For two years he didn’t fly but spent time in RAF hospitals and rehabilitation units, largely on half pay. But he was determined to be airborne again and, with a new wooden leg duly fitted, by 1937 he was flying fit once more.
Yet, despite his wide experience and the respect the pilots under his command had for him, Squadron Leader Bayne did not last long as an operational leader.
We were still stationed at Northolt when Bayne called the adjutant and me into his office. ‘I have been promoted to Wing Commander,’ he said. ‘I shall be posted in a day or two.’
He got up from his chair and tripped ever so slightly over his wooden leg when making a greater effort than usual to walk smoothly. But nothing in his face betrayed his anger and dismay at being deprived of the leadership of the squadron just as it was becoming operational. He knew that he was being posted to a fighter control room or below ground. He tried to talk casually to us about the squadron but his voice almost dried up.
Geoffrey Myers later added, ‘Apart from using a walking stick he was otherwise completely normal. You could not wish for a better leader… it was disastrous for the squadron. David had built up a strong relationship with the men.’12
By July 20, a huge force of more than 2,600 German aircraft were spread along the coast of northern France. Hitler made plans for an invasion which was code-named Operation Sealion. The aim was for nine infantry divisions to land in Kent, Sussex and Dorset. By the time a third wave of forces landed, it was intended that 260,000 men would be ashore in Britain.
The next day, July 21, the day before he was due to be posted away, Squadron Leader Bayne did get his one chance to lead his unit into battle as the Luftwaffe gathered along the French coast. They were ordered down to the south coast to help protect a Channel convoy. Myers followed as a passenger and observer in a little two-seat Magister training plane.
As we flew down to the coast, I tried to dismiss from my thoughts the recommendation that the adjutant had made to me (about Bayne). ‘Try to prevent him from doing more than his share… you know what he is, he will take on the Huns alone. He’s only got today to do it. He’ll be shot down! He’ll be killed! My God! It’s his last day!’
As they took off from their advance airfield, RAF Hawkinge, near the coast, even from his little observer plane well at the back, Myers almost immediately saw the enemy ahead.
They don’t look as if they’ve scarcely completed their training. Nice formation! Bayne has them in hand. What’s that? No … yes it is … it’s an enemy formation flying in on them. I could recognise the Messerschmitt 109 fighters. Little black bastards. Bayne must have fired. He seems to be out of formation … Bayne … no must have been someone else … stop flapping … anyhow the Germans are halfway back to France … France where the family is.
Despite his desire to end his only operational flight by shooting down some Luftwaffe planes, Squadron Leader David Bayne kept his discipline. His squadron did not engage the enemy, but stayed high above the convoy for eighty minutes as a protective shield.
I ran over to Bayne’s plane. Anyway, it was my duty to take the report of the squadron leader first. ‘Nothing to tell you,’ Bayne said. ‘They didn’t come within range and we had orders not to leave the convoy. None of us fired.’
I knew what it had cost him in self-control to keep his squadron above the convoy. It might have been the great moment of his life. He was probably more experienced and a better shot than any of those German pilots who had almost come within range. There were clouds above the convoy. He might have left formation and made a swift attack. His squadron would have followed. He might have shot down two enemy planes… but he had orders and he knew they were sensible. His job was to stop our ships from being sunk. They were more precious to us than shooting down enemy planes.
We walked back together to our tent. He said nothing more. That night, back at Northolt, we gave him a farewell party in the mess. The next day, Bayne assembled the whole squadron to announce that he had been posted. As usual, he had perfect control over his voice. Just a few words of encouragement and a smile.
Squadron Leader Bayne explained that the new squadron leader was Hill Harkness who had already been observing 257 Squadron for several days as a supernumerary. Harkness was a curious choice to replace a hardened combat leader like David Bayne, just at the moment that 257 was to be launched into the Battle of Britain as a front-line squadron. Born in Belfast, Harkness had been drafted in from the Flight Training School in Grantham where he had led a training squadron.
Geoffrey Myers was puzzled that a man so light on battle experience could be chosen to lead a wartime squadron, especially a newly formed one.
During those days when we were waiting for our first operational orders, Harkness was posted to us as an ‘observer’. He seemed to be a misfit. Nobody took much notice of him. The adjutant and I were a bit worried about him being there. Anyhow, we felt sorry for him because he seemed like a lost sheep, so we gave him as much encouragement as we could.
1Interview with Janet Willis
2Memoirs of Margot Myers translated by her daughter, Anne
3Interview with Author
4Interview with Janet Willis
5Battle of Britain Monument website
6National Archives, Kew
7Interview with Author, 1982
8Joshua Levine, Forgotten Voices of the Blitz and the Battle of Britain (Ebury, 2006)
9Interview with Author
10Interview with Author, 1982
11Battle of Britain Monument
12Interview with Author
CHAPTER TWO
Having started to tell his wife about the Battle of Britain, Pilot Officer Geoffrey Myers’s letters suddenly switch focus back in time to the Battle for France and Dunkirk, months before the Battle of Britain began. After all, Myers had not seen his wife and children since well before the evacuation of the British from Dunkirk and, even if this meant a diversion away from the urgent narrative of the events of autumn 1940, he wanted his family to know what his experience had been in France.
In the spring of 1939, Myers had been stationed a
t Berry-au-Bac near Guignicourt, north of Reims. It was a vivid contrast to the blood and horror that he was to see later. He was asked to use his French-speaking skills to requisition, for the officers, the local chateau which was owned by the Marquise de Nazelle.
The spacious and beautiful chateau became home to 120 men – eighty officers and forty batmen, cooks and waiters. The airfield nearby was in champagne country and that was the staple drink. It was more or less on tap and beer tankards overflowed with Veuve Clicquot. ‘We went on consuming hundreds of bottles of champagne, popping off corks in the garden for target practice,’ Geoff wrote to his grandson, Danny, many years after the war. To accompany the fizz, the wife of the local innkeeper kept the officers royally fed, despite initial resistance from the RAF cooks. Myers had arrived determined to learn everything he could about aircraft and gunnery but was soon appointed Mess Officer – and so ended up running what was, in effect, a grand hotel while he worked diligently from a small caravan in the next-door field.
One 12 Squadron member, Bill Simpson, recalled Myers. ‘Geoff was regarded as middle-aged. He was intelligent, tolerant and convivial. He didn’t seem to mind the youngsters pursuing the women of Reims… Geoff always had a lot to do; analysing intelligence reports, dealing with documents, sorting out language problems. He liaised between the French and the British.’13
As soon as her husband was sent to Guignicourt, Margot Myers and the children travelled down to what they thought was the safety of her family house in central France at Lucenay-lès-Aix. They joined her father, who had been a naval officer in the 1914–18 war and had returned home safely.
The married couple met once in Paris. Geoffrey’s uniform, though tailored in Savile Row, was so baggy and large it made Margot roar with laughter. It was twice as large as Geoffrey and it was clear that the RAF had issued him with someone else’s uniform. She immediately dispatched the shapeless outfit to a tailor in Paris for alterations.
