Secret Letters

by John Willis

It described the sound of his machine guns as the voice of 10,000 typewriters rattling away at the same moment. The rest of it was in the same strain.

  Tuck, by this time, was highly indignant that such a disgraceful piece of work should have got into the press.

  The article’s origins remained unresolved. The rumour in the mess was that one of Tuck’s girlfriends had passed a few titbits on to the newspaper. Whatever the truth, none of this undermined Tuck’s status as an ace. He continued with Tuck’s luck, a series of solo kills out of nowhere.

  Tuck went up with the squadron and was obliged to return just before they began chasing two unidentified aircraft. When he landed he said to me, ‘I’ve just got an Me 109. It was a bit awkward, as I had no gun sights. My electric gear went unserviceable and that’s why I left the squadron. I made a visual sign to Brothers to take over when I saw these two buggers coming at me. I made a tight turn and attacked the first one. I pumped for about six seconds in two or three short bursts and saw him spin into the drink. We were about half a mile away from the convoy, so they were bound to see the thing go in.’

  Myers spent the morning trying to get confirmation of an enemy aircraft destroyed but none of the ships in the convoy had seen anything.

  Looking back, it is easy to forget how young every pilot was. Even at the dizzy heights of Squadron Leader, Robert Stanford Tuck was just twenty-four, commanding a squadron of nineteen- and twenty-year-olds. According to his biographer, Tuck’s future wife – Joyce – said after she met him a few months later, ‘I was shaken when he told me he was just twenty-four. There were deep lines in his face and circles under his eyes. I wouldn’t have thought he was a day under thirty.’

  Pete Brothers was a superb foil to Tuck, and was thoughtful and honest.

  That evening, Brothers and I talked over Tuck’s exceptional series of individual victories. ‘I’ve known him for several years,’ Brothers said, ‘and I have seen him do wizard things at shooting and aerobatics. He may shoot a line, too. Perhaps he embroiders a bit, but he wouldn’t say that he had shot down anything if he had done nothing of the kind.’

  Tuck was usually early into the bar and generous when it came to buying rounds for his weary squadron after a hard day in the air. The sergeants often partied in one place, and the officers in another. WAAF Corporal Daphne Wallis described social life at RAF Debden, where 257 had their forward base for much of the Battle of Britain. ‘On the lighter side, during the Battle of Britain we used to get together, mostly on Sunday evenings, in the sergeants’ mess. Most of the gathering were aircrew. Entrance was by invitation and we danced to our resident band made up of musicians in the famous bands of the 30s and [who] had played in the West End. The leader was Arthur Coppersmith. An older WAAF acted as chaperone, inspecting us before we went in, to see if any girl was wearing silk stockings – if so, she was sent back to the billet to change into regulation grey lisle ones.’

  The social lives of the officers were more vivid. Or perhaps Myers, as a senior figure in the squadron, had closer insight into how they spent their time after taking on the Luftwaffe. Indeed, Tuck’s luck appeared to extend to his private life. He drove as fast as he flew and attacked his social life with the same energy he showed in aerial combat.

  The station adjutant has a mischievous and slightly ironical smile, weighs up everything he sees and is much brighter than he would have you believe. He said to me, ‘He’s a delightful fellow, but he’s got the most vivid imagination – half of what he says seems to be pure fantasy.’

  There was no stopping Bob Stanford Tuck. He had transformed a desolate and defeated squadron into a fighting unit that everyone could be proud to be a part of.

  Tuck soon got his DSO. To celebrate, he gave a shilling’s worth of free drinks and smokes to every member of the squadron. I never once heard him refer to this gesture, which cost him about ten pounds. It was natural for him to be generous, just as it was part of his nature to stick up for every member of his squadron and seize every opportunity to obtain advancement for them. He fought station commanders tooth and nail if he felt that his men were not getting a fair deal. ‘I won’t let the bastards get one over on me,’ he would say. ‘My squadron is going to be treated decently.’

  64Margot Myers memoirs, translated by her daughter, Anne

  65Margot Myers memoirs, translated by her daughter, Anne

  66Memoir of Robert Myers with his sister, Anne

  67Interview with Author and Jane Nairac

  68Interview with Author

  69Nick Thomas, Hurricane Squadron Ace (Pen and Sword, 2014)

  CHAPTER NINE

  October 14 1940

  My Lovvy. My little Robert, My darling Anne,

  The nightmare is continuing. I spent the evening in the anteroom of the mess, trying to forget things a bit. But it’s no good. I can’t. Others can. They drink, they listen to jazz, go to the cinema and really enjoy themselves. They have not got as much to remember. There’s Pete Brothers downstairs, laughing with the other boys. The gramophone is playing dance tunes. Tomorrow or the next day they will go up and fight. Brothers is brave. I suppose his wife is in bed now, wondering, praying. Oh my Ducky, so are you.

  Three weeks away from the war following his senseless car accident had given Geoffrey Myers time to think. In the heat of the Battle of Britain he had been busy every day collating intelligence information, supporting the young pilots in his squadron and trying to get Squadron Leader Harkness moved. In his time in hospital his thoughts, and his letters, had grown darker, more uncertain.

  Ducky, I do hope you will see me again. I long to see you and my little ones. But if I am no longer here when the war is over, even if you are overtaken by disaster, keep your confidence in eternal things. What is happening now is beyond our grasp. In the order of things, after centuries, which may be small spans of time in our lives here, and perhaps beyond, our torture of today may be the blessing of tomorrow.

  There was nothing in the combat records of 257 Squadron to indicate why the mood of Myers should become darker and more reflective at this time. It was a relatively quiet period in the conflict. On October 12, three 257 Hurricanes were damaged by the Luftwaffe. Two pilot officers, Redman and Gundry, were shot down in the same morning combat over Deal but their Hurricanes were repairable. Ken Gundry was slightly wounded by shell splinters in the legs and thigh. In the afternoon, Carl Capon’s plane was written off when he crashed at Stone in Kent, following combat with Me 109s over Dungeness. Capon was slightly wounded.

  Although the skies over southern England were clearly still very dangerous, a month had passed since the heights of Battle of Britain Day on September 15. Hitler had started to turn away from plans for invasion. The relative calm gave Myers more time to write home.

  Downstairs on the gramophone they’ve been playing, ‘I can’t love you anymore – anymore than I do now’. It all sounds so silly and the tune gets on my nerves. At the beginning of our seven years of married life the word ‘love’ meant something deeper for us than it did to most. But now, this conception has grown.

  Your thoughts are my thoughts. Your life is my life. You are bound up in me. If we come together again, old age can but strengthen our intertwined branches. If we do not come together, I will still be with you, and the children will feel my presence through you. ‘My Love,’ when I breathe these words the tender parts within me throb, in harmony with you.

  He also knew these pervasive and melancholy thoughts were not helping him, and he needed to get back to the job and to the reality of his life in Fighter Command.

  He switched his attention back to the war going on around him in Suffolk and in the part of London where he had been brought up. Yet even these accounts were written through the prism of his relationship with Margot.

  The German planes drop their bombs every night indiscriminately. Three nights ago, they dropped one on the maternity home in the neighbouring town. They dropped some in the fields nearby. Last night a block of flats in North L
ondon was destroyed and 200 people were buried and drowned through the bursting of a water main. Some of those 200 men and women were bound up in each other as you and I are. They were expecting to continue life together.

  I have been lucky. Night after night they are wrecking parts of London. The poor city folk are bearing up despite the lack of sleep. The raiders are bombing the West End and the luxury flats as well as the East End slums. Thank goodness for that! We are all in it.

  Direct contact with his family in France was impossible. The last message from Margot, passed via his journalist friends in Paris, had arrived as long ago as July – nearly four months earlier.

  October 15 1940

  My Ducky,

  I did not go up to bed early tonight. They kept on dropping bombs around here, and it is more pleasant to be in company. I was talking tonight with Gundry about the end of the war. Neither of us could see the end. Both of us have confidence. ‘It does make one seek religion,’ he said. ‘One cannot imagine an evil system dominating the world.’

  Throughout the Battle of Britain, Myers had tried to support his family by sending money to them. But, as contact with Margot and the children was so limited and infrequent, he had absolutely no idea if the money was reaching his family or not.

  Cooks have written to me saying they are not satisfied that the money being transmitted by them to occupied France is reaching its destination so they are stopping payments for the time being. That is a blow to me. I wonder if you have received any of the money I sent through them?

  ‘Conditions are good’ – those four words in that message of July have made a great difference to my life, Darling. I feel that you are all right.

  If I survive the war, it may be that you, my little children, will find a different Daddy from that of your imagination, and you may be disappointed. We would have to start at the beginning again, like new friends. If only they leave you alone.

  In a second letter, written that same day, Myers shifts his focus back to the immediacy of the war.

  This afternoon I wrote up the story of Mitchell’s combats. He did not live long enough to qualify for the Distinguished Flying Cross. He was too reckless, poor boy! After I had taken out all the references of a secret nature, I shall send the account to his mother for her consolation.

  After the initial news of Lancelot Mitchell’s crash, his mother had written to the intelligence officer, clinging on to hope:

  ‘You mentioned in your letter that it is not known whether he came down on land or water. Is it not possible that he could have been picked up at sea by some outgoing vessel? A friend of ours has sent us a message she received at a spiritualist meeting. She had taken my son’s photograph… the medium’s message was, ‘This boy came down on water and is now safe but it will be weeks before you hear of him.’ Now you will understand our very great hopes. This message had arrived in the midst of our great anxiety and sorrow.’

  Geoffrey could understand the desperation of Mitchell’s mother but was deeply distressed by the pain the Mitchells’ family friend had thoughtlessly created by visiting a medium.

  I am sure that Mitchell has gone… so the medium has raised false hopes. Poor Mrs Mitchell.

  The main danger that Myers and the rest of the support staff in RAF Fighter Command faced was the continued bombing of British airfields. In the same letter of October 15 he reported:

  I like being with you on these uncertain evenings. The bombers start flying over the aerodrome about seven o’clock and go on at irregular times all night.

  Last night an unexploded bomb fell on the aerodrome and yellow flags have been placed all around it. I believe that it has buried itself too deep in the ground to explode. Other bombs dropped just outside the camp, near the station. An aeroplane is hovering overhead. I wonder where the next bomb will drop. It does not matter much what I feel, because we are helpless anyway. Bomb-dodging is a joke until they come too near.

  The randomness of the bomb-dropping was hard to fully comprehend.

  ‘Look at poor old Ross,’ Andrews, the bomb disposal officer, said, ‘he was in one of the houses in the married quarters when they dropped their bombs all over the airfield. It was a hot day and he was resting on his bed stark naked. Before he knew it, he was thrown from his bed on the first floor out into the garden. The whole house was smashed in and he found himself bollocky naked, lying on his back in the garden. He grabbed hold of an old shirt, somebody else’s pants and some slippers. Then he started working like a madman on the wreckage. We could see there was something queer about him… he had to be discharged from the service… shell shock and spine trouble.’

  Myers wrote another letter to his wife in mid-October. This followed a visit from a journalist to the mess who had described the mass bomber attacks on the London Docks, and how he and other volunteers had worked through an inferno of flames on a salvage mission. On his way home he’d come across men digging in the remains of a shattered house. One of the men said

  ‘I’ve been working hard for the last three hours trying to bring out an old woman from the cellar of a house that had collapsed, and I don’t know why, because it’s my mother-in-law that’s buried under there.’ Finally, they made a small air hole and listened, ‘Are you still alive, old girl?’ someone shouted through the hole. A feeble voice replied, ‘I’m alive all right.’ The men then split a bicycle tube open and made a funnel for pouring down milk. One said, ‘Be careful, old girl, we’re going to pour you down a little milk.’ The feeble voice came up again through the hole, ‘Make it beer.’

  The journalist from London used this story as a way of illustrating that the spirit of Londoners was so strong that defeat by the Germans would be impossible.

  The German pilots go home and describe the military objectives that they’ve been hitting. We count up the wrecked churches and hospitals. They do the same in Berlin, after our bombing. London can become a place of desolation, so can Berlin. There’s no way out of this nightmare but to go on. It’s easy for me because I know what we are fighting for. But lots of the lads don’t.

  Under the leadership of Bob Stanford Tuck, 257 had turned dramatic failure into relative success. But the dangers of the aerial conflict had certainly not disappeared, even though the fire of the Battle of Britain was on its final embers. In his task of transforming 257 Squadron, Tuck was helped significantly by the arrival of Flight Lieutenant Peter Blatchford, a Canadian from Alberta, whose honesty and courage won immediate respect from the entire squadron. Blatchford was also hugely experienced, having enlisted in the RAF in 1936. But even with first-class leaders now at the helm, 257 – like several squadrons – still suffered losses on the afternoon of October 22.

  Pilot Officer Norman Heywood from Cheshire was twenty-two. He had volunteered for Fighter Command only in August 1940, as the Battle of Britain really intensified. He had been with 257 for just eight days when he was killed by Britain’s own defence armoury. The operational records written by Myers explained, ‘While in combat with an Me 109 over Folkestone, he was killed by his own side and died near Lydd Church.’70

  October 23 1940

  Two more of our pilots were killed yesterday. I kept on hoping today, because no details of their deaths were available. But this afternoon we heard that one of them, Norman Heywood, a new pilot full of fun, had been shot down by our anti-aircraft defences at close range.

  The second was twenty-year old Sergeant Pilot Bob Fraser. The two men were shot down within four minutes of each other over the Kent coast, although it seems that Sergeant Fraser lost his life in combat with an Me 109, unlike Heywood who had accidentally been shot down by British air defences. Fraser crashed and burned out at Moat Farm in Kent. The operations record book reported, ‘about 12 Me 109s appeared and attacked the Squadron from behind and above. A dogfight took place.’71 Myers wrote down his feelings about Sergeant Bob Fraser, who had been with 257 since the start.

  I had come to believe that he would outlive the war. He had come back after
so many of his fellow pilots had been shot down. He seemed to be so sturdy. Three weeks ago, he ran out of petrol and crashed in a field near the aerodrome. I raced to him on my bicycle and arrived at the same time as the ambulance. The poor lad had knocked out all his front teeth. His moustache was not long enough to hide his disfigurement. His good-looking features were spoiled by the accident and he was acutely aware of this. He complained the other day that the dentist had not yet finished making his false teeth. Today, I suppose, the teeth were waiting for him.

  Two days later, The Boy’s Brigade in Glasgow wrote a letter of condolence to Mary, Bobbie Fraser’s mother. ‘The Prime Minister expressed not long ago the debt the whole country owed to those few gallant young men who saved the country from invasion. May we, the common people of the land, never forget what we owe to them. What would have happened to this land of ours had these young men not prepared themselves in advance it is difficult to realise. There was no murmur of complaint, no suggestions that the country was imposing on him. The hearts of many will go out to all of you in this tragic bereavement which has befallen you.’72

  Bob Stanford Tuck recalled later, ‘Telling a Sergeant Pilot’s wife of his death was terrible but I understood more when I met the girl who was to be my own wife. It gave me the jitters every time I flew.’73

  The deaths of Heywood and Fraser made Geoff Myers very uneasy too. He looked for comfort in his secret and private letters. On the day the pilots died, October 23, he wrote,

  I should not write to you when I am feeling utterly miserable, My darling. I feel I should not depress you my little ones but when I am with you I feel less lonely. I am so utterly helpless. I can do nothing for you. My longing to see you is so great I must guard against it.

  In this letter Geoff underlines that however much he was missing his family he was determined to win the war which I realised before others, could not be avoided. He was also acutely conscious that he was not on the front line.