May 14, 2013

Finest Hour 149, Winter 2010-11

Page 28

Wartime Photo Analysis with the PM’s Daughter: Section Officer Sarah Oliver

By Myra Collyer

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Myra Murden, now Collyer, was born in 1924 and has lived in Reigate, Surrey since 1925. After life-saving surgery for a burst appendix at age five (with gangrene medicine discovered during World War I) she completed her schooling. After the war she married a pilot who had flown Spitfires, Hurricanes and Beaufighters in North Africa, who then became a Captain for a commercial airline. With three sons and five grandchildren, Myra is a very sprightly 86. This article was arranged through the kind assistance of Grace Filby BA (Hons) Cert Ed FRSA. Myra Collyer features briefly in her lecture, “Churchill’s Secret Reigate,” available on DVD by post via www.relax-well.co.uk.


Early in World War II I joined the Home Guard, and in 1942 enlisted in the Women’s Auxiliary Air Force (WAAF). For close to a year I was assigned to what I was told was the “RAF War Room” in King Charles Street, London. I was forbidden to mention its name to friends or relatives, and permitted only to say that it was “an office in London.” Only later did we learn that this was Winston Churchill’s Cabinet War Rooms.

By sheer luck, on one of the shifts and with nothing to do at that moment, I happened to be drawing a rose on a sheet of paper at my typist’s desk when a bespectacled gentleman walked by. “Do you like drawing?” he asked. I said yes, and he replied, “Come and work in my department.” Without asking anything more, I accompanied him to an obscure office even further down in the War Rooms, staffed by three gentlemen. They said they had been geography schoolmasters in civilian life. (If this was a cover-up, I shall never know.)

I was not told exactly what they were doing, but it involved maps, maps, and more maps. They were nick-named “Churchill’s three draughtsmen.” I remember one very well: a tall man named LeFevre-Pope. My job was completing headings for the maps before they were given over to these geography experts.

I purchased pens and ink at an shop in Queen Anne’s Gate. Among my tasks was to complete the tiny flags on maps that marked ships or submarines sunk in the Atlantic. I also made door nameplates for recuperating combat pilots, unhappy to be idle. One young Scottish pilot, Wing Commander Baird-Smith, rang one day, yawning: “Where is my nameplate? Wing Commander Bored-Stiff here.”

When the maps were completed, with whatever secret markings the three gentlemen made on them, they were rolled up and sealed. I sometimes took them upstairs to be sent to the Prime Minister’s Map Room. Occasionally I was allowed to hand them to an officer in the Map Room itself.

Medmenham

In July 1943 I was posted to a typing pool at Danesfield in Medmenham, outside London, with wonderful views of the Thames. A neo-Tudor house built in 1899, it is now a hotel and spa. Its 300 rooms and extensive grounds had been commandeered for the war effort.

Danesfield served as the Allied Central Intelligence Unit (ACIU), devoted to photographic intelligence. I was assigned to an office called “K Section” in one of its tall turrets, and I was the only shorthand typist from the ranks. Again we had to have a cover story. We were told to say we were in “Maintenance Command.”

K Section was staffed by RAF and American Intelligence officers, and three WAAF officers—one of whom was Section Officer Sarah Oliver,* daughter of the Prime Minister. A few times—whenever she disappeared— we knew that Mr. Churchill had probably gone overseas, since Sarah often accompanied him as aide de camp—as did her sister Mary, now Lady Soames, on other occasions.

Day and night, following the bombing raids over Germany, our officers would interpret photographs taken by surveillance planes from Lossiemouth, Scotland or fighter aircraft from Benson, Oxfordshire, sent down to us by dispatch riders or Jeeps in relays. At Medmenham, they were printed from negatives onto foil photographic sheets.

My job was to collect each box-load of photographs from various raids, sometimes putting them together with a kind of sellotape before passing them to an officer. Using the photos as evidence, the officers would then estimate and report on the damage and recommend whether a site should be retargeted. It was grim but necessary work.

Section Officer Sarah Oliver sat at a desk to my right. She often drafted reports on the raids for me to type in final form. Her work included interpreting photos with special glasses that gave a three-dimensional impression, which helped to assess the damage more efficiently.

I had an electric typewriter, a great novelty at the time, provided by the Americans. The officers would either dictate reports or hand me handwritten drafts to type. There were three shifts, and I could select the shift I wanted to be on; since I was the only shorthand typist available, I was kept very busy the whole time.

There was a lovely young American officer whom I think was rather fond of Sarah Oliver. He would pop over and sometimes kiss my forehead or chat, but then promptly went over to her. (I think I was a wee decoy.)

Having many friends in the theatre, including Sheila van Damm of the Windmill Theatre in London, Sarah liked to arrange concerts for personnel stationed at RAF Medmenham and Nuneham. She even recruited me as a chorus girl, although not of the Windmill variety….**

Occasionally when bombers were on a special raid such as Dresden and Berlin, we were “locked in,” whichever shift was on; once they had reached their destination, we were told where they were and permitted to leave for lunch or whatever. After the bombers returned, reconnaissance air-craft were sent out, flying low to take photographs at great risk to pilots and crew.

We WAAFs slept in Nissen huts, ten to fifteen in a hut. Many smoked, and with two coke fires going and the windows shut, it’s a wonder we survived. The officers had better accommodations, with their own mess canteen and batmen to look after them.

On one memorable occasion the Prime Minister himself visited us at Medmenham, perhaps to see what Sarah was doing. We were set to smartening up the base. Men painted stones white along the route into Danesfield, while we WAAFs picked up refuse using sticks with nails on the ends. Sarah rallied round in charge of us, collecting rubbish with great gusto, and we respected her very much for doing this dirty chore.

My time at Medmenham was interrupted by a case of jaundice. When I returned from hospital, Sarah Oliver offered me a private convalescent flat in London. I felt this would be an imposition, so she arranged for me to recover at the Duke of Hamilton’s Dungavel Castle in Scotland, a rest home for WAAFs during the war. (Deputy Führer Rudolf Hess was attempting to contact this same Duke in his notorious flight to Britain in May 1941.)

Nuneham Courtenay

Recuperated, I was posted to Nuneham Park, a Palladian villa at Nuneham Courtenay, Oxford, built in 1756 for the First Earl Harcourt. Now owned by Oxford University, it was requisitioned in 1940 by the Ministry of Defence for photographic reconnaissance interpretation.

Stationed in a room over the main door, I was set to decyphering and typing out, from scruffy bits of paper, notes by prisoners of war, mainly held by the Japanese—I presume to be put in a War Museum. The American pilots who were stationed at Nuneham Park (known as Pattern Makers Architectural), were taught how to make plaster cast models of buildings in areas targeted for bombing in the Far East, so they had more than just a photograph to go by. Some of us WAAFs befriended them and showed them around the local area.

At Nuneham, I was again recruited by Sarah Oliver as a chorus girl for one of the regular concerts. I was cast as a mermaid, luring an ATS officer to her death at the bottom of the sea! Foil photos were cut into scales to make my “fish tail,” which I was told not to “rustle” as I walked across the stage. This was Sarah Oliver’s idea. She was full of fun and lovely to work and be with, although as an officer we always called her “Ma’am.”

When the war ended, I was posted to Coastal Command Headquarters at Pinner, Middlesex, where I worked for six young grounded aircrew officers. Group Captain MacBratney, who was a disciplinarian very much like the Prime Minister, promoted me to Corporal. I enjoyed working for him. Sadly I did not see Section Officer Sarah Oliver again, although my friend Gill Clarkson, who was also in our concerts, became a singer at the Windmill and married a singer there.

Sarah Oliver was a petite, smart figure in her uniform, with auburn hair in a pageboy bob. She had a quiet and kind nature, and was always approachable for advice. One respected her rank, and she was a joy to work for. I shall always consider it an honour to have worked at the War Rooms and with the Prime Minister’s daughter at Medmenham, as well as in her concerts. That experience was my university—without the exams.


Foot Notes

*Sarah Churchill, later Lady Audley (1914-1982) was married to the comedian and singer Vic Oliver from 1936 to 1945.

**Sheila van Damm (1922-1987) was trained as a WAAF driver in the war, and began driving competitively in 1950. She won the Coupes des Dames, highest award for women, in the 1953 Alpine and 1955 Monte Carlo Rallies, and was Women’s European Touring Champion in 1954. The Windmill, which she managed and later owned from 1960 onwards, was notorious for its nude stage revues and fan dances, inspired by the Folies Bergères and Moulin Rouge in Paris.

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