Myrtle the Parachick

Lieutenant Joseph ‘Pat’ W Glover

It was during the hot summer months of 1944, when soldiers of the First Airborne Division were stood to and then stood down for so many airborne operations in Europe, that Lieutenant (Quarter Master) Pat Glover of the 10th Parachute Battalion, based in the village of Somerby, relieved his frustrations by firing his .22 rifle from his office window at birds. Pat was billeted across the road from All Saints Church and on windy nights the old Victorian weathercock would squeak and groan, keeping him awake. In true Para fashion, Pat decided to take a few pot shots at the noisy bird and from a range of 60 yards he put two or three rounds through the unfortunate cockerel. Later, in the Mess, there was a heated and booze-fuelled debate as to whether he could have hit the bird from that range. The argument moved on and before long, Glover was vigourously arguing that chickens could fly. Determined to prove himself right, Pat ‘aquired’ a small reddish brown hen from a nearby farm which he christened Myrtle, named after a popular red-headed Land Army girl! Not long after, the battalion carried out a parachute exercise in which Myrtle took part. On the day of the jump Glover put Myrtle inside a zip-up canvas bag attached to his left shoulder, and once he had jumped (from 600 feet) and his parachute had deployed, he opened the bag to let the chicken out. Myrtle put her head out, saw where she was, and promptly retreated back into the bag. When Glover was down to approximately 50 feet, he reached for Myrtle and released her.

Much squawking and a frenzied and utterly artless flapping of wings followed, however Myrtle was definitely flying and landed safely. When Glover landed he was so concerned about preventing Myrtle from running away that he completely forgot to collapse his chute, and so holding on to a chicken with one hand and trying desperately to attend to his parachute with the other, he was dragged across the ground. Before he came to a halt he had dislocated his thumb. Pat kept Myrtle perched on an iron bar on the desk in his office, and if a superior office ever demanded an explanation, he had a prepared excuse to pass his pet off as living rations, reasoning that he wouldn't be a very good quartermaster if he didn't plan ahead for food shortages. Over the summer Myrtle made six more jumps and became an expert flier, being released at higher altitudes each time. Eventually she jumped from 300 feet. As she had completed the regulation number of drops, she was awarded her parachute wings which she wore around her neck secured by an elastic band. Myrtle the Parachick had become an accomplished flyer through this training, and by the time of Arnhem she could safely be released from 300 feet and would patiently wait on the ground for her master to collect her. Finally, in the early hours of the 18th September 1944, the battalion left the village driving to RAF Spanhoe to emplane for the second lift to Arnhem. In Myrtle’s best interests as this was an operational jump, Pat decided to keep Myrtle in her canvas bag (this scene is depicted in the film – ‘A Bridge too Far’). The formation ran into flak short of Arnhem and a few bursts hit Glover's C-47, the noise of which he described as being similar to someone battering the aircraft with a sledgehammer. Glover was to be the first man to jump from the plane, and as the flak grew worse he recalled a few men behind him urging him jump, but naturally the officer preferred to wait for the drop zone to be beneath his feet first. Like everyone else in the 4th Para Brigade, Glover did not expect that the drop would be opposed, but as he was out the door and gliding down he could see that a battle raged beneath his feet and that shots were coming up at them, for a moment he wondered if they had been dropped in the wrong place. As he landed Glover deliberately rolled onto his right shoulder to avoid injury to Myrtle, and once he had found his batman, Joe Scutt, he trusted Myrtle to his care as they both headed toward the yellow smoke that marked the rendezvous point. Mortars and shells were exploding everywhere and Ginkel Heath had been set ablaze; fires that some paratroopers fell into. Moving off the zone he ran into a very badly wounded 20 year old Lieutenant of the 156th Battalion, hit with incendiary rounds in his legs and chest. The man was in a great deal of pain and so Glover administered morphia and left to locate a medic. Other paratroopers came across this man, known only to be a brave and popular officer, but smoke was now coming from his wounds and he pleaded with these men to shoot him. Before they left him, one of the men placed the Lieutenant's cocked revolver in his hand. He was later found dead.

On the following day as the Polish lift was coming down, Glover tried to replenish dwindling water supplies and sent a Sergeant away in a Jeep loaded with dozens of water bottles to try and find some, however he never saw the man again. As the 10th Battalion withdrew across the railway line near Wolfheze at dusk, where they were holding the Brigade's left flank, Glover recalled that the whole area was covered by German machine-gunners and so in the poor light men minimized their chances of being seen by going up the railway embankment, lying down, and then rolling themselves over the top. Just as Glover was about to go over a determined German attack came in and the paratroopers dug themselves in at a pace. Once this skirmish had ended, Glover turned to Scutt and suggested they have a brew-up. It was only then that he thought of Myrtle and asked Joe Scutt where she was. When the attack came and he began to dig in he remembered he had left her in her bag on the edge of the trench, and as Glover felt for the bag and brought it in he noticed that it had been riddled with bullets. Inside it Myrtle lay dead, on her back with her feet in the air. The two men left her in the bag and buried her beneath a hedge a few yards from where she fell. Glover wondered if he should remove her parachute wings, but as she had been Killed in Action he decided to leave them on. With the grave filled in Scutt rose to his feet, dusted himself off, and delivered the following eulogy, ‘Well, she was game to the last, Sir.’ Pat Glover fought on with the dwindling remnants of the battalion being reduced to small pockets of men fighting then withdrawing. The battalion of nearly 600 was now down to 60 desperate men. On Wednesday 20th, now in Oosterbeek, he attempted to start a German self-propelled gun (tank by any other name) that had been knocked out by the battalion. His brave efforts resulted in the disabled gun becoming a target for both sides. On Thursday his ‘cockerel’ target practice paid off when he hit three or four enemy snipers in houses close to the Schoonoord Hotel. However, his position was spotted, and a shell directed at his building, exploding and sending Glover through the floor to the level below. He continued in the desperate fight until he was wounded in both his hand and right calf. He made his way back to the Schoonoord dressing station where his wounds were dressed but then he was unfortunately taken prisoner. However, Pat Glover’s tenacity endured and on 15th October he managed to escape and after making contact with the Dutch Resistance, on the 22nd October, with another 140 airborne men, he was ferried safely across the Rhine. Pat Glover died in 1996.

The Somerby Cockerel post WW2

The Somerby Cockerel (re-gilded and complete with bullet holes!) now sits proudly in All Saints Church, Somerby

During the renovation of All Saints Church in 1989, the weathercock was replaced. On the 20th October 1991, it was presented as the Battalion shooting trophy by Lt. Col (retd) J W ‘Pat’ Glover to 10 Para (V). The Somerby Weathercock resided in the Sergeants’ Mess at the Battalion’s White City location until 10 Para was disbanded in 1999.

In 2014 (the 70th Anniversary of Operation Market Garden) Col John Waddy (156Bn) facilitated the return of the Cockerel to Somerby Church. During the Commemoration Service that year it was presented by 10th Battalion’s Gerry Dimmock to the Bishop of Leicester, who accepted it’s return on behalf of All Saints.