Myrtle the Parachick and the Somerby Cockerel 

Editorial Foreword

In this edited extract from Grahame Warner’s history of the 10th Battalion The Parachute Regiment from 1942 to 1944, when the Battalion was effectively destroyed during the battle for the Arnhem bridges, Warner recounts the intermingled stories of Myrtle the Parachick and the Somerby cockerel. Most of the images came from Friends of The Tenth, to whom the family of Joseph ‘Pat’ Glover supplied several for Arnhem: Eight Days to Oblivion. Myrtle was previously remembered in an article by Colonel John Waddy for Pegasus magazine. John Waddy had served during WW2 with The Tenth’s sister battalion the 156.

Myrtle the Parachick and the Somerby Cockerel by Grahame Warner

It was during the doldrum days of the summer of 1944, whilst on standby for so many airborne operations that ended up being cancelled, that Lieutenant — and Quartermaster — Pat Glover, billeted in the High Leicestershire village of Somerby, relieved his frustrations by firing his .22 rifle from his office window at nearby birds. Pat was billeted in Somerby Hall, directly opposite the village’s All Saints Church, and on windy nights, the old Victorian weathercock atop the spire would squeak and groan, keeping him awake.

In true paratrooper fashion, Pat decided to take a few potshots at the noisy contraption and, from a range of sixty yards, managed to put two or three rounds through the body of the metal cockerel. In the Officers Mess later that evening, a heated and alcohol-fuelled debate started as to whether Glover could really have hit the weathervane from that range. 

The argument moved on, and before long, Glover was vigorously defending his claim that chickens could fly. Determined to prove his case, Glover ‘acquired’ a small reddish-brown hen from a nearby farm and christened her Myrtle in honour of a popular local Land Army girl of that name.

Not long afterwards, The Tenth carried out a battalion-sized 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 shoulder, and once he had jumped — from 800 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 into the bag.

When Glover was down to approximately fifty feet, he reached for Myrtle again and released her. Much squawking and a furious and utterly artless flapping of wings followed; however, Myrtle was definitely flying, and she landed safely. On landing, Glover was so determined to prevent Myrtle from running away that he forgot to collapse his ‘chute. So, holding the chicken with one hand and trying desperately to collapse his parachute with the other, he was dragged across the drop zone and managed to dislocate a thumb before he came to a halt.

Glover kept Myrtle perched on an iron bar on the desk in his office and, should a senior officer ever demand an explanation, he had a pre-prepared excuse. He simply passed his pet off as living rations, reasoning that he wouldn’t be a very good quartermaster if he didn’t have a back-up plan for shortages of fresh rations!

Over the summer, Myrtle made six more jumps, released at ever-higher altitudes each time, and eventually dropping 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. By the time The Tenth received its warning order for the Arnhem drop, Myrtle could safely be released and would patiently wait on the ground for her master to collect her.

On the 18th of September 1944, the 10th Battalion gathered in Somerby from its billets in the surrounding villages and was driven to RAF Spanhoe to emplane for Arnhem. As this was a combat jump, Glover decided in Myrtle’s best interests to keep the hen in her canvas bag. 

After landing, as Lt Pat Glover made his way across the DZ, he came across an injured fellow officer — Lt John Davison from the 156 Battalion — lying in the heather and clearly in great pain. It was immediately apparent that Davison was suffering from a severely broken leg; it was twisted at an unnatural angle.  Glover administered morphia to make Davison as comfortable as possible before moving off.

Just after Glover left him, Lt Davison was hit by phosphorus fragments from a mortar bomb that burned into his abdomen. A few minutes later, Glover found two RAMC medics whom he instructed to go to Davison’s aid. The medics found Davison dead, his service revolver in his hand- he had suffered a fatal gunshot wound to the head. Other paratroopers had come across Davison with smoke gently puffing from a burning stomach wound. The wounded officer had pleaded with these men to shoot him. Before they left him, one of the men placed the lieutenant’s cocked revolver in his hand.

Twenty-four hours later, as The Tenth withdrew across the railway line near Wolfheze at dusk, Glover recalled that German machine gunners covered the whole area. So, in low light, men minimized their chances of being seen by going up the railway embankment, lying down, and then rolling themselves over the top. As Glover was about to move, a determined German attack came in, and the paratroopers quickly dug in for protection.

Once this skirmish had ended, Glover turned to his batman, Pte Joe Scutt, and suggested they brew up. It was only then that he thought of Myrtle and asked Scutt where she was. Scutt remembered he had left her in her bag on the edge of the trench, and as Glover felt for the bag to retrieve it, he noticed that it had been riddled with bullets. Inside, Myrtle lay dead on her back with her feet in the air. 

Glover and Scutt buried Myrtle 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 small grave filled in, Scutt rose to his feet, dusted himself off, and delivered the following eulogy: “Well, Sir, she was game to the last!”.

After the War, the Somerby weathercock, which had led to the adoption by Pat Glover of Myrtle the Parachick, was taken down during a refurbishment of the church steeple and replaced. The original was stored in the workshops of local Somerby builders, Messrs AS Stimson & Sons.

During the 1989 annual Somerby Commemoration weekend, held each year by the Leicestershire branch of the Parachute Regimental Association to mark the anniversary of the 10th Battalion’s departure for Arnhem, Michael Stimson, the then-proprietor of AS Stimson & Sons, was speaking with 10th Battalion Arnhem veterans and the story of Lt Glover and the weathercock arose.

To the veterans’ surprise, Michael Stimson mentioned that he still had the original weathervane, collecting dustin his workshop ever since his father had stored it after the post-war renovation works to the church. 

An idea then came to mind that the weathercock should be given to the 10 PARA (V) Battalion, whose HQ Company was at that time based in White City, London. 10 PARA had the weather-cock mounted on a memorial plaque as the Battalion’s annual shooting trophy.The first presentation in 1991 was by none other than Lt Col (Retd) Joseph ‘Pat’ Glover.

On the disbanding of 10 PARA in 1999, the trophy was lost for many years. Fortunately, Colonel John Waddy ofthe wartime 156 (Parachute) Battalion — generally regarded as The Tenth’s sister battalion — located and retrieved the trophy. In 2013, Colonel Waddy presented it to Alec Wilson, Chairman of the charity Friends ofthe Tenth, who subsequently arranged for its refurbishment and re-gilding.

In September 2014, the Myrtle Trophy finally returned to its original home in All Saints Church, Somerby,at a dedication service to mark the 70th Anniversary of the Battle of Arnhem. It was presented by Gerry Dimmock of the wartime 10th Battalion to and dedicated by the Right Reverend Tim Stevens CBE, Bishopof Leicester. It remains on view to the public at the church and sits beneath the stained-glasscommemoration window in honour of the 10th Battalion.

As a tribute to Myrtle,  Everards Brewery created a fruity red beer branded Myrtle in recognition of the hen’s story and service with the 10th Battalion during World War II.

[Editor: Everard’s continue to brew Myrtle and, which is naturally the beer of preference at the annual September gathering of paratroopers past and present and their families to remember the men of The Tenth and to honour the postwar 10 PARA whom the veterans of The Tenth invited each year snd to whom they entrusted their battalion traditions. Former 10 PARA members gather with other Parachute Regiment veterans for the march through Somerby organised by the Leicestershire PRA and the service at the 10th Bn Memorial organised by the Friends of The Tenth, who unveiled it in 2019. The Tenth’s Last Man Standing, Victor Gregg, attended the unveiling and was later buried beside the Memorial as its eternal sentinel.]