Second World War - Lynsted Memorial Project
Agnes Mary Collard (of Lynsted) - Civilian Casualty
b. 1915 Foreign Office Secretary |
Lynsted resident lost at sea
In July 1945, Lynsted, like the rest of Europe, would have been relieved that the war was at last over. That made the news received via the Faversham News on Friday 20 July 1945, more tragic.
LOST AIRCRAFT Lynsted resident missing |
Agnes Mary Collard had, along with her mother, Florence, moved from Borden Hall to Aymers Lodge on the death of her father in early 1939. Florence was the sister of Major Ching’s wife who were then living in Aymers.
She had joined the Foreign Office in 1937 as a shorthand typist. She was promoted to Clerical Officer and served in the British Legation (now known as an Embassy) in Bern, Switzerland, from 1938 to 1942. Based in a neutral country, the Legation served as point of contact for British nationals.
Dumbarton Oaks Conference
Agnes was obviously well thought of in the Foreign Office as she was chosen to be part of the support team for the senior staff of the British delegation at the Dumbarton Oaks Conference. The Dumbarton Oaks Conference, officially the Washington Conversations on International Peace and Security Organization, was a pivotal international meeting held in 1944 at the Dumbarton Oaks estate in Washington, D.C. Its primary purpose was to formulate proposals for the establishment of a general international organisation, which ultimately led to the creation of the United Nations. The conference involved discussions among representatives from the United States, the United Kingdom, the Soviet Union, and China.
The British delegation was required to travel to the USA on board the RMS Queen Mary. Requisitioned by the War Office, the Queen Mary, known during wartime as the "Grey Ghost", was the fastest troop carrier in the fleet. With all it’s glamourous interiors removed and put in to storage, in 1943, on one of its Atlantic crossings, it carried over 15,000 American troops across the Atlantic. It was a world record for the most people carried on one ship.
On 6 August 1944, the Queen Mary set sail from Greenock with Agnes on board. The British Delegation she accompanied consisted of:
- Earl of Halifax, Edward Frederick Lindley Wood. British Ambassador to United States (1940-1946).
He had previously served as the Viceroy of India (1925–1931), and Foreign Secretary (1938–1940).
- Sir Alexander Montagu George Cadogan. Permanent Under-Secretary for Foreign Affairs from 1938 to 1946.
- Colonel Denis Cuthbert Capel-Dunn*
In 1940 he joined the offices of the War Cabinet and Ministry of Defence. He became assistant secretary and then secretary of the Joint Intelligence Committee and finally head of the Joint Staff Secretariat. In this capacity he attended the conferences at Moscow and Yalta. He rose rapidly during the Second World War to the rank of Lt. Colonel in the Intelligence Corps. He was awarded an OBE in 1944.
* Colonel Capel-Dunn would also die in the plane crash that later took Agnes’s life.
- Paul Steven Falla. Translator in the UK Foreign Office in the 1940s-1950s.
A linguist and later Editor of the Oxford English-Russian Dictionary.
- Hubert Miles Gladwyn Jebb, 1st Baron Gladwyn. Foreign Office
Between 1940 and 1942 he served as the Chief Executive Officer for the Special Operations Executive (SOE). From 1945 to 1946 he would serve as the Acting Secretary General of the United Nations.
- General Sir Walter King Venning. Director General of the British Supply Mission in Washington, DC.
In WW2, Venning served as Quartermaster-General to the Forces from 2 February 1939 to 1942. During this time he was responsible for the War Office Fleet, which he despatched to Dunkirk in 1940 to evacuate Allied forces. The Times said "It was due to the superb organisation which Venning created and directed that the mobilisation of the Regular Army in 1939, the embodiment of the Territorial Army and the embarkation of the expeditionary force were carried out with such astonishing smoothness."
- John Gilbert Lockhart. First Secretary in the British Embassy in USA.
- Peter Noel Loxley. First Secretary of the Foreign Office.
A career diplomat, he died flying to the Yalta Conference on 1 February 1945, aged 39. The Avro York transport aircraft carrying the delegation left London, but due to bad weather over Naples and navigational errors, the aircraft ended up circling Lampedusa instead of Malta and once its position was established had insufficient fuel to reach Malta and broke up after ditching into the sea.
Eleven of the Foreign Office, civilian and Service personnel on board died including Peter Loxley.
- Sir Arthur Hilton Poynton. Deputy Under-Secretary of State, Colonial Office.
- Margaret E Randall. Civil Servant
- James A Salter. Government Official
The conference ran from 21 August to 7 October 1944.
San Francisco Conference
Once again, Agnes served her country when she was chosen as part of the support team for this important and historical conference.
The San Francisco Conference was held from 25 April to 26 June, 1945, to establish a charter for a new international organisation, which became the United Nations.
At the time, the international conference was thought to be the largest such meeting of all time. Those in attendance were around 850 delegates from fifty Allied nations. Their advisers and support staff, together with the conference secretariat, brought the total to 3,500. In addition, there were more than 2,500 press, radio and newsreel representatives and observers from many societies and organisations. Heads of the sponsoring nations rotated as chairman of the plenary meetings. These were:
- Anthony Eden for Britain (deputy Lord Halifax)
Edward Stettinius for the United States - T. V. Soong for China (deputy V. K. Wellington Koo)
- Vyacheslav Molotov for the Soviet Union (deputy Mr Gromyko)
The conference produced and unanimously signed the Charter of the United Nations and the Statute of the International Court of Justice. The United Nations came into being on 24 October 1945. Sadly, Agnes would not live to see its inauguration.
The fateful journey home
At the beginning of July 1945, the UK delegation of the San Francisco Conference began there journey home for the US. A mixed crew of civilian and 231 Squadron aircrew, was scheduled to fly RAF Transport Command Liberator C lX JT982 for a flight from Washington DC USA to Northolt, England, with stopovers in Dorval, Gander, Keflavik and Prestwick.
The aircraft departed Royal Canadian Air Force Gander airport on July 4, 1945. On the leg to Keflavik there was a crew of six and nine VIP passengers including Agnes. The aircraft experienced control difficulties and ditched in the North Atlantic when the elevator became jammed. An intensive two week air and sea search was carried out but no trace of the aircraft, crew or passengers were found.
Sadly, Liberator planes had a notorious reputation. Those who flew them as bombers in WW2 complained that they were difficult to fly and sluggish to take off. Latterly they were nicknames “The Flying Coffin”. This was mainly due to the aircraft having only one entry/exit door at the rear of the aircraft. It was nearly impossible for the crew to leave in an emergency. During the rescue mission on Agnes’s plane, a further Liberator was lost when it too experienced control difficulties and ditched in the sea. The pilot managed to get the crew to the exit point as he ditched the plane in the Atlantic allowing the crew to get out with a dinghy. They were rescued but sadly the pilot perished.
Those who died alongside Agnes were:
- Sir Herbert William Malkin GCMG, CB, KC. Legal Adviser to Foreign Office -Age 62
- Colonel Denis Cuthbert Capel-Dunn OBE, Ministry of Defence (MI5) - Age 41
- Mr Roland Tennyson Peel COBE MC, India Office - Age 52
- Miss Mabel Jane Clarkson Scupham, Foreign Office - Aged 40
- Miss Joan Margaret Cole-Hamilton MBE, Foreign Office - Age 40
- Miss Doreen A Smith, Foreign Office - Aged 20
- Miss Beryl Hibberd, India Office - Age 23
- Miss Phyllis Mabel Spurway, Cabinet Office - Aged 35
Crew:
- Captain George Peter Evans (pilot) United States civilian
- (Captain) John Weldy Ross (co-pilot) United States civilian
- Cyril Paul Joseph Meagher (radio operator) Canadian civilian
- Gayle Burton Swaney Flight Engineer, Canadian civilian
- Flying Officer Roy Holden Marshall Patterson navigator, (RCAF), 231 Squadron
- Sergeant William Thomas Keates, flight clerk (RAFVR), 231 Squadron.
It is ironic that Agnes’s survived her earlier trips across the Atlantic in wartime only to die in her first in peacetime.
