A new project by the South Canterbury Genealogy Society is ensuring the stories of the men and women from South Canterbury who served in World War 2 are preserved and remembered. As the project progresses, society convener Liz Shea will be sharing some of these stories with The Courier.
This week we remember Private Margery Greenfield, Ser No 822452, who was killed on October 7, 1945, in an aircraft accident in France, aged 31.
Margery was born in Timaru on September 6, 1914, to Albert Percy and Mary Lawer Greenfield and was the middle child with a younger sister, Frances Ruth and older brother John Robert.
She attended Waimataitai School and then Timaru Girls’ High School from 1928 to 1930 and trained as a beauty consultant after school.
After her father had a business promotion, she moved with the family to Dunedin and worked in the DSR Ltd department store.
Margery appeared to be very vivacious and outgoing, with many newspaper articles following her social life in Timaru.
She was dubbed Queen of Rugby in 1936, raising £803 to support the local SC Rugby representative team fund for travelling expenses, and also featured in drama and ballet performances for other fundraisers.
She was in Dunedin when she enlisted in 1942 in the NZ Women’s Army Auxiliary Corp (WAAC), going into camp in March 1943 and sent overseas to the Pacific in July 1943.
Margery returned to New Zealand for hand surgery and was then posted to the Middle East.
She was with the NZ Forces Club as a Tui, serving first in Cairo and then in 1944, was posted to Bari and Rome in Italy where she stayed until August 1945, before being posted back to Cairo in September.
Her sister Frances also joined the WAAC and they met up in Cairo, where they also met their cousin, Robert Greenfield, who had been posted to Egypt.
Margery wrote regularly to Robert’s mother, Edith (who was Margery’s paternal aunt).
Edith kept her letters and the family have transcribed these letters for their own family history.
The letters are short but convey how much fun she was having meeting other New Zealanders and travelling to Italy.
Her social life was busy, helping fellow WAACs with wedding preparations and even having a proposal made to herself, but she declined as she was having too much fun to be married.
By this time, the war was over and she was asked to go firstly to London to manage a Forces Club there before taking a boat to return to New Zealand.
An accident changed all that.
On October 7, 1945, Margery and two fellow Tuis had boarded a Royal Air Force transporter in Egypt to fly to London.
Due to high fuel consumption, the plane was diverted to Rennes in France.
On entering the Rennes airfield, circuit difficulties were encountered with radio communication between aircraft and ground while the approach to the airfield was hampered by a 200m cloud base and inadequate airfield lighting.
Although homed in on to the correct runway and seen from the ground, the captain could not see the flare path.
He carried out an overshoot, called to advise they only had 10 minutes fuel and immediately crashed while turning to port.
The six crew, eight RAF, two navy and 10 army passengers, including the three Tuis, were all killed instantly.
News of her death was a huge shock to the family but they managed to attend a memorial service for her and the two other Tuis (Marie Innes and Margaret Mortlock) at St Paul Cathedral, Wellington, on October 29, 1945.
Margery and the other passengers were buried in the Rennes Eastern Communal Cemetery, Sec 18 Plot 1 Row B Grave 4.
She is also remembered on her parents’ grave in the Andersons Bay Cemetery in Dunedin.
The only other place she is remembered on is the Timaru Girls’ High School Memorial.
This plaque, set up in 1943, records the 36 past pupils who served in WW2.
Margery was the only one not to return.
