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Liddell Hart Centre for Military Archives, King's College London

MYERS, Brig Edmund Charles Wolf (1906-1997)


IDENTITY STATEMENT

Reference code(s): GB 0099 KCLMA Myers

Held at: Liddell Hart Centre for Military Archives, King's College London

Title: MYERS, Brig Edmund Charles Wolf (1906-1997)

Date(s): 1942-1981

Level of description: Collection (fonds)

Extent: 3 boxes or 0.03 cubic metres

Name of creator(s): Myers | Edmund Charles Wolf | 1906-1997 | Brigadier

CONTEXT

Administrative/Biographical history:

Born 1906; educated at Haileybury, the Royal Military Academy, Woolwich, and Caius College and Gonville College, Cambridge University; commissioned into the Corps of Royal Engineers, 1926; Secretary, Royal Engineers Flying Club, 1934-1935; service in Palestine, 1936; served in World War Two, 1939-1945; service in the Middle East, Italy, the Balkans and the Far East, 1941-1944; served with 7 Armoured Div, Western Desert [1939-1942]; service with Special Operations Executive (SOE), Greece, 1942-1943; commanded British Military Mission to Greek partisans in German occupied Greece, Jul 1942-Sep 1943; commanded operation to demolish the Gorgopotamos viaduct, Greece, Nov 1942; awarded DSO, 1943; commanded Operation WASHING, the destruction of the Asopos viaduct, Greece, Jun 1943; temporary Brig, 1943; awarded CBE, 1944; served in North West Europe, 1944-1945; service in the Far East, 1945; Lt Col, 1946; Col, 1949; served in 1 Commonwealth Div, Korean War, 1951-1952; Brig, 1955; Chief Engineer, British Troops in Egypt, 1955-1956; Deputy Director, Personnel Administration, War Office, 1956-1959; retired, 1959; Chief Civil Engineer, Cleveland Bridge and Engineering Company Limited, 1959-1964; Construction Manager, Power Gas Corporation Limited, Davy-Ashmore Group, 1964-1968; Regional Secretary, British Field Sports Society, 1968-1971; died 1997.
Publications: Greek entanglement (Rupert Hart-Davis, London, 1955).

Descriptions of Greek resistance groups (Greek: andartes) related to this collection:

ÅÁÌ: The National Liberation Front (Greek: Ethniko Apeleftherotiko Metopo) led by Georges Siados was a Communist group affiliated with the KKE - the Communist Party of Greece (Greek: Kommounistiko Komma Elladas).

The military arm of EAM was ELAS, The National People's Liberation Army, (Greek: Ethnikos Laikos Apeleftherotikos Stratos), led by Ares Velouchiotis (real name Athanasios (Thanasis) Klaras).

EDES: The National Republican Greek League (Greek: Ethnikos Demokratikos Ellenikos Syndesmos), was an anti-Communist, Republican group, led by political leader Nikolaos Plasteras and military leader Gen Napoleon Zervas.

EKKA: National and Social Liberation (Greek: Ethnike kai Koinonike Apeleftherosis) led by Demetrios Psarros was a liberal, anti-Communist, Republican group.

CONTENT

Scope and content/abstract:

Papers of Edmund Myers, 1942-1981, relating to his service as Commander, of the British Military Mission to the Greek partisans in German occupied Greece, 1942-1943, Special Operations Executive (SOE). Notably on Operation HARLING and the destruction of the Gorgopotamos Viaduct, Greece, Nov 1942 and Operation WASHING, the destruction of the Asopos Viaduct, Greece, Jun 1943. Also including reports, lectures and radio broadcasts on Greece and the British Military Mission; papers relating to the National Band of Rebels formed under Allied command; papers relating to a delegation of six Greek partisans (andartes) sent to Cairo to consult with the Greek government in attempt to avoid political crisis and civil war, Aug 1943; papers on British support of Greek monarch, King George II; correspondence on Myers' attempts to return to Greece; maps related to British Military Mission; photographs of the British Military Mission including individuals, landscapes and the British Military cemetery in Athens, 1971; post-war papers on Greece including correspondence with Myers, draft copy of Greek Entanglement by Myers with scrapbook of reviews and papers relating to the funeral of Gen Napoleon Zervas.

ACCESS AND USE

Language/scripts of material: English. Some items in Greek and two items in French.

System of arrangement:

Arranged in sections as follows: papers on the British Military Mission to Greek partisans (andartes) in German occupied Greece; maps; photographs; post-war papers.

Conditions governing access:

Open, subject to signature of reader's undertaking form.

Conditions governing reproduction:

Copies, subject to the condition of the original, may be supplied for research use only. Requests to publish original material should be submitted to the Trustees of the Liddell Hart Centre for Military Archives, attention of the Director of Archive Services.

Physical characteristics:

Finding aids:

Summary guide entry available on-line and detailed catalogue on-line and in hard copy in the Centre's reading room.

Detailed catalogue

ARCHIVAL INFORMATION

Appraisal, destruction and scheduling information:

Accruals:

Archival history:

Immediate source of acquisition:

Placed in the Centre by Myers in 1977, 1978, 1981 and 1993.

ALLIED MATERIALS

Existence and location of originals:

Existence and location of copies:

Related material:

The papers of Col Hon (Christopher) Montague Woodhouse contain material relating to Myers, including correspondence between British (later Allied) Military Mission to Greece and Middle East Command in Cairo chiefly to and from Myers for period Jul 1942-Sep 1943 [see Woodhouse 1/1-14]; article by Myers, 'The crisis in Greece', [Feb] 1945 [see Woodhouse 2/4]; speech by Myers at the unveiling of plaques in Stromi cave to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the destruction of the Gorgopotamos Viaduct, 1992 [see Woodhouse 6/1] and papers relating to death of Myers [see Woodhouse 6/4]. The papers of FM Alan Francis Brooke, 1st Viscount Alanbrooke of Brookeborough, contain a letter from Roundell Cecil Palmer, 3rd Earl of Selbourne, Minister of Economic Warfare, to Rt Hon Sir (Percy) James Grigg, Secretary of State for War, concerning Myers' work with the Special Operations Executive (SOE) in Greece, 26 Nov 1943 (Ref: Alanbrooke 6/2/47). Papers relating to Special Operations Executive (SOE) operations in Greece and the Balkans, 1942-1945, and to Myers' service with the British Military Mission to the Greek partisans in German occupied Greece, 1942-1943, can be found in the papers of Brig Godfrey Pennington Hobbs (Ref: Hobbs); Lt Col Count Julian A Dobrski (Ref: Dobrski); Maj Ronald R Prentice and Capt H Arthur Wickstead (Ref: Prentice/Wickstead); Maj Philip Frederick Nind (Ref: Nind); Capt Patrick Hutchinson Evans (Ref: Evans) Sir Derek Sherborne Lindsell Dodson (Ref: Dodson) and Capt Albert Henry Lingen.

Publication note:

Guerrilla and counterguerrilla warfare in Greece, 1941-1945 by Hugh H Gardner (Office of the Chief of Military History, Department of the Army, Washington DC, USA, 1962); British policy towards wartime resistance in Yugoslavia and Greece, edited by Phyllis Auty and Richard Ralph Mowbray Clogg (Macmillan, in association with the School of Slavonic and East European Studies, University of London, London, 1975); SOE: an outline history of the Special Operations Executive, 1940-1946 by Michael Richard Daniell Foot (BBC, London, 1984); A Greek experience by Nigel Clive (Michael Russell, Salisbury, Wiltshire, 1985); Guerrilla warfare and espionage in Greece, 1940-1944 by André Gerolymatos (Pella, New York, USA, 1992); The Allied Military Mission and the resistance in West Macedonia by Professor Lt Col Nicholas Geoffrey Lemprière Hammond (Institute for Balkan Studies, Thessaloniki, Greece, 1993).

DESCRIPTION NOTES

Note:

Archivist's note: Compiled by Sarah Drewery.

Rules or conventions: Compiled in compliance with General International Standard Archival Description, ISAD(G), second edition, 2000; National Council on Archives Rules for the Construction of Personal Place and Corporate Names 1997.

Date(s) of descriptions: Aug 1999; Oct 2008


INDEX ENTRIES
Subjects
Anti-fascist movements | Protest movements | Political movements
Guerilla activities | Political movements
Maps | Visual materials
Memoirs | Documents | Information sources
Military history | History
Military intelligence | Warfare | Military engineering
Military missions | Diplomacy | Foreign relations | International relations
Occupied territories | Humanitarian law
Special forces | Armed forces | State security
Military personnel x Armed forces
Military organizations
Military science
Primary documents

Personal names
Churchill | Sir | Winston Leonard Spencer | 1874-1965 | Knight | statesman
George II | 1890-1947 | King of Greece
Klaras | Athanasios (Thanasis) | 1905-1945 | known as Aris Velouchiotis | Greek leader of ELAS
Myers | Edmund Charles Wolf | b 1906 | Brigadier
Palmer | Roundell Cecil | 1887-1971 | 3rd Earl of Selbourne | statesman
Triantafyllidis | Costas | fl 1943 | Greek political commentator
Woodhouse | Christopher Montague | 1917-2001 | 5th Baron Terrington | Colonel
Zervas | Napoleon | 1891-1957 | Greek general and resistance leader of EDES

Corporate names
EAM-ELAS | Ethnikon Apeleftherotikon Metopon-Ethnikos Laikos Apeleftherotikos Stratos | Greek resistance movement x Ethnikon Apeleftherotikon Metopon-Ethnikos Laikos Apeleftherotikos Stratos x The National Liberation Front x The National People's Liberation Army
EDES | Ethnikos Demokratikos Ellenikos Syndesmos | Greek resistance movement x Ethnikos Demokratikos Ellenikos Syndesmos x The National Republican Greek League
EKKA | Ethnike kai Koinonike Apeleftherosis | Greek resistance movement x Ethnike kai Koinonike Apeleftherosis x National and Social Liberation
German Army
SOE | Special Operations Executive x Special Operations Executive

Places
Aegean Sea | Mediterranean Sea | Seas
Asopos Viaduct | Greece | Western Europe | Europe
Middle East