The SAAF Forum

Good afternoon gents.
Hope someone can help.
I'm looking for info on a Lieutenant Piet Beyers.
He flew Hurricanes in North Africa 1941-42, 1 Squadron.
He was a friend of mine's grandpa, and I was also lucky enough to have met him on occasions.
Unfortunetaly we never had time to discuss his time in the war.
I would love to find out a bit more of his time in North Africa, especially the planes that he flew. I knew he flew Hurricanes, but I dont know the plane number. Would love to build a model depicting his plane.

Thank you in advance.

_________________
I love the smell of cyano in the morning.

Hi,

Unfortunately, I do not have a lot of info on Lt P.J. "Piet" Beyers.

1. I have extracted some information from the unit history, "The Story of No 1 Squadron S.A.A.F" by Capt. Vivian Voss, MBE. the book is long out of print, but copies do come up from time to time on internet & 2nd hand bookshops. Apologies I am going to be fairly telegrammatic:
a. He appears to have joined the Sqd on 27/09/1941, one of 10 new 2/Lts;
b. Late Jan / early Feb 1942, their base was attacked by 3 Ju 88's early in the morning. 6 Hurricanes managed to take off incl. Beyers, in an attempt to intercept the German Aircraft. Beyers chased one of them but lost him in the cloud cover.
c. Later in Feb '42, Beyers was on standby, strapped in the cockpit of the Hurricane ready to scramble at a moment's notice. The base was "jumped" by Ju88's, and the first he knew they were there was when the bombs whines. He rapidly exited the plane, and took cover below the plane, forgetting to disconnect the oxygen tube. This stretched out until it popped off, hitting in the head, as the bombs were exploding. His shout that he had been hit, resulted in a lot of laughter from the rest,
d. End of March it is recorded that four Hurricanes were scrambled for a patrol. Beyers, flying at ~3000 ft, saw a twin-engine aircraft, shouted "Tally-Ho" (Classic), turned to sharply and had to recover from a spin, losing the Enemy aircraft in the process.
e. A remark re Beyer's remarkable ability to hear aircraft at night and could be relied on to identify them as friendlies or hostile. He returned to South Africa mid-July 1942

2. the SANDF Dept of Def Archives, Major Gustav Bentz. The team can supply copies of Beyers service records.

3. S.A.A.F Squadron War Diaries can be downloaded from the National Archives (UK), reference AIR54. Will take time to go through the Squadron diaries, however there will likely be information about his missions, aircraft types and like

Good luck with the research. It gets "addictive"!!