GEOFFREY THE STORY OF COMMANDO and SAS MAJOR J.G.APPLEYARD. D.S.O, M.C and BAR.

Description

‘GEOFFREY’, being the story of “Apple’ of the Commandos and Special Air Service Regiment. 1st edition 1947 with dust jacket.
John Geoffrey Appleyard was the first Second in Command of No.2 SAS Regiment following service in the Commandos and Small Scale Raiding Force.

Appleyard was commissioned into the Royal Army Service Corps (Supplementary Reserve) on 1 April 1939 with the rank of Second Lieutenant. Mobilized for active service on 24 August 1939, he commanded an RASC mobile motor repair workshop as part of the British Expeditionary Force in northern France. During the Battle of France he was ordered to destroy all his vehicles, and then was evacuated from Dunkirk. Appleyard volunteered to join the Commandos in late 1940, and was posted to B Troop, No. 7 Commando. He was awarded the Military Cross for his “gallant and distinguished services in the field” after taking part in an operation by boat and submarine to pick up two Operation Savanna agents on the coast of France and bring them back to England.

He commanded Operation Postmaster”, in which the Italian liner Duchessa d’Aosta and the German tug Likomba were boarded and towed from the neutral Spanish island of Fernando Po and taken to Nigeria. On his return he was awarded a bar to his Military Cross. He participated in several Commando raids on France and on the 15 December 1942 Appleyard was awarded the Distinguished Service Order. On meeting the now Temporary Major Appleyard at his third investiture in eleven months, the King was both amused and impressed, greeting him with: “What, you again?”

On the night of 12/13 July 1943, during the Allied invasion of Sicily, Appleyard supervised the dropping of a group of SAS paratroopers north of Randazzo in “Operation Chestnut”.The Albemarle aircraft disappeared on the return flight over the Mediterranean, and Appleyard was declared missing presumed dead. He is commemorated at the Cassino Memorial.

A fine read of yet another gallant soldier who died at the age of 26.