Edward Joseph Todhunter
Brigadier Edward Joseph Todhunter TD, DL, (1900–1976) soldier and High Sheriff of Essex
Ted Todhunter was born in Essex, on his family estate Kingsmoor House and Stewards farm in Great Parndon. He attended Rugby School becoming a Cadet in the O.T.C division. In 1922 he was Gazetted as 2nd Lt. in the Territorial Royal Field Artillery 104th (Essex Tea.) Brigade. He married Agnes Swire in 1927 and promoted Lieutenant-Colonel.
During World War II serving as a Brigadier with the Royal Horse Artillery and was captured at Mechili in Cyrenaica North Africa with General Gambier-Parry in April 1941.
He was initially brought to the same barracks as Major-General Sir Adrian Carton de Wiart VC in Tripoli.[1] Then by ship to Naples and to the Villa Orsini near Sulmona. He helped in the garden and ‘collected news from Italian newspapers, making a resume of them in English which he managed brilliantly’.[2]
He was transferred to Castello di Vincigliata (PG12) in April 1942. It was a medieval castle near Florence for very high ranking officers. Amongst the captives were Major-General Sir Adrian Carton de Wiart VC, Air Marshal Owen Tudor Boyd, Lieutenant General Sir Philip Neame VC, Lieutenant-Colonel John Frederick Boyce Combe, General Sir Richard Nugent O'Connor and Thomas Daniel Knox, 6th Earl of Ranfurly -known as 'Dan' Rufurly. He took on the role of camp librarian, which by the spring of 1943 numbered nearly one thousand books.[3] He was part of the tunnelling group that worked in shifts for over six months. The escape was successful -six officers escapes and two managed to make Switzerland, New Zealanders Brigadiers James Hargest and Reginald Miles.
He was able to escape during the Italian Armistice in September 1943 with the remaining officers and men. They branched off into the mountains seeking refuge in the Monastery of Camaldoli. ‘He discovered a retired Dutch diplomat,[4] close by, and he and O’Connor used to listen to the news on their wireless’.[5] He joined the Italian partisans known as the Garibaldi Brigade Romagna under the leadership of Libero Riccardo Fedel. During the winter of 1943/4 this partisan group helped dozens of allied prisoners to escape and together with MI9 officers he reached Allied lines in Ancona, by fishing boat with Guy E Ruggles-Brise (who later - like him became a High Sheriff of Essex after the war) together with Combe, Ranfurly and an American pilot Jack Reiter [6] by May 1944.
He was flown to Algiers and from there together with John Combe was flown to England in May 1944.[7]
After the war he served as High Sheriff of Essex 1964–1965, living at Threshers in Harlow. Later he lived at The Glebe House, Great Bedwyn, Wiltshire, and held the office of Justice of the Peace. He had one daughter Janet Hazel Margaret Todhunter who married in 1952.
References
Sources
- Playing with Strife, The Autobiography of a Soldier, Lt-Gen. Sir Philip Neame, V.C., K.B.E., C.B., D.S.O., George G Harrap & Co. Ltd, 1947, 353 pages, (written whilst a POW, the best narrative of Vincigliata as Campo PG12, contains a scale plan of Castello di Vincigliata, and photographs taken by the author just after the war)
- Farewell Campo 12, Brigadier James Hargest, C.B.E., D.S.O. M.C., Michael Joseph Ltd, 1945, 184 pages
- Happy Odyssey, Lt-Gen. Sir Carton De Wiart,V.C.,K.B.E.,C.M.G.,D.S.O., Jonathan Cape Ltd, 1950, re-printed by Pen & Sword Books 2007, 287 pages, ISBN 1-84415-539-0
- MI9 Escape & Evasion 1939-45, M.R.D. Foot & J.M Langley, The Bodley Head, 1979, 365 pages
- To War with Whitaker, 1994, The wartime diaries of The Countess of Ranfurly 1939 -1945, William Heinemann Ltd, London, 375 pages, ISBN 0-434-00224-0
- War in Italy 1943-1945', 1994, A Brutal Story, Richard Lamb, Saint Martin's Press, New York, 328 pages, ISBN 978-0-312-11093-2
- The Peerage.com