The Monday Photo

This is the grave of Geoffrey Daintree Pearson, who died on active service at Whaddon. He was 42.

A signalman in the Royal Corps of Signals, he fell when doing maintenance work on a tall radio mast at their station on Church Hill, known to the men as Windy Ridge.

It was September 1943. About eight months later this radio station would play an important part in D-Day and the invasion of occupied Europe; Operation Overlord.

Geoffrey is buried in the graveyard of St Mary’s church in Whaddon, and the men of the Royal Signals had to walk through that graveyard to reach their posts.  Although he was not killed through enemy action, this signalman still died in the service of his country.

I‘m showing you this photo today because this is War Graves Week. This commemorative week runs until next Saturday, the 28th May. There are a few events for the week in North Bucks, though the next one is on Tuesday 24th, perhaps to late to get to now.

But here’s a group photo of the Royal Signals personnel at Windy Ridge, in 1945. There are far more of them than I imagined; I counted about 160 men in the photo.

I wrote about what’s left of windy Ridge and its part in Operation Overlord last year, and the post gives you directions to the station’s remains.

Now I’ve seen the photo at the link above, I wonder if there may be some evidence of radio bases out in the field, far away from where the buildings had been. I’ll have to visit Church hill again for another look…

This photo was taken with a Pentax camera and lens.

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