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Vintage Amateur and Military Radio Amateur/military receivers and transmitters, morse, and any other related vintage comms equipment.

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Old 2nd Nov 2019, 6:18 pm   #1
David G4EBT
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Default MI6 WW2 military radio expert, now 93, awarded France's highest honour.

I hope this is the most appropriate section in which to post this, but if thought not, maybe the Mods would kindly relocate it.

I spotted a little clip in The Times recently about a former MI6 officer who had played a pivotal role in the D-Day Landings, who has become the 6,000th veteran to receive the highest French military & civilian award - the Legion d'Honneur for his role in the liberation of France.

Maybe he'll already be known to military radio enthusiasts, but I'd never heard of him.

Geoffrey Pidgeon - now aged 93 - helped set up communications for the Normandy Landings in June 1944 and undertook covert missions across the Channel and at RAF Tempsford in Bedfordshire. He was the youngest member of the 'SIS' (Secret Intelligence Service) when he joined in 1943, aged 17 (not old enough to vote or even order a pint of beer in a pub). He started making radio sets for agents, then progressed to joining a mobile team of seven who installed secret wireless kits in aircraft, cars, converted ambulances and tanks.

His team equipped the wireless vans to provide 'Ultra', at Bletchley Park, the signals intelligence obtained by breaking encrypted enemy communications to military commanders in the filed, on and after D-Day. In 1947 he left the SIS to join the family bathroom business in Kingston upon Thames (where he still lives, having retired at the age of 80!). He was persuaded by a museum curator to write a book - 'The Secret Wireless War' - published in 2003, still in print and available in hardback and paperback.

You can read a description of the book, which runs to 460 pages with more than 200 photos and illustrations, at this link:

http://geoffreypidgeon.com/

With Christmas soon to be upon us, it would make a nice 'stocking filler' for anyone interested.

There's a write up about his other book at the link above, which is off topic, so I won't go there!
It was launched at an exhibition at the Science Museum in 2014, but not about radios.

Hope that might be of interest to someone.
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Old 2nd Nov 2019, 10:10 pm   #2
HamishBoxer
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Default Re: MI6 WW2 military radio expert, now 93, awarded France's highest honour.

They both sound excellent.

PS The other is as far o/topic as I have ever seen on here!
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Old 3rd Nov 2019, 12:17 am   #3
dave walsh
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Default Re: MI6 WW2 military radio expert, now 93, awarded France's highest honour.

Thanks for the link David. Fascinating! The 17 year old who stumbled across a late night resistance training group here in Sussex [expected to survive only 2 weeks in case of invasion] was told he had to join or else
I wondered why Mr Pidgeon went back to plumbing at first, given his obvious advanced technical
ability... but perhaps he'd had enough by then
Bernard Lovell just wanted to play cricket at first!

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Old 3rd Nov 2019, 2:42 am   #4
m0cemdave
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Default Re: MI6 WW2 military radio expert, now 93, awarded France's highest honour.

Here's a picture of Geoffrey (on the right, with David White G3ZPA on left) on June 6th this year.

The radio equipment on the table was part of GB1SOE, set up on the site of the original secret radio station at Whaddon that provided wireless links to the continent in WW2.
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Old 3rd Nov 2019, 10:46 am   #5
lesmw0sec
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Default Re: MI6 WW2 military radio expert, now 93, awarded France's highest honour.

I recommend the book, also Geoffrey still sends out SIS newsletters, which can be an interesting read.
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