Edward Joseph Todhunter

Brigadier Edward Joseph Todhunter TD, DL, (1900–1976) was a British soldier and High Sheriff of Essex.

Ted Todhunter was born on his family's estate of Kingsmoor House and Stewards farm in Great Parndon, Essex. 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, rising to Lieutenant-Colonel.

During World War II he served as a Brigadier with the Royal Horse Artillery and was captured along with General Gambier-Parry by Italian forces at Mechili in Cyrenaica, North Africa in April 1941. He was initially taken to the same barracks as Major-General Sir Adrian Carton de Wiart, VC in Tripoli after which he was taken by ship to Naples and then on to the Villa Orsini near Sulmona. There he helped in the garden and ‘collected news from Italian newspapers, making a resume of them in English which he managed brilliantly’.

He was transferred in April 1942 to Castello di Vincigliata (PG12), which 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 Daniel Knox, 6th Earl of Ranfurly, known as 'Dan' Ranfurly. He took on the role of camp librarian, which by the Spring of 1943 numbered nearly one thousand books. He was part of the tunnelling group that worked in shifts for over six months. The escape was successful - six officers escaped of which two managed to make Switzerland, New Zealanders Brigadiers James Hargest and Reginald Miles.

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