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Lieutenant Gerald Frank TODD (240105)
B Squadron, 46th Regiment Reconnaissance Corps, Royal Armoured Corps Date of birth: 24th June 1911 Date of death: 8th March 1943 Killed in action aged 31 Buried at Oued Zarga War Cemetery in Tunisia Plot I Row F Grave 1
Gerald Frank Todd was born at Bromley in Kent on the 24th of June 1911 the only son of Frank Augustus Todd, a silk merchant, and Florence Marion (nee Body) Todd of 25 Garden Road, Bromley. He was educated at Lancing College where he was in Gibbs House from September 1922 to July 1928. Following the outbreak of war he enlisted in the Royal West Kent Regiment and was later commissioned as a 2nd Lieutenant in the Reconnaissance Corps on the 25th of July 1942. On the 10th of January 1943 the 46th Regiment Reconnaissance Corps sailed from Liverpool on board the liner “Duchess of Bedford” arriving in Algiers on the 17th where they became part of 1st Army in North Africa. In late January they moved up to the fighting line where they joined the 56th Regiment and by the 11th of February all three squadrons of the 46th were active along the front line. On the 26th of February they were attacked by the Germans, as part of their offensive "Operation Ochsenkopt", with B Squadron being heavily engaged at Hunts Gap where they suffered their first casualties of the war. On the 2nd of March B Squadron was again heavily engaged when they attacked a German held farm near the Mateur-Beja Road suffering further casualties. Over the next couple of days they were shelled, strafed by aircraft and fired upon by enemy troops. On the 8th of March 1943 one of B Squadron's carriers ran over a mine killing Gerald Todd, "a very promising young officer" and his driver, Trooper Albert Wallace Arthur King. He was mentioned in despatches.

Gibbs House