This memorial is part of the base that surrounds the Commando Memorial at the National Memorial Arboretum, Alrewas, Staffordshire
Captain 131676, Patrick Laurence DUDGEON Royal Corps of Signals, 2nd Special Air Service Regiment, Army Air Corps with 62, Cammando, He was captured on the 2nd and executed at Passo Della Cisa Italy on the 3rd October 1943 aged 23. Born at Cairo, Egypt to Lt.-Col. Christopher Robson Dudgeon, O.B.E., M.C., and of Alice Mary Dudgeon (nee Pumphrey), of Headley, Hampshire. Holder of the Military Cross and is Mentioned in Despatches. He was educated Oundle School 1934-38. Buried at Florence War Cemetery, Italy.
He was involved Operation Speedwell which was an early Special Air Service raid against Italian rail targets near Genoa. The fourteen-man group split into a number of smaller units to destroy track and ambush trains
Credit Old Oudelian School for Photograph and below
PATRICK LAURENCE DUDGEON, Captain, Royal Corps of Signals. Elder son of Lt. Col. C. R. Dudgeon, O.B.E., M.C., and Mrs. Dudgeon, of Beech Hill House, Headley, Hampshire. He entered [St. Anthony House in 1934 with a Scholarship. He was Head of the House, leaving in 1938 to enter Woolwich. Commissioned in the Royal Signals
in 1939, he volunteered for Commandos, and later Special Air Service, raiding in enemy-held territories. In September, 1943, he commanded a party dropped into Northern Italy, successfully achieving an important mission. With one companion he then
ambushed a German amphibian, hoping to reach a further objective. Finally captured near Parma, although in uniform, they were shot next morning on Hitler's orders. He was awarded the M.C., and in 1945 he received a posthumous Mention in Despatches.
https://paradata.org.uk/events/operation-speedwell-italy
