Date of birth:

November 20th, 1906 (Washington/Durham, Great Britain)

Date of death:

1986 (Ipswich/Suffolk, Great Britain)

Service number:

C/MX.46405

Nationality:

British

Thomas Roddam was born at Washington, Durham on 20th November, 1906 and initially worked as a clerk at Washington Colliery.
He joined the Royal Navy as a Writer and worked his way up the ranks to Chief Petty Officer (Writer). During WW2 he was attached to the Meditteranean Fleet and was stationed at Alexandria, Egypt. Upon his retirement from the Royal Navy after 22 years service Thomas worked as an instructor at the Royal School near Ipswich, Suffolk (a boarding school for the sons of naval personnel) where remained until reaching retirement age.
Thomas died at Ipswich, Suffolk in 1986, aged 79.

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Period:

Second World War (1939-1945)

Rank:

Chief Petty Officer Writer

Awarded on:

June 2nd, 1943

By early 1943 Alexandria, the Fleets HQ, was in danger of being lost to German troops and was evacuated. Shipping and the majority of manpower were relocated to Malta, but Thomas Roddam was designated to remain at Alexandria with his staff in order to oversee the disposal of documentation etc. relating to the fleet in order that these sensitive documents would not fall into German hands.

Instead of simply destroying the most important documents Thomas encoded them with a code which only he knew and retained in his memory so that no one else could supply this code to the Germans under interrogation.
The eventuality was that Alexandria did not fall and the fleet returned by the springtime of 1943, whereupon Thomas was able to reproduce the encoded documents intact.

He was awarded the BEM (Military Division) for "zeal and wholehearted devotion to duty".


Military Division.

• Photo 1: Ian Chadwick
• - Birth Record, Vol 10a pp 625, 1st Quarter, 1907
  - Death Record, Vol 10 pp 2493, June, 1986
  - Citation for award of BEM dated June, 1943
  - Personal account of his wife, Mrs Anne Roddam (nee Chadwick)
  - Supplement to The London Gazette of 28th May 1943, Issue 36033, dated 2nd June 1943