Daphne Pearson, GC

Afternoon all,

Trying to find the London Gazette citation for Joan Daphne Mary Pearson (as part of an article on her I'm writing), won the EGM originally which was exchanged for the George Cross, of which she was the first female recipient. I know the action took place on May 31 1940, and that she was a WAAF Corporal, but can't access the LG Archives, getting some ArchiveDownload.asp file download every time I try to look at a page.

I have got hold of her biography from my local library though, which is a start.

Thanks

 

The London Gazette reference is Page 4434 of 1940, published 19 Jul 1940 (which is also referenced as Page 6 of issue 34900). The text reads:

CENTRAL CHANCERY OF THE ORDERS

OF KNIGHTHOOD.​

St. James's Palace, S.W.I.
19th July 1940.

The KING has been graciously pleased to
approve the following Awards:—


The Medal of the Military Division of the Most
Excellent Order of the British Empire, for
Gallantry:—

880538 Corporal (now Assistant Section Officer)
Joan Daphne Mary Pearson, Women's
Auxiliary Air Force.
On the 31st May, 1940, at 0100 hours an
aircraft crashed near the Women's Auxiliary
Air Force quarters, the pilot being seriously
injured, another officer killed outright and
two airmen slightly injured. Upon hearing
the crash Corporal Pearson rushed out
to it and, although the aircraft was burning
and she knew that there were bombs aboard,
she stood on the wreckage, roused the pilot,
who was stunned, and assisted him in getting
clear, releasing his parachute harness in
doing so. When he was on the ground
about 30 yards away, a 120 lb bomb went
off. Corporal Pearson at once threw herself
on top of the pilot to protect him from blast
and splinters. Her prompt and courageous
action undoubtedly helped to save the pilot's
life.


​

You should be able to view the page here


If that fails, let me have your e-mail address and I'll send the page to you.

If you are intending to quote the citation in an article, you'd be best to double-check that the above text is exactly what appears on the page. This is because the OCR software that is used to "translate" the scanned page into the editable text above doesn't give 100% accuracy.

Forrest

 

Thanks muchly, that page loads for me though the ones I previously searched on two different computers didnt.

Time to get started then