Donald Landells Locke was born in Kent on 13 May 1913. His parents were Donald Adam Locke & Greta Emilia Locke (née Goransson).
The 1921 Census shows Donald and his family (parents Donald and Greta Locke, sisters Monia and Dorris) and Donald’s widowed grandmother Dorothea Goransson at Penwylt, Dashwood Rd, Gravesend. His father is listed as a Marine Engineer with the Orient Line (later to become part of the P&O group).
Donald left school in 1930 and worked in the test department for Research & Wireless Manufacturers in Sidcup.
The 1939 Register shows Donald was living with Edward and Phyllis Mapleton, and their son Peter, at 184 Longlands Road, Sidcup, Kent. His occupation then was listed as a Radio Engineer.
Signalman Donald Locke is recorded as serving with the Royal Corps of Signals (service number 2597000) but he was actually assigned to 1 Special Communications Unit (1SCU), or MI6 Section VIII.
In the Second World War they were based at Whaddon Hall in North Buckinghamshire. The role of that unit included communications with overseas embassies, SOE agents and commanders in the field (see https://heritageportal.buckinghamshire.gov.uk/Monument/MBC43706). With their involvement with the dissemination of ULTRA and other signal intelligence information, they are considered to have been part of the Bletchley Park operation (Bletchley Park and the Government Code & Cipher School being about 3 miles to the east of Whaddon Hall).
1 SCU/MI6 Section VIII personnel were assigned to the Royal Corps of Signals, but their pay books were stamped ‘Not on Army pay’. MI6 Section VIII also had engineers based at Wavendon, working with the Political Warfare Executive (Sefton Delmer’s ‘black propaganda’ unit) which operated in the Woburn-Milton Bryan-Wavendon area, close to Bletchley Park and Whaddon Hall.
On the basis of his pre-war employment, 1SCU/MI6 Section VIII assignment and place of burial, it appears very likely that Donald Locke was assigned to the team involved with the recording studio based at Wavendon Tower (Geoffrey Pidgeon’s 'The Secret Wireless War – The Story of MI6 Communications 1939-1945').
The British Army Casualty List record states that Donald Landells Locke ‘Died Result of Accident’ on 08/10/1941, while attached to ‘1 Spec.Com.Unit’ (1 SCU - designation given to MI6 Section VIII). He was 28.
Donald Locke is buried in the churchyard at St Mary’s, Wavendon (Milton Keynes). He is one of five casualties (three from the First World War and two from the Second) commemorated there.
In 2021, Signalman Donald Landells Locke was added to the GCHQ/Bletchley Park Trust Roll of Honour on the basis that:
(1) His Army service number, 2597000, falls with a range reserved for MI6 Section VIII/1 SCU personnel
(2) The location of his grave in St Mary’s churchyard in the village of Wavendon, Milton Keynes, less than 4 miles from Bletchley Park and 7 from Whaddon Hall. Wavendon had been one of the Government Code & Cipher School (now GCHQ) Bombe outstations in the Second World War, but was then taken over by MI6 Section VIII.
Donald is also listed on the Gravesend Grammar School Commemorative Archive website.
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