Lieutenant-Colonel Geoffrey Pine-Coffin
3rd Parachute Battalion,
7th (Yorkshire) Parachute Battalion

Lieutenant-Colonel Pine Coffin, he was—and I’m not saying this because I’m being taped—he was the finest officer that any man can wish for … He was for the men. He wasn’t one of those ‘oh because I’m an officer, I’m above you’ … He never degraded you.

(Walter Tanner, IWM interview, 31 Jul 1990)

Born on 2 December 1908 in Portledge Manor, Bideford, Devon, Richard Geoffrey Pine-Coffin graduated from Eton and Trinity College, Cambridge. He was commissioned into the Devonshire Regiment in 1928 and mobilized with the 2nd Battalion, Duke of Cornwall’s Light Infantry. He served in the Battle of France and after Dunkirk joined the 11th Devons as a major.  His compound family name led soldiers to dub him “Wooden Box” as the dead were typically buried in simple coffins made of pinewood.

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