Educated at Epsom College, Pendred joined the Royal Naval Air Service in 1917 towards the end of the First World War and served as a pilot with No.
[1] He continued his war service as Chief Intelligence Officer at Headquarters RAF Bomber Command from 1941, as Director of Intelligence at the Air Ministry from 1942 and as Chief Intelligence Officer at Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Air Force from 1944.
[1] He spent the closing years of the war as Assistant Commandant at the RAF Staff College, Bulstrode Park and then as Air Officer Commanding No.
[1] After the war Pendred was appointed Director of Intelligence to Supreme Commander, South East Asia and then, from 1947, Assistant Chief of the Air Staff (Intelligence).
[1] Under Pendred the standard training sequence for new pilots was the Provost and then the Vampire aircraft types.