Reginald Booth Stockdale

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Major-General Reginald Booth Stockdale CB CMG OBE FIMechE (12 January 1908 – 12 April 1979) was a senior British Army officer who served as Colonel Commandant of the Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers (REME) from 1963 to 1968. After leaving the Army in 1963, he was Inspector of the Arms Control Agency for the Western European Union in Paris until 1974.

Stockdale was born in Port Louis, Mauritius, the son of Reginald Hind Stockdale. He was educated by Loretto nuns in Mauritius and at Bedford Modern School. He began his military career in 1931 as a lieutenant in the Royal Army Ordnance Corps. In World War II he served with the British Expeditionary Force (1939–40) and then at home (1940–42). He transferred to the Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers as a major in 1942. He served in East Africa from 1946 to 1948, where he was promoted to lieutenant-colonel, and became a full colonel in 1951.

Stockdale held several key posts: with the British Army of the Rhine (1952–1953), deputy director of mechanical engineering in Southern Command (1953–1956), and DEME, BAOR (1956–1959). He was promoted to brigadier in 1958 and to major-general in 1960. From 1960 to 1963 he was Commandant of the REME Technical Group, and he served as REME’s colonel commandant from 1963 until 1968.

Awards and later life: He was made an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in 1945, a Companion of the Order of the Bath (CB) in 1963, and a Companion of the Order of St Michael and St George (CMG) in 1975. He spoke fluent French, a skill learned in Mauritius, and enjoyed rugby (later refereeing), gardening, meteorology, and sundials. He was known as “Stockie” to colleagues and “Rex” to his family, and he never used his given names Reginald Booth Stockdale. A portrait of him is in the National Portrait Gallery. He married Betty Celia Tucker on 20 June 1940, and they had two sons and a daughter. In 2010, Betty Stockdale’s World War II letters were published as Letters from the Home Front.