Robert Stone (British Army officer)

Lieutenant General Robert Graham William Hawkins Stone CB, DSO, MC (16 January 1890 – 27 June 1974) was a senior British Army officer who became General Officer Commanding (GOC) British Troops in Egypt.

Robert Stone
Stone (left) with Prime Minister Winston Churchill and his daughter, December 1943.
Born(1890-01-16)16 January 1890
Died27 June 1974(1974-06-27) (aged 84)
AllegianceUnited Kingdom
Service/branchBritish Army
Years of service1902–1947
RankLieutenant general
UnitRoyal Engineers
Commands heldBritish Troops in Egypt
Battles/warsSecond Boer War
First World War
Second World War
AwardsCompanion of the Order of the Bath
Distinguished Service Order
Military Cross

Military career

As a child aged 12, Stone travelled to South Africa, enlisted in the District Mounted Troop, Aliwal North in early 1902, and fought as a private soldier in the Second Boer War.[1]

Subsequently educated at Wellington College, Stone was commissioned into the Royal Engineers in 1909.[2] He served in the First World War in France, latterly as brigade major for 32nd Infantry Brigade.[2] After attending the Staff College, Camberley in 1923 to 1924, he became a general staff officer at the War Office in 1930, Commander Royal Engineers for Deccan District in India in 1934 and military attaché in Rome in 1935.[2] He went on to be assistant commandant and chief of staff in Sudan in 1938.[2]

Stone also served in the Second World War, initially as chief of British Mission to the Egyptian Army and then, from 1942 as general officer commanding the British troops in Egypt.[3] In this capacity he had to maintain control during a coup d'état that resulted in Ahmad Pasha becoming Prime Minister of Egypt in 1944 as well as a subsequent mutinies within the Egyptian Army.[1]

He retired in 1947.[2]

References
  1. "Lieutenant General Robert Graham William Hawkins Stone" (PDF). British Military History. Retrieved 23 August 2014.
  2. "Stone, Robert Graham William Hawkins". Liddell Hart Centre for Military Archives. Retrieved 23 August 2014.
  3. "Army Commands" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 5 July 2015. Retrieved 23 August 2014.

Bibliography
  • Smart, Nick (2005). Biographical Dictionary of British Generals of the Second World War. Barnsley, U.K.: Pen & Sword Military. ISBN 1-84415-049-6.
Military offices
Preceded by
William Holmes		 GOC British Troops in Egypt
1942–1944		 Succeeded by
Sir Charles Allfrey
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