Robert Stannard (Royal Navy officer)

Robert Stannard
Allegiance	United Kingdom
Service/branch	Royal Navy
Rank	Captain
Commands held	HMS Defender
Battles/wars	Second World War
Awards	Commander of the Order of the British Empire Distinguished Service Cross

Captain Robert Frederick "Fred" Thomas Stannard CBE, DSC was a Royal Navy officer who served as director of the London Communications Security Agency in the late 1950s and throughout the 1960s.

Naval career

Stannard served in Second World War as signal communications officer to Flag Officer Fleet Train (a fleet of tankers, supply ships and repair ships) in the British Pacific Fleet and saw action in that capacity during the Battle of Okinawa in Spring 1945.^[1] He went on to become executive officer in the battleship HMS Vanguard after the war^[2] and commanding officer of the destroyer HMS Defender in 1953 before retiring from the Royal Navy in 1955.^[3]

In retirement Stannard became deputy director of the London Communications Security Agency in 1955 and director of the agency in 1957: he remained in post as the agency evolved into CESG and finally stood down when it formally merged with GCHQ in 1969.^[4] He was appointed a Commander of the Order of the British Empire on 8 June 1963.^[5]

References

1. Kent, p. 163
2. "A gift of the gab" (PDF). Naval Review. July 1994. p. 258. Retrieved 8 August 2015.
3. "Memories from the first commission of the earlier HMS Defender 1953-4" (PDF). Exeter Flotilla. Retrieved 8 August 2015.
4. "Captain Robert Stannard RN becomes Director of LCSA, taking over from Penney". Warwick University. Retrieved 8 August 2015.
5. The London Gazette: (Supplement) no. 43010. p. 4803. 10 June 1948. Retrieved 8 August 2015.

Sources

• Kent, Barrie (2004). Signal!: A History of Signalling in the Royal Navy. Permanent Publications. ISBN 978-1856230254.