Major-General Denis Redman, founder member of REME

[Lardrover]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/military-obituaries/army-obituaries/6005922/Major-General-Denis-Redman.html

 

From 1960 to 1963, Redman was Director of Electrical and Mechanical Engineering at the War Office. During this period he played a notable part in solving the many complex problems arising from the transformation of a National Service-dominated organisation to an all-regular Corps. A highly effective staff officer and well-regarded by his colleagues, he foresaw the increasing importance of electronics in military equipment and the need for REME to prepare for this new development. He also established the Officers' School, founded the museum and set up the Corps' journal. Denis Arthur Kay Redman was born on April 8 1910 at Rochester, Kent, and educated at Wellington and at London University (City and Guilds Engineering College), where he gained a first-class degree in Electrical Engineering.

 

He joined the Midland Electric Light and Power Company but did not enjoy the life and, in 1934, he was commissioned into the Royal Army Ordnance Corps. He transferred to the REME on its formation in 1942. Redman was in the Middle East from 1936 to 1943. He commanded a Light Aid Detachment (LAD) in Palestine in support of 6 Royal Tank Corps and was mentioned in despatches. Command of the LAD of 3 Royal Horse Artillery, and then a move to the Recovery Company of the 7th Armoured Division, gave him a wide experience of operating in desert conditions. An appointment as DAQMG at GHQ Middle East Land Forces was followed by attendance at Staff College, Haifa. Promoted to lieutenant-colonel, he was then engaged in planning the formation of REME in the Middle East and its transfer to a new Corps in 1942. He was again mentioned in despatches.

 

After a spell at the War Office as AQMG and another posting to REME, he attended the Joint Services Staff College and then moved to the REME Training Centre, Arborfield, as GSO1. He spent two years with 1 (BR) Corps in BAOR as deputy director electrical and mechanical engineering before taking up the same appointment for the whole Corps at the War Office. In 1957 Redman became Commandant of the REME training centre. He attended the Imperial Defence College (later the Royal College of Defence Studies) in 1959, the first REME officer to do so. After retiring from the Army in 1963 he was military adviser to Sperry Gyroscope and then served as chairman of civil service selection boards and as a general commissioner of income tax. Settled in a village in Wiltshire, he had a well-equipped workshop and manufactured a television set and a radio-controlled boat to his own design. He was a connoisseur of antique clocks, restoring and repairing them as a hobby. Redman was Colonel Commandant of the Corps from 1963 to 1968. He was appointed OBE in 1942 and CB in 1963.

 

Denis Redman died on July 18. He married, in 1943, Penelope Kay. She predeceased him, and he is survived by their son and daughter.