Admiral Sir Reginald Henry Portal (6 September 1894 – 18 June 1983) was a

Royal Navy The Royal Navy (RN) is the United Kingdom's naval warfare force. Although warships were used by Kingdom of England, English and Kingdom of Scotland, Scottish kings from the early medieval period, the first major maritime engagements were foug ...

officer and naval aviation pioneer who served in both world wars.

Biography

Born near Hungerford, Berkshire, Reginald Portal was the second son of Edward Robert Portal, JP, DL, a country gentleman. His elder brother was

Charles Frederick Algernon Portal Marshal of the Royal Air Force Charles Frederick Algernon Portal, 1st Viscount Portal of Hungerford, (21 May 1893 – 22 April 1971) was a senior Royal Air Force officer. He served as a bomber pilot in the First World War, and rose to become ...

, later

Marshal of the Royal Air Force Marshal of the Royal Air Force (MRAF) is the highest rank in the Royal Air Force (RAF). In peacetime it was granted to RAF officers in the appointment of Chief of the Defence Staff (CDS), and to retired Chiefs of the Air Staff (CAS), who were ...

the Viscount Portal of Hungerford. The family was Huguenot in origin and Reginald Portal was related to the goldsmith and dramatist Abraham Portal, and more distantly so to Wyndham Portal, 1st Viscount Portal. Portal joined the

in 1907 and served in the battleship HMS ''Neptune'' before the

First World War World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fig ...

. As an air observer, he received the Distinguished Service Cross during the war for conspicuous bravery in combat over the

Dardanelles The Dardanelles (; tr, Çanakkale Boğazı, lit=Strait of Çanakkale, el, Δαρδανέλλια, translit=Dardanéllia), also known as the Strait of Gallipoli from the Gallipoli peninsula or from Classical Antiquity as the Hellespont (; ...

, when he was wounded.{{Cite news , date=1 June 1916 , title=Naval Honours for the Dardanelles , pages=11 , work=

The Daily Telegraph ''The Daily Telegraph'', known online and elsewhere as ''The Telegraph'', is a national British daily broadsheet newspaper published in London by Telegraph Media Group and distributed across the United Kingdom and internationally. It was f ...

He was assigned to the seaplane carrier HMS ''Ark Royal'' as an observer, before returning to general service on the battleship HMS ''Colossus''.

References

1894 births 1983 deaths Royal Navy admirals Royal Navy admirals of World War II Royal Navy officers of World War I Knights Commander of the Order of the Bath Recipients of the Distinguished Service Cross (United Kingdom) Royal Naval Air Service personnel of World War I Military personnel from Berkshire