William Richard (Dick) Chambers was born in Stamford, Lincolnshire, on 13th August 1921. He was educated at Stamford School where he excelled at sport, particularly boxing and rugby.

He joined the local Home Guard at the beginning of the war and then the Army on leaving school at the age of 19 in 1940. He was selected for officer training and in 1941 obtained a wartime commission in the Lincolnshire Regiment.

He took part in the Normandy Landings in 1944, landing on Sword Beach with 2 LINCOLNS as Adjutant on D-Day. He was subsequently wounded during Operation Goodwood and evacuated from France.

After the war he decided to stay on in the Army and was granted a Regular Commission. In 1947, while serving in Kenya, he met Elizabeth (Betty) Dimoline, eldest daughter of Major General WA Dimoline who was GOC East Africa at the time and they were married on return to England.

Subsequent postings took him to Palestine, where he was mentioned in despatches, Egypt, Germany, Berlin and Malaya where he was seconded to 4th Battalion the Malay Regiment fighting the Communist Insurgency. He returned to England after Malayan Independence in 1957, attended the Staff College, Camberley, and then undertook a staff job in the War Office in London which he hated.

In 1963 he was selected to command the newly formed 1st Battalion, 2nd East Anglian Regiment ( Duchess of Gloucester’s Own Royal Lincolnshire and Northamptonshire) moving the Battalion from Osnabruck in Germany to Cyprus where it became the 2nd Battalion, The Royal Anglian Regiment. A very popular Commanding Officer he was well respected by officers and soldiers alike.

After command he was posted to Headquarters Wales in Brecon where he coordinated the military relief effort following the Aberfan Disaster in 1966. His final appointment was at SHAPE in Brussels.

He retired from the Army in 1971, taking up residence with the family near Alton in Hampshire before moving to Alresford in 1981. A talented self-taught carpenter he spent much of his early retirement in the garden shed turning out wooden animals and furniture which he sold to supplement his pension. He was a Trustee of the Royal Lincolnshire Regiment Officers Association and for 11 years worked as a volunteer for SSAFA. He cared for his wife Betty during her long and painful illness until her death in 2002. In the last years of his life he could be found on most days in his seat in the bar of the Bell Hotel in Alresford where he enjoyed meeting and having lunch with family and friends when they came to see him.

He died on the eve of his 90th birthday, at home, as he would have wished, without suffering and with his daughter Susie in the house with him. He also leaves a son, Mike, who followed him into The Regiment.