Valentine Boucher

Valentine Boucher
Born	14 February 1904
Died	1 April 1961 (1961-05) (aged 57)
Allegiance	United Kingdom
Service/branch	British Army
Rank	Major-General
Commands held	9th Bn The Buffs (Royal East Kent Regiment)
Battles/wars	Second World War
Awards	Companion of the Order of the Bath Commander of the Order of the British Empire

Major-General Valentine Boucher CB CBE (14 February 1904 – 1 April 1961) was a British Army officer who served as Director of Military Intelligence.

Military career

Boucher was commissioned into The Buffs (Royal East Kent Regiment). He served in the Second World War as commanding officer of the 9th Battalion The Buffs from May 1942 and Director of Movements at General Headquarters, India from January 1944.^[1]

After the War, he became Director of Personnel Movement at the War Office in 1946, Deputy Director of Military Intelligence at the War Office in 1948 and Commander of 24th Infantry Brigade in 1950.^[1] He went on to be Director of Military Intelligence in July 1953 in which role he sought to ban the publication of The London Cage, a book by Alexander Scotland, which included allegations of torture by British soldiers and which a War Office Security official at MI11 decided "would not show the War Office on a good light".^[2] His last appointment was as Commander of the British Army Staff at the British Joint Services Mission in Washington, D.C. in June 1956 before retiring in January 1958.^[3]

He also served as colonel of the Buffs from 4 June 1953.^[4] He was appointed a Commander of the Order of the British Empire on the 1946 New Year Honours^[5] and a Companion of the Order of the Bath in the 1954 Birthday Honours.^[6]

References

Sources

• Moran, Christopher (2013). Intelligence Studies in Britain and the US: Historiography Since 1945. Edinburgh University Press. ISBN 978-0748646272. 

Further reading

• Scotland, Alexander (1957). The London Cage. Evans Bros.