Bertie Howard Penn
Colonel Bertie Howard Penn (1883-1956)
1956 Obituary [1]
Col. Bertie Howard Penn, D.S.O., O.B.E., Wh.Ex., served the major part of his professional career in the Regular Army. He was born in 1883, and acquired his technical education at the Imperial College of Science and Technology, South Kensington. He gained a Whitworth Exhibition in 1905. For four years he was an apprentice with J. F. Howard and Sons, Bedford, and was employed afterwards as an assistant in the test bay of W. H. Allen and Sons, Bedford.
In 1908 he joined the Army Ordnance Department as an Inspector of Ordnance Machinery, and for several years had charge of various Army Workshops.
During the 1914-18 war he served as a Major in forward Base Workshops and from 1919 to 1923 was an Inspector of Ordnance Machinery at Didcot, Berks., and also with the Royal Tank Corps at Wool, Dorset. He was then appointed an Ordnance Mechanical Engineer and subsequently filled various staff appointments at the War Office. In 1938 he was promoted to the temporary rank of Brigadier and became the Inspector of Army Ordnance Workshop Services.
He was awarded the D.S.O. and the O.B.E.
From 1939 to 1940 he was in India as a member of an official mission, and his subsequent duties in the Directorate of Military Training, War Office, were mainly concerned with the training of Army tradesmen and apprentices. In 1942 he transferred to the Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers. He retired from the Army in 1944 and was granted the honorary rank of Brigadier.
He was elected an Associate Member of the Institution in 1920, and was transferred to Member in 1923.
His death occurred on 28th April 1956.