Richard John Vulliamy Battle was born on 21 January 1907 at 49 Harley Street, London Wl, the son of William Henry Battle, surgeon to St Thomas's Hospital, London, and Annie Marguerite Vulliamy, who was descended from a long line of clockmakers. He was educated at Highfield School, Liphook, Gresham's School, Holt, Trinity College, Cambridge, and St Thomas's Hospital Medical School. After qualification he was casualty officer and house surgeon at St Thomas's from 1932 to 1933, senior casualty officer from 1933 to 1934, surgical registrar from 1934 to 1937, and assistant in plastic surgery 1937 until the declaration of war. He joined the TA in 1935 and was mobilised as a surgical specialist in December 1939, becoming plastic surgeon to the BEF. He subsequently served in Sicily and Italy and commanded No 1 Maxillo-facial Unit. He was promoted lieutenant colonel, officer-in-charge surgical division, of 98 General Hospital in 1945. After the war he was appointed plastic surgeon at St Thomas's Hospital in 1946 and became a consultant at King Edward VII Hospital for Officers, and consultant to the Army from 1955 to 1971. He became plastic surgeon at Queen Elizabeth Hospital for Children and the Essex County Hospital, Colchester, and also chief plastic surgeon to the Ministry of Pensions Plastic Unit at Queen Mary's Hospital, Roehampton. Battle was twice President of the British Association of Plastic Surgeons (1952 and 1967) and served on the committee for 13 years receiving the Gillies Gold Medal of the Association in 1970. He was a founder member and Vice-President of the Section of Plastic Surgery of the Royal Society of Medicine. Dicky Battle's reputation was well recognised world-wide. He represented the UK at the foundation of the American Society of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery. He was a corresponding member of the French Association of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery; a founder and life-member of the Plastic Surgical Society of South Vietnam and British Representative on the Council of the Children's Medical Relief International in New York. He married Jessie Margaret King in 1941 and the second of their three sons became a hospital administrator. His extra-curricular activities were legion. He was an accomplished trumpet, French horn and other wind-instruments player and he ran a jazz band at Cambridge (to the despair of his father, it is rumoured). He was subsequently chairman of the United Hospitals Orchestra and he retained a life-long interest in instrumental and orchestral music. Dicky Battle died on 26 May 1982 at the age of 79.