Stockton, Richard Sterling

Stockton was awarded the Légion d'Honneur (Chevalier degree) posthumously on November 11, 2011.

Richard Stockton died of wounds received while riding the same ambulance with August Rubel. When their vehicle struck a mine they were in enemy territory and Stockton was taken prisoner. He was taken to a German medical post but failed to respond to the operation.

__ AFS Letters No. 14

"On the night of 17/18 April," Captain Greenough wrote, "the BIMP took over a position from Force 'L.' Grima Johnson, Rubel, and the MO of the BIMPs went forward in daylight to visit the position, and Rubel returned to base to bring back the medical supplies and the orderlies after dark. They were to start at 8 P.M. At the last moment, Lt. Stockton decided to accompany them. They set out---Lt. Stockton, Rubel, and the three orderlies---and were never seen again alive. They had taken a wrong turn, gone behind the enemy's lines, and were blown up on a mine. . . . Rubel and Stockton were at least 4 miles off their course when the car was blown up. How this occurred is still a mystery, but from my own experience I know that it is entirely possible."

There was hope for a while that they had only got lost and been captured, as enemy patrols were known to be operating in the area, and the full story was not pieced together until the end of the campaign. August Alexander Rubel, who had enlisted in SSU 631 in World War I, was killed by the explosion and was buried by the Germans beside the wrecked ambulance. The sole survivor of the accident, one of the BIMP orderlies, later reported that Lt. Richard Sterling Stockton had been taken to a German dressing station near by, where he died on the operating table.

__ George Rock. Chapter 5. "Middle East 3. El Alamein to Tunis (October 1942 to May 1943)" History of the American Field Service, 1920-1955. New York 1956.

You will have heard, too, of the death of Lieut. Stockton, who with T.R. drove into a mine field. T. was badly wounded and a prisoner. They were all friends; and that is what war means. But I think each one of us did a job, a job we asked to do, a job we wanted to do, a job badly needed, and none of us would refuse to volunteer again.

__ AFS Letters No. 15

PHILA. MAY 26, 1943

RICHARD STOCKTON DIES OF WOUNDS
Ambulance Unit Leader in Africa was Bryn Mawr Resident

Lieutenant Richard Stockton, Philadelphia book dealer and World War veteran, has died of wounds received in North Africa, where he was serving with the American Field Service as an ambulance unit leader, it has been learned here by his wife, Mrs. Cynthia Starr Stockton, of 821 Lancaster av., Bryn Mawr.

Mrs. Stockton, who was informed on May 7 that her husband had been captured near Enfidaville, received a telegram yesterday from Stephen Galatti, director general of the American Field Service, in New York, in which he said that Lieutenant Stockton had been wounded when captured and did not survive an operation.

Mrs. Stockton's last word from her husband had been a letter received on April 27. He enlisted and sailed from this country in September, 1942, serving first in Syria and then with both the French Foreign Legion and the British Eighth Army.

A native of Merchantville, N. J., he served as a sergeant with the 112th Field Artillery in France in the World War.

__ Newspaper clipping in "A Mother's Scrapbook: John Newlin Hobbs and the American Field Service, 1942-1945."