 In 1941 he married Hazel Williams, daughter of Lt-Col. Stanley Price Williams, Indian Army, who was also an SOE officer.They had a son, Francis who was a Governor and Commander-in-Chief of Gibraltar and a director of GCHQ, and a daughter, the author Susan Richards.In 1939 he was commissioned into the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve on the outbreak of war and volunteered for the Royal Navy, commanding a minesweeper and then a motor torpedo boat flotilla.