Sir Rex Masterman Hunt, (29 June 1926 – 11 November 2012) was a British Government diplomat and colonial administrator. He was Governor, Commander-in-Chief, and Vice Admiral of the Falkland Islands (and concurrently High Commissioner of the British Antarctic Territory) between 1980 and September 1985. He became a household name in the United Kingdom during the Falklands War, after the Argentine invasion of the islands in 1982, when he was taken prisoner and temporarily removed from his position. Early life Rex Hunt was born in Redcar in the North Riding of Yorkshire, son of Henry William Hunt (1893–1982), a commercial clerk, and Ivy (−1959), née Masterman. He received his formal education at Redcar's Coatham School, and at St Peter's College, Oxford, where he read Law. During World War II he joined the Royal Air Force as a cadet in 1941, and was enlisted as an airman in 1944, receiving a commission as a pilot in 1945. He was promoted to flying officer (war substantive) in June 1946, with the permanent promotion to that rank in December the same year. In August 1946, he was transferred to No 5 Squadron in India, where he flew Spitfires, before transferring to West Germany with No 26 Squadron in August 1947. He left active service in September 1948, and held the rank of flight lieutenant in the Royal Air Force reserves in September 1950, relinquishing his commission in December 1953. Hunt married Mavis Amanda, daughter of George Albert Buckland, of Chingford, Essex. They had two children; Antony and Diana. Diplomatic career In 1952 he joined the Colonial and Diplomatic Service of the British Government's Foreign Office. and received his first foreign posting as District Commissioner in Uganda in 1962. He then served as First Secretary in Kuching, Sarawak, 1964–65, and Jesselton, Sabah 1965–67, both in the newly independent Malaysia, and then in Brunei 1967. In 1968 he was transferred to Ankara in Turkey, but was back in Asia with the appointment as Head of Chancery in Jakarta, Indonesia, 1970–72. After a brief spell back in England, he was appointed Consul-General at the British Embassy in Saigon in January 1974, and was there at the time of the fall of South Vietnam in 1975 at the end of the Vietnam War. He was transferred to Kuala Lumpur in 1976, and served as Deputy High Commissioner to Malaysia 1977–79. Falklands governorship On 14 January 1980, as a