Francis Rome

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Francis David Rome CB CMG CBE DSO ( September 11, 1905 , † 1985 ) was a British officer and major general of the Army . From 1956 to 1959 he was the eighth in command of the British Sector of Berlin and thus one of the Allied city ​​commanders .

Military career

Francis Rome entered the military in 1925 and two years later became a member of the Royal Fusiliers .

During the Second World War he was commanding officer of the 111th Infantry Brigade stationed in India . After the war, from 1947, he became the commander of the 3rd Paratrooper Brigade in Palestine before moving to a military academy as deputy head .

From 1948 he took over the post of Commander of the Royal Military Police in the British Army Group East before becoming Deputy Adjutant General of the Army in 1950 . Three years later, meanwhile promoted to major general, he was employed as a general staff officer in the 16th Airborne Division .

City Commander in Berlin

As the successor to Robert Cottrell-Hill , Rome became the new commander of the British sector of Berlin on March 26, 1956, and thus one of the Allied city commanders. Together with the Americans Charles Dasher and Barksdale Hamlett (from June 1957) and the French Amédée Gèze and Jean Lacomme (from October 1958), he formed the highest authority among the Western Allies in Berlin . He was thus a member of the Allied Command , which was subordinate to the Allied Control Council .

As city commander, he assumed one of the most important and outstanding posts that the British military had to fill outside of Great Britain. As such, he was on the one hand the military, but above all the "political leader" of his country and exercised a kind of representative status for Queen Elizabeth II , since Berlin was formally not part of the scope of the Federal Republic of Germany and Great Britain's ambassador residing in Bonn was not responsible.

Like its predecessors, Rome, as city commander, concentrated mainly on the political and diplomatic representation of his country and his duties as a member of the Allied Command, while the respective brigade commander took over the purely military leadership of the British armed forces in the four-sector city .

With the move to Berlin Rome moved with his wife in the Berlin district Gatow located Villa Lemm . The members of the British royal family also resided on the property during their stays in Berlin. The function of the host towards the royal family was fulfilled by a British city commander at least once a year when the Royal Birthday Parade ("Queens Birthday Parade") was to be accepted on the Berlin Maifeld at the Olympic Stadium .

After three years, on March 20, 1959, Rome was recalled and replaced by Rohan Delacombe as city commander.

The position of city commander was also the last command for Rome, who subsequently retired .

Private

Francis Rome was the son of Francis James Rome. He was married to his wife Sybill Parry Carden since September 15, 1936 and has received several awards.

For his former regiment , the Royal Fusiliers , he took over the post of honorary colonel from 1954 to 1963 .

Francis Rome died in 1985.

Awards

literature

  • Robert Corbett: Berlin and the British Ally 1945-1990 . 1991.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Royal Fusliers Colonel's. In: ROYAL FUSILIERS - City of London Regiment. Accessed March 5, 2018 .
  2. ↑ Maj. Gen. Francis D. Rome. In: THE PEERAGE. Accessed March 5, 2018 .
personal data
SURNAME Rome, Francis
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Rome, Francis David (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION British officer and Major General of the Army
DATE OF BIRTH September 11, 1905
DATE OF DEATH 1985