Otway Herbert
Sir Edwin Otway Herbert KBE CB DSO (born November 19, 1901 in Englewood / New Jersey , USA ; † April 4, 1984 in Glyndwr / Clwyd , Wales ) was a British officer and lieutenant general in the Army . From 1947 to 1949 he was the third in command of the British Sector of Berlin and thus one of the Allied city commanders .
Early years
Otway Herbert grew up in England and graduated from Falstead Grammar School in Essex before moving to the Royal Military Academy in Woolwich near London and then to the Royal Military College in Sandhurst .
In 1921 he began his military career as a lieutenant in the Royal Artillery of the British Army.
Between 1928 and 1935 he was used with the British troops in Egypt . On his return to Great Britain he was employed as chief of staff in an air defense unit.
Because of his merits he was already highly decorated at this point and also received the US Legion of Merit .
After the outbreak of World War II , he took on the post of Deputy Adjutant in the same unit in 1939 and then moved to the British Expeditionary Force (BEF), for which he took part in missions in France and Belgium .
On March 1, 1942, he became the commanding officer of the 6th Battalion of the Shropshire Light Infantry , an infantry regiment of the British Army . His task was to organizationally transform the regiment into the new 181st Field Regiment of the Royal Artillery, which became part of the well-known North Africa troop.
In August 1942 Herbert moved to the 132nd Welsh Field Regiment of the Royal Artillery and commanded the Tunisian campaign as commanding officer . A year later he was transferred to the 21st Army Group in England and finally used in north-western Europe .
After the Second World War he took command of the 5th Division of the Royal Artillery. During the same period, he was promoted to major general.
City Commander in Berlin
As the successor to the late Eric Nares , he took over the post of Commander of the British Sector of Berlin on August 14, 1947. He was thus next to the Americans Cornelius Ryan, William Hesketh (from September 1947) and Frank L. Howley (from December 1947), the Soviet Alexander Kotikow and the French Jean Ganeval, one of the allied city commanders, who as a body the Allied Command and at the same time formed the highest authority for West Berlin .
Was Herbert after his predecessor Nares the second British city commander, in the Berlin district Gatow located Villa Lemm moved as a residence.
During his tenure, his friend Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery visited in 1948 and the Soviet city commandant withdrew from the Allied command in June 1948.
On January 23, 1949 Herbert was recalled from Berlin and replaced as city commander by Geoffrey Kemp Bourne .
Last commands
Otway Herbert was in January 1949 as a department head at the time still independent and with the later War Department comparable War Office transferred and assumed in 1952 the post of Commanding General in West Africa .
Because of his extraordinary services, Queen Elizabeth II proposed him in 1955 to Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire and thus elevated him to the nobility .
1956 Herbert was promoted to lieutenant general and entrusted with the command of the Royal Artillery, before the 1960 retirement came.
Private
Otway Herbert was born in the United States to Gustavus Otway Herbert and Alice McLanaghan and was married to his wife Muriel Irlam Barlow since November 19, 1925. The daughter Elizabeth Ann Herbert (1927-2005) was born from the marriage.
He had both British and US citizenship and had lived on the island of Anglesey on the north-west coast of Wales since 1976 .
Even as a high-ranking officer, Herbert basically only used his middle name as his first name in order not to be confused with the lawyer of the same name and member of the House of Lords , Edwin Herbert .
Otway Herbert died on April 4, 1984 at the age of 82.
Awards
- Legion of Merit
- Companion of the Order of the Bath
- Order of Orange-Nassau
- Distinguished Service Order
- Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire
literature
- Robert Corbett: Berlin and the British Ally 1945-1990 . 1991.
- Richard Mead: The Men behind Monty . Pen & Sword Books Ltd, 2015, ISBN 978-1-4738-2716-5 .
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Kameradschaft 248 German Security Unit e. V. (Ed.): Http://www.248gsu.de/index.php/geschichte/kommandeure/kommandanten .
Lewis Lyne (1945) | Eric Nares (1945-1947) | Otway Herbert (1947–1949) | GK Bourne (1949-1951) | Charles Coleman (1951-1954) | William Oliver (1954–1955) | Robert Cottrell-Hill (1955-1956) | Francis Rome (1956-1959) | Rohan Delacombe (1959-1962) | Claude Dunbar (1962) | David Peel Yates (1962-1966) | John Nelson (1966-1968) | James Bowes-Lyon (1968–1970) | Alan Cathcart (1970–1973) | David Scott-Barrett (1973-1975) | Roy Redgrave (1975-1978) | Robert Richardson (1978-1980) | David Mostyn (1980-1983) | Bernard Gordon Lennox (1983-1985) | Patrick Brooking (1985-1989) | Robert Corbett (1989–1990)
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Herbert, Otway |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Herbert, Sir Edwin Otway (full name) |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | British Army Officer and Lieutenant General |
| DATE OF BIRTH | November 19, 1901 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Englewood , New Jersey , USA |
| DATE OF DEATH | April 4th 1984 |
| Place of death | Glyndwr, Clwyd , Wales |