Robert Richardson (officer)

Sir Robert Francis Richardson KCB CVO CBE (born March 2, 1929 in Leith , Scotland , † November 21, 2014 in Haddington , Scotland) was a British officer and Lieutenant General of the Army .

From 1978 to 1980 he was the 17th Commander of the British Sector of Berlin and thus one of the Allied City Commanders and from 1982 to 1985 Commanding General of the British Armed Forces in Northern Ireland .

Beginning of the military career

Robert Richardson grew up in Edinburgh, Scotland and was a student at George Heriot's School before joining the British Army and studying at the Sandhurst Military Academy .

On December 16, 1949, he was a young second lieutenant in the 1st Battalion of the Royal Scots . Exactly two years later he was promoted to lieutenant and served from 1950 to 1953 in the last phase of the Korean War before he was transferred to the Middle East with his battalion and finally appointed captain in 1955 .

From 1956 he was in action on the Suez Canal and then, from 1958, in the British Army of the Rhine in Germany .

From 1960 to 1961 he studied at Defense Services Staff College in India before taking on a position in the UK Ministry of Defense .

Queen Elizabeth II honored Richardson in 1965 by accepting him as a member of the Order of the British Empire , and two years later he was promoted to major .

With the worsening of the Yemen crisis in 1967, Richardson was finally deployed to southern Arabia and fought with his unit against the National Liberation Front , which ultimately led to the withdrawal of the British.

In 1968 Richardson was promoted to Lieutenant Colonel and a year later, until 1971, was used as brigade commander with the Royal Scots in Northern Ireland . In the same year he moved to Staff College Camberley as Chief of Staff and was also awarded the title of Officer of the Order of the British Empire.

Already in 1972 he was appointed Colonel and finally in 1973 Brigadier . In the same year he was promoted to Commander of the Order of the British Empire.

In 1974, Richardson became the commander of the 39th Infantry Brigade in Northern Ireland and was also temporarily employed as a personnel manager in the Army of the Rhine.

In 1975 he was appointed Deputy Adjutant General of the British Army of the Rhine. On the occasion of Queen Elizabeth II's silver jubilee, Robert Richardson was responsible for the preparations for the celebrations in 1977.

City Commander in Berlin

As the successor to Roy Redgrave , Robert Richardson, meanwhile promoted to major general, was appointed Commander of the British Sector of Berlin on January 24, 1978. He was thus one of the allied city commanders and formed with the Americans Joseph McDonough and Calvert Benedict (from June 1978) and the French Bernard d'Astorg, the highest authority of the western allies in Berlin. He was thus a member of the Allied Command , which was subordinate to the Allied Control Council .

Richardson was the first British city commander, after the Second World War soldier was.

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 his predecessors, Richardson, 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 command of the British armed forces in the four-sector city .

With the move to Berlin Richardson moved with his family in the Berlin district Gatow located Villa Lemm . Members of the British royal family also resided on the property, which was guarded by members of the German Service Unit (Berlin) , a German company and guard police of the British armed forces 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 .

During the term of office of Richardson, Queen Elizabeth II made a state visit in May 1978, whose birthday parade he prepared responsibly and which was finally accepted by the monarch personally on the May field. Thus Richardson was one of only three British city commanders ( David Peel Yates 1965, Patrick Brooking 1987) who were allowed to receive the Queen personally in Berlin. She then distinguished him as Commander of the Royal Victorian Order .

In July 1978 he was one of the companions of US President Jimmy Carter , who was in Germany on the occasion of the world economic summit and also visited Berlin.

Robert Richardson was recalled from Berlin on September 15, 1980 and replaced by his successor David Mostyn .

Last commands

In December 1980, Richardson was named vice adjutant general in the Department of Defense and promoted to lieutenant general on June 1, 1982. In the same year Elizabeth II paid tribute to the overall performance of the officer and raised him to the rank of personal nobility as Knight Commander of the Order of the Bath , whereupon he added the name "Sir".

His last command was in 1982 as Commanding General of the British Forces in Northern Ireland.

In 1985, Robert Richardson finally retired .

social commitment

Honorary positions

Robert Richardson has been an active contributor to the Royal Scots Regimental Museum all his life , and from August 31, 1980 to August 31, 1990, he was Colonel of Honor of the Royal Scots.

In addition, he was from March 1, 1992 to March 1, 1995 Lieutenant of the Tower , which corresponds to the position of head of administration of the Tower of London .

Roll of honor

A lifelong dream came true for Richardson in May 2014, just a few months before his death, when he was able to inaugurate a plaque of honor for 220 Royal Scots soldiers who were killed in a serious train accident in Edinburgh in 1915 .

Charity and sports

Richardson was an active fundraiser for the MacRobert Trust , a Scottish charity, for ten years, raising annual collections of one million pounds , particularly for children's projects.

He was also a member of the Honorable Company of Edinburgh Golfers and thus hosted international competitions . His children also played golf actively .

The former manager of the Scottish national team Guy Richardson is a son of the ex-lieutenant general.

Last parade

In 2006, Richardson took the Royal Scots' final parade before they merged with other Scottish cavalry regiments.

Private

Robert Richardson was born in Leith, Scotland as the son of the wine merchant Robert Buchan Richardson. Since 1956 he was married to Maureen Robinson, who died in 1986, in his first marriage . In 1988 he married his second wife Alexandra.

Richardson had two birth children from his first marriage and two stepchildren from his second marriage. He was also a grandfather ten times.

As a student he was already considered a sports enthusiast and was the captain of a rugby team at the academy. After retiring, he turned to golf.

Robert Richardson, of friends and comrades appreciatively "Big Bob" or "General Bob" was called, died in November 2014 in his home town of Haddington at the age of 85 years and was on 22 January 2015, the church Canongate Kirk in Edinburgh with a great funeral service honored.

His numerous medals and awards are on display at the Royal Scots Regimental Museum in Edinburgh.

literature

• Robert Corbett: Berlin and the British Ally 1945-1990 . 1991.
• Volker Koop: Occupied - British occupation policy in Germany . be-bra-Verlag, 2007, ISBN 978-3-89809-076-6 .
• Carsten Schanz: A gentleman walks with Big Bob . In: GUARD REPORT . December 2014, 4th year. Berlin, S. 1-6 .

Web links

• The British City Commanders on the GSU History website

Individual evidence

1. ^ Lt.-Gen. Sir Robert F. Richardson. In: INDEPENDENT. January 20, 2015, accessed February 22, 2018 .