Richard Gary Colbert - Arlington VA - Grave of a Famous Person on Waymarking.com

He is buried in Arlington National Cemetery in Section 30, Site 434-RH

Description: From Find A Grave-US Navy Admiral. He served as President of the Naval War College in Newport, Rhode Island from 1968 to 1971, and as commander in chief of all NATO forces in southern Europe from 1972 to 1973. Born in Brownsville, Pennsylvania, his father was president of the Pittsburgh Metallurgical Company. He attended Shady Side Academy in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, before being appointed to the US Naval Academy at Annapolis, Maryland in 1933. He graduated from the Naval Academy in June 1937 as one of the four midshipmen officers appointed to command a battalion of the Naval Academy regiment for that academic year. As an ensign, he served aboard the aircraft carrier USS Yorktown from its commissioning in September 1937, until 1939, when he was assigned to the destroyer USS Barker in the Asiatic Fleet, remaining there for the next five years, rising in rank from junior ensign to lieutenant commander and commanding officer. Following the US entry into World War II on December 7, 1941, he operated with the American-British-Dutch-Australian Command (ABDACOM) in Southeast Asian and Australian waters until May 1942, when he was assigned to escorted convoys between San Francisco, California, and Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. In May 1943 the USS Meade transferred to the Atlantic Fleet to join Task Group 21.12, a hunter-killer group centered on the escort carrier USS Core. In 1944 he assumed command of the USS Meade, operating with the Pacific Fleet. After the end of World War II, the USS Meade was sent on a relief sweep along Tonkin Gulf coastal areas to assist French forces in combating Chinese pirates off Haiphong. Promoted to the rank of commander, he returned to the US and spent the next two and a half years as personnel planning officer in the Bureau of Naval Personnel, Washington DC, where he helped plan the postwar naval reserve and served as a social aide in the White House. In June 1948 he was sent to London, England as aide and flag secretary to Admiral Richard L. Conolly, Commander in Chief, US Naval Forces, Eastern Atlantic and Mediterranean. A superb negotiator, Conolly left a deep impression on Colbert, whose later work on international naval cooperation would be founded on the lessons he learned by watching Conolly interact with allied naval leaders. When Conolly's tour ended in December 1950, Colbert briefly accompanied him to the admiral's new posting as president of the Naval War College in Newport, Rhode Island. He was then assigned to the Politico-Military Affairs Division in the Office of the Chief of Naval Operations, Washington DC, where he helped establish the naval commands in the newly created North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) alliance and quickly developed a reputation for familiarity with allied problems and ability to deal with foreign governments. In late 1951 he was selected to become the aide to Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Forrest P. Sherman, in the meantime assigning him for temporary duty as his special assistant during overseas trips. In July 1951 he accompanied Sherman to Spain to negotiate naval basing with General Francisco Franco. Shortly after the meeting, Sherman suddenly died of a heart attack. With no written record of Sherman's conversations with Franco, he stepped in to debrief the late admiral's negotiations to the Navy Department and other government agencies. From 1953 to 1955 he returned to sea duty as the executive officer of the heavy cruiser USS Albany, which served as flagship for Commander, Battleship-Cruiser Force, Atlantic, and was deployed to the Mediterranean Sea. In 1955 he was promoted to the rank of captain attended the Naval War College, remaining there an additional year for additional naval warfare training but was reassigned in the spring of 1956 to become the first director of a new Naval War College course for international naval officers. Date of birth: 02/12/1915 Date of death: 12/02/1973 Area of notoriety: Military Marker Type: Monument Setting: Outdoor Visiting Hours/Restrictions: None Fee required?: No Web site: [Web Link]

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Date Logged Log   10/10/2021 Don.Morfe visited it