Lieutenant Colonel Richard A. Flower, OBE MC

 

 

Lieutenant Colonel Richard A. Flower, OBE MC

 1926-1993

 Service Dress Cap, c. 1943

 

 Flower joined The London Rifle Brigade of the Territorial Army in 1938 and received an emergency commission to The Rifle Brigade on August 24, 1940. He was advanced to W.S. (War Substantive) lieutenant in early 1942 and made a temporary captain by October. Whilst leading a carrier platoon at the Snipe position during the Second Battle of El Alamein, Flower was awarded the Military Cross and mentioned in despatches for overrunning an infantry position, assaulting a tank laager consisting of forty tanks and setting fire to three vehicles, dispersing an infantry attack, and destroying two enemy guns. Flower was made a W.S. captain in September of 1943 and a temporary major that December. He was attached to headquarters of the British 8th Army in 1945. Flower remained in the army after the war and was made a permanent captain in 1947 with a date of seniority commencing on July 1, 1946. The Rifle Brigade was reduced to one battalion in 1948 and brigaded with the King’s Royal Rifle Corps as the Green Jackets Brigade. Owing to this, when Flower received his majority on March 4, 1952, it was in the 2nd Battalion of the King’s Royal Rifle Corps. He was assigned to General Headquarters East Africa from 1955 to 1956, during the time of the Mau Mau Uprising in Kenya. The Rifle Brigade was renamed the 3rd Green Jackets, The Rifle Brigade in 1958 and Flower was assigned to The Green Jackets Depot (a training barracks) as deputy commander. He was promoted to lieutenant colonel on February 12, 1959. Flower retired from the army in 1961 as commander of The Green Jackets Depot and was made an Officer of the British Empire for his service in the 1962 New Year Honours.