George Zambellas
Encyclopedia
Vice Admiral
Vice Admiral (Royal Navy)
Vice admiral is a flag officer rank of the British Royal Navy. It equates to the NATO rank code OF-8 and is immediately superior to rear admiral and is subordinate to the full admiral rank.The Royal Navy has had vice admirals since at least the 16th century...

 George Michael Zambellas DSC
Distinguished Service Cross (United Kingdom)
The Distinguished Service Cross is the third level military decoration awarded to officers, and other ranks, of the British Armed Forces, Royal Fleet Auxiliary and British Merchant Navy and formerly also to officers of other Commonwealth countries.The DSC, which may be awarded posthumously, is...

, was Commander United Kingdom Maritime Forces
Commander United Kingdom Maritime Forces
Commander United Kingdom Maritime Forces or COMUKMARFOR is a senior post in the Royal Navy. The post is the highest sea-going command in the Royal Navy and is part of the Fleet Battle Staff based in Portsmouth, part of Commander-in-Chief Fleet's staff...

 from June 2007 until September 2008 and is currently Deputy Commander-in-Chief Fleet
Commander-in-Chief Fleet
Commander-in-Chief Fleet is the admiral responsible for the operation, resourcing and training of the ships, submarines and aircraft, and personnel, of the British Royal Navy...

, Chief of Staff to Navy Command Headquarters
Navy Command Headquarters
Navy Command Headquarters is the organisation responsible for the direction and management of the Royal Navy of the United Kingdom. The organisation provides support to Commander in Chief Fleet, the admiral responsible to the First Sea Lord for the provision of ships, personnel, aircraft and...

, and Chief Naval Warfare Officer.

Life

His early years were spent in Rhodesia
Rhodesia
Rhodesia , officially the Republic of Rhodesia from 1970, was an unrecognised state located in southern Africa that existed between 1965 and 1979 following its Unilateral Declaration of Independence from the United Kingdom on 11 November 1965...

, before coming to England to attend Stowe School
Stowe School
Stowe School is an independent school in Stowe, Buckinghamshire. It was founded on 11 May 1923 by J. F. Roxburgh, initially with 99 male pupils. It is a member of the Rugby Group and Headmasters' and Headmistresses' Conference. The school is also a member of the G20 Schools Group...

 and Southampton University to study Aeronautical and Astronautical Engineering. He worked in the aerospace industry for a time before joining the Royal Navy in 1980, qualifying as a helicopter pilot in 1982 and clocking up 1500 deck landings and 2000 flying hours in three tours.

He was trained for the Naval staff at Greenwich
Old Royal Naval College
The Old Royal Naval College is the architectural centrepiece of Maritime Greenwich, a World Heritage Site in Greenwich, London, described by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation as being of “outstanding universal value” and reckoned to be the “finest and most...

 in 1990, and then spent a short time as a corporate planner for the Royal Navy’s manpower and training division within the Ministry of Defence
Ministry of Defence (United Kingdom)
The Ministry of Defence is the United Kingdom government department responsible for implementation of government defence policy and is the headquarters of the British Armed Forces....

. Two years in command of in the Baltic and Mediterranean followed. His next appointment was ashore, as an aviation operations officer in the Fleet Headquarters at Northwood
Northwood Headquarters
Northwood Headquarters is a military headquarters facility of the British Armed Forces in Eastbury, Hertfordshire, England, adjacent to the London suburb of Northwood...

, before being promoted to command , a command which included a notable counter-narcotics operation in the Caribbean.

Back in London in 1997 he served in the Directorate of Defence Programmes during the 1997/98 Strategic Defence Review
Strategic Defence Review
The Strategic Defence Review was a British policy document produced by the Labour Government that came to power in 1997. Then Secretary of State for Defence, George Robertson, set out the initial defence policy of the new government, with a series of key decisions designed to enhance the United...

, charged with shaping the emerging maritime need within Defence’s tri-Service balance of investment. He returned to an operational command in 1999 as captain of , with operations in the Mediterranean and as part of Operation Palliser
Operation Palliser
Operation Palliser was a British Armed forces operation in Sierra Leone in 2000 under the command of Brigadier David Richards.Initially, its scope was limited to evacuation of non-combatants only....

 off Sierra Leone
Sierra Leone Civil War
The Sierra Leone Civil War began on 23 March 1991 when the Revolutionary United Front , with support from the special forces of Charles Taylor’s National Patriotic Front of Liberia , intervened in Sierra Leone in an attempt to overthrow the Joseph Momoh government...

 (receiving the Distinguished Service Cross
Distinguished Service Cross (United Kingdom)
The Distinguished Service Cross is the third level military decoration awarded to officers, and other ranks, of the British Armed Forces, Royal Fleet Auxiliary and British Merchant Navy and formerly also to officers of other Commonwealth countries.The DSC, which may be awarded posthumously, is...

 in 2001 for the latter). In 2001 he took the Higher Command and Staff Course at Shrivenham  before becoming Deputy Flag officer
Flag Officer
A flag officer is a commissioned officer in a nation's armed forces senior enough to be entitled to fly a flag to mark where the officer exercises command. The term usually refers to the senior officers in an English-speaking nation's navy, specifically those who hold any of the admiral ranks; in...

 Sea Training, responsible for training Royal Naval and foreign warships and auxiliaries.

A Commodore
Commodore (Royal Navy)
Commodore is a rank of the Royal Navy above Captain and below Rear Admiral. It has a NATO ranking code of OF-6. The rank is equivalent to Brigadier in the British Army and Royal Marines and to Air Commodore in the Royal Air Force.-Insignia:...

 in 2002, that year he was appointed to be Principal Staff Officer to the Chief of the Defence Staff
Chief of the Defence Staff (United Kingdom)
The Chief of the Defence Staff is the professional head of the British Armed Forces, a senior official within the Ministry of Defence, and the most senior uniformed military adviser to the Secretary of State for Defence and the Prime Minister...

 and served Admiral Boyce
Michael Boyce, Baron Boyce
Admiral Michael Cecil Boyce, Baron Boyce, KG, GCB, OBE, DL , is a cross bench member of the British House of Lords. Lord Boyce is a former First Sea Lord of the Royal Navy and Chief of the Defence Staff. He was born in Cape Town, South Africa.-Naval career:Educated at Hurstpierpoint College, Boyce...

 and General Walker during the invasion of Iraq
2003 invasion of Iraq
The 2003 invasion of Iraq , was the start of the conflict known as the Iraq War, or Operation Iraqi Freedom, in which a combined force of troops from the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia and Poland invaded Iraq and toppled the regime of Saddam Hussein in 21 days of major combat operations...

 and the early days of its fallout. His next command was the Royal Navy’s Amphibious Task Group, from January 2005 until August 2006, which involved overseeing the introduction of two new amphibious classes of ships, and the Bowman radio and data system
Bowman (communications system)
Bowman is the name of the tactical communications system used by the British Armed Forces.The Bowman C4I system consists of a range of HF radio, VHF radio and UHF radio sets designed to provide secure integrated voice, data services to dismounted soldiers, individual vehicles and command HQs up to...

 into amphibious operational use, as well as aiding the evacuation of civilians from the Lebanon in July 2006.

Promoted to Rear Admiral
Rear Admiral (Royal Navy)
Rear Admiral is a flag officer rank of the British Royal Navy. It is immediately superior to Commodore and is subordinate to Vice Admiral. It is a two-star rank and has a NATO ranking code of OF-7....

 in August 2006 and appointed Chief of Staff (Transformation
Allied Command Transformation
Allied Command Transformation is a NATO military command, which was formed in 2003 after North Atlantic Treaty Organisation restructuring....

), Zambellas was in this role entrusted with, as the Royal Navy website puts it, "designing and delivering the Fleet’s new approach to the generation of maritime capability and support to operations." In 2007, he was Commander United Kingdom Maritime Force
Commander United Kingdom Maritime Forces
Commander United Kingdom Maritime Forces or COMUKMARFOR is a senior post in the Royal Navy. The post is the highest sea-going command in the Royal Navy and is part of the Fleet Battle Staff based in Portsmouth, part of Commander-in-Chief Fleet's staff...

, and in October 2008, Chief of Staff (Operations) at the UK’s Permanent Joint Headquarters
Permanent Joint Headquarters
The Permanent Joint Headquarters is the British tri-service headquarters from where all overseas military operations are planned and controlled. It is situated at Northwood Headquarters in Northwood, London....

 at Northwood
Northwood Headquarters
Northwood Headquarters is a military headquarters facility of the British Armed Forces in Eastbury, Hertfordshire, England, adjacent to the London suburb of Northwood...

.

Promoted Vice Admiral
Vice Admiral (Royal Navy)
Vice admiral is a flag officer rank of the British Royal Navy. It equates to the NATO rank code OF-8 and is immediately superior to rear admiral and is subordinate to the full admiral rank.The Royal Navy has had vice admirals since at least the 16th century...

 in January 2011, he was appointed Deputy Commander-in-Chief Fleet
Commander-in-Chief Fleet
Commander-in-Chief Fleet is the admiral responsible for the operation, resourcing and training of the ships, submarines and aircraft, and personnel, of the British Royal Navy...

, Chief of Staff to Navy Command Headquarters
Navy Command Headquarters
Navy Command Headquarters is the organisation responsible for the direction and management of the Royal Navy of the United Kingdom. The organisation provides support to Commander in Chief Fleet, the admiral responsible to the First Sea Lord for the provision of ships, personnel, aircraft and...

, and Chief Naval Warfare Officer. Vice Admiral George Zambellas will be Commander-in-Chief Fleet
Commander-in-Chief Fleet
Commander-in-Chief Fleet is the admiral responsible for the operation, resourcing and training of the ships, submarines and aircraft, and personnel, of the British Royal Navy...

 from January 2012.

Honours and awards

  • 6 April 2001 - Distinguished Service Cross (DSC)
    Distinguished Service Cross (United Kingdom)
    The Distinguished Service Cross is the third level military decoration awarded to officers, and other ranks, of the British Armed Forces, Royal Fleet Auxiliary and British Merchant Navy and formerly also to officers of other Commonwealth countries.The DSC, which may be awarded posthumously, is...

    - Captain George Michael Zambellas, Royal Navy. in recognition of gallant and distinguished services during operations in Sierra Leone between 7 May and 30 September 2000.
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