Robert Pedre | |
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![]() Robert Pedre | |
Born | Taunton, Somerset |
Allegiance | United Kingdom |
Service | Royal Navy |
Years of service | 1996–present |
Rank | Rear Admiral |
Commands | HMS Cottesmore HMS Richmond HMS Ocean Commander Littoral Strike Group Commander United Kingdom Strike Force |
Rear Admiral Robert George Pedre (born 8 February 1975) is a senior Royal Navy officer and current Commander United Kingdom Strike Force.
He was born 8 February 1975 [1] in Taunton, Somerset. [2] Pedre was educated at Davenant Foundation School, Imperial College London [2] (BSc physics, 1996) and King's College London (MA Defence Studies, 2016), [3]
Pedre entered Britannia Royal Naval College on 18 September 1996. [4] He saw initial service in several destroyers operating in the South Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. [2] He became commanding officer of the Hunt-class mine countermeasures vessel HMS Cottesmore, deployed on counter-terrorist operations in the Irish Sea, in 2003. [5] Pedre then served as Operations Officer on HMS Northumberland and organised NATO’s first counter-piracy deployment to the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden in 2007. [2]
He then became executive officer on the Type 22 frigate HMS Cumberland, where he was involved in the evacuation of personnel from Benghazi, Libya in 2009. [2] He went on to command the Type 23 frigate HMS Richmond in 2012, [6] and the landing platform helicopter HMS Ocean in 2016. [7] Ocean served as flagship for Standing NATO Maritime Group 2 [8] and took part in Operation RUMAN (humanitarian support to the British Overseas Territories), before being decommissioned in the presence of Queen Elizabeth II on 27 March 2018. [9] [10]
Pedre went on to be Assistant Head Defence Strategy at the Ministry of Defence later in 2018. [2] In May 2020 he was appointed Commander Littoral Strike Group. [11]
In 2022 he was promoted to rear admiral [12] and appointed as Commander United Kingdom Strike Force in September 2022. [13] In August 2024, with his staff, he participated in a joint United States Fleet Synthetic training period. [14] [15] This was the first time the Royal Navy’s Commander Strike Force had participated in the certification that all US Navy Strike Groups complete. [14] [15] In October 2024 he gave the keynote speech at the Geostrategy Forum of the Council on Geostrategy on the subject of the changing character of naval warfare. [16]