Winston Field

Winston Joseph Field CMG MBE (6 June 1904 – 17 March 1969) was a Rhodesian politician who served as the seventh Prime Minister of Southern Rhodesia. Field was a former Dominion Party MP who founded the Rhodesian Front political party with Ian Smith. Field was born and raised in Bromsgrove and attended Bromsgrove School as a day student, in Worcestershire, England, and moved to Southern Rhodesia at the age of 17 in 1921. A tobacco farmer near Marandellas (now known as Marondera), in Mashonaland East, Field was President of the powerful Rhodesian Tobacco Association from 1938 to 1940, when he left for military service during the Second World War. Initially enlisting in the Rhodesian Forces as a sergeant, he was court-martialled and demoted to the rank of private for striking a subordinate. Field then transferred to the British Forces, joining the Worcestershire Regiment as a Second Lieutenant from 1941, served in the D-Day Normandy landings in 1944, and ended the war with the rank of Major in the 6th Durham Light Infantry.