John Godlove Kormann, 90, of Chevy Chase

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John Godlove Kormann, a long-serving diplomat and retired Army colonel who received the State Department’s Medal for Heroism and the French Legion d’Honneur died April 29, 2015 Brightview/ Fallsgrove at age 90 of bone cancer.

Kormann contributed to US military and diplomatic efforts for more than three decades across four continents.

Kormann served as a combat paratrooper in WWII, dropping into Germany with the 17th Airborne Division in Operation Varsity and also fought at the Battle of the Bulge. He was awarded the Légion d’Honneur for his war service and subsequent work with the Army’s Counter Intelligence Corps (CIC), apprehending ranking Nazis and war criminals.

Kormann’s Foreign Service career included Benghazi, Libya 1966-68, when, as the Officer-in-Charge he defended the US Embassy during the Six Day War and oversaw the evacuation by air of 450 Americans, for which he received the State Department’s Medal for Heroism. He also served in Manila, Philippines from 1962-66, and as the Deputy to the US Ambassador to Egypt 1974-75. He was the Politico-Military Advisor in the State Department supervising military assistance programs to 18 countries, from 1969-72, and retired following a role as the Chairman of an Inter-agency Advisory Group to improve coordination and reporting from overseas of the State and Defense Departments, as well as the CIA and FBI.

Kormann was a national president of the 17th Airborne Division Association, and is the founder of the “Scions of the 17th Airborne”. His adventurous life is recorded in the book, Echoes of a Distant Clarion: Recollections of a Diplomat and Soldier.

Kormann was born in New York City in 1924. He graduated from Columbia University, where he received BA and MA degrees in Public Law and also attended the US Army War College.

He is survived by his wife, Elsa Wells Kormann of Chevy Chase, MD; two children, Matthew Kormann of Glenwood, MD and Andrea Kormann Lowe of London, England and eight grandchildren. An elder son, Wells Bradford Kormann, died in 2005.

Visitation will be from 3 to 5 p.m. Friday, May 15, at Robert A. Pumphrey Funeral Home/Bethesda-Chevy Chase, Inc., 7557 Wisconsin Ave. in Bethesda

The funeral service will be held at 10 a.m. Saturday, May 16, at Chevy Chase United Methodist Church, 7001 Connecticut Ave. Burial will be at 1:35 p.m. Saturday at Rock Creek CemeteryRock Creek Church Road and Webster St., N.W. Washington, DC.

— Information from the Robert A. Pumphrey Funeral Homes website.