Sir John Greer Dill, senior British Army officer with service in both World War I and World War II, is born on December 25, 1881, at Lurgan, County Armagh. From May 1940 to December 1941, he is the Chief of the Imperial General Staff (CIGS), the professional head of the British Army, and subsequently serves in Washington, D.C., as Chief of the British Joint Staff Mission and then Senior British Representative on the Combined Chiefs of Staff (CCS).

Dill is the only son of John Dill, bank manager, and Jane Dill (née Greer). He is educated at Cheltenham College in England before entering the Royal Military College (RMC), Sandhurst. Commissioned as a second lieutenant, he joins the Prince of Wales’s Leinster Regiment (Royal Canadians) in May 1901 and serves in South Africa for the remainder of the Second Boer War. Promoted to captain in 1911, he is a student at the Staff College, Camberley, at the outbreak of World War I. He holds several important staff appointments during the war, including brigade major of 25th Brigade (8th Division) and General Staff Officer (Grade 2) to the Canadian Corps. Present at the battles of Neuve Chapelle, Aubers Ridge, Arras, and Third Ypres, at the end of the war he is serving as chief of operations branch at GHQ with the temporary rank of brigadier general. He is awarded the Distinguished Service Order (DSO) (1915), the Order of St. Michael and St. George (CMG) (1918), the French Legion of Honour and the Belgian Order of the Crown.

Remaining active during the interwar years, Dill serves as chief assistant to the commandant of the Staff College (1919–22) before commanding the Welsh Border Brigade, TA (1922–23), and 2nd Infantry Brigade at Aldershot (1923–26). In late 1926, he is appointed army instructor at the newly established Imperial Defence College. A period in India follows as general staff officer of the Western Command (1929–31), based at Quetta. On return to England, he is promoted to major general and made commandant of the Staff College. Appointments as commander of the British forces in Palestine and Transjordan (1936–37) and the Aldershot Command (1937–39) follow. During this period, he shows a remarkable ability to both train and inspire those under his command. Most of his colleagues expect him to become the new chief of the Imperial General Staff and are surprised when Major General Lord Gort, junior to Dill in both rank and seniority, is appointed to the post.

At the outbreak of World War II Dill commands I Corps British Expeditionary Force (BEF) in France and is made a full general. In April 1940, he is made vice-CIGS and in May takes over as CIGS. His initial period in office is not a happy one, and he has to inform the public of setbacks in both Norway and France. His workload is enormous, and after the evacuation at Dunkirk in late May he devotes himself to preparing the defences of Britain against invasion. He clashes with Winston Churchill throughout 1941, advocating a more cautious and realistic approach to the situations in North Africa, Greece, and Crete.

The workload begins to affect his health adversely, and in November 1941 it is announced that he will resign as CIGS on reaching the age of 60 and serve as governor-designate of Bombay with the rank of field marshal. He seeks to be more actively involved in the war effort, however, and in December 1941 he visits the United States with Churchill, remaining there as head of the British joint staff mission in Washington, D.C. He plays a significant role in promoting Anglo–American military cooperation and attends the Casablanca, Quebec, and Tehran conferences.

In late 1944 his health again breaks down and he dies from aplastic anemia on November 4, 1944, at the Walter Reed General Hospital, Washington, D.C. After a memorial service at Washington National Cathedral, he is buried with full military honours at Arlington National Cemetery in Arlington County, Virginia. President Franklin D. Roosevelt later pays tribute to him as a great soldier and friend, “the most important figure in the remarkable accord which has been developed in the combined operations of our two countries.”

Dill first marries (1907) Ada Maud Le Mottée, daughter of Col. William Le Mottée of the 18th Regiment. Their son, Major John de Guerin Dill, serves as an artillery officer throughout World War II. In October 1941, Dill marries Nancy Isabelle Charrington, widow of Brigadier Denis Walter Furlong. Dill’s honours include a GCB (1942), an honorary degree from Princeton University (1944), the Howland Memorial Prize of Yale University (1944), and a posthumous Distinguished Service Medal (DSM) from the United States government. There are portraits of him in Cheltenham College and the Imperial War Museum, and a statue in Washington, D.C.

(From: “Dill, Sir John Greer” by David Murphy, Dictionary of Irish Biography, http://www.dib.ie, October 2009 | Pictured: Sir John Greer Dill, bromide print, 1932, by Walter Stoneman, National Portrait Gallery, London)