Hastings Ismay, 1st Baron Ismay
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Hastings Lionel Ismay, 1st Baron Ismay, KG, GCB, CH, DSO, PC (21 June 1887–17 December 1965) was a British soldier and diplomat.
Ismay was educated at Charterhouse and Sandhurst before being commissioned in 1905. He joined the Indian Army and served on the North-West Frontier. During World War I he saw action in Somaliland against Mohammed bin Abdullah (lasting beyond the end of the European war).
Following the conclusion of operations in Somaliland Ismay held a number of staff and teaching appointments before becoming in 1931 military secretary to Lord Willingdon, then Viceroy of India. From 1933 until 1940 Ismay occupied various staff positions within the War Office, eventually becoming Secretary of the Committee of Imperial Defence in 1938.
During World War II he was Winston Churchill's Chief of Staff, retiring from the British Army in 1946. In January 1947 he was raised to the peerage as Baron Ismay, of Wormington in the County of Gloucester. Lord Ismay served as chief of staff to Lord Mountbatten of Burma, then Viceroy of India. In 1951 he was made Secretary of State for Commonwealth Relations, and in 1952 became the first Secretary General of NATO, a post he held until 1957.
Lord Ismay died in 1965 at the age of 78. Without a male heir, his title became extinct. He was nicknamed "Pug", which is the name by which both Mountbatten and Churchill knew him.
Publications
- The memoirs of General the Lord Ismay (Heinemann, London, 1960)
Reference
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