Collection HACKETT - HACKETT, Gen Sir John Winthrop (1910-1997)

Born, 1910; educated at Geelong Grammar School, Australia, and New College, Oxford; commissioned into 8 (King's Royal Irish) Hussars, 1931; Lt, 1934; served in Palestine, 1936; seconded to Transjordan Frontier Force, 1937-1941; awarded MBE, 1938; Capt, 1939; served in World War Two, 1939-1945; service in Syria, 1941; Secretary, Commission of Control, Syria and Lebanon, 1941; awarded MC, 1941; General Staff Officer 2 (Operations), 9 Army, Middle East, 1941-1942; awarded DSO, 1942; General Staff Officer 1, Raiding Forces, General Headquarters, Middle East Forces, 1942; commanded 4 Parachute Bde, Italy, 1943, and for Operation MARKET-GARDEN, Arnhem, the Netherlands, 1944; awarded Bar to DSO, 1945; Substantive Maj, 1946; Brig General Staff, Austria, 1946-1947; commanded Transjordan Frontier Force, 1947-1948; Senior Army Instructor, Royal Naval College, Greenwich, 1950; Imperial Defence College, 1951; Deputy Quartermaster General, British Army of the Rhine, 1952; awarded CBE, 1953; commanded 20 Armoured Bde, 1954; Brig, 1956; General Officer Commanding 7 Armoured Div, 1956-1958; Maj Gen, 1957; awarded CB, 1958; Commandant, Royal Military College of Science, Shrivenham, Oxfordshire, 1958-1961; General Officer Commanding-in-Chief, Northern Ireland Command, 1961-1963; Col Commandant, Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers, 1961-1966; created KCB, 1962; Deputy Chief of the Imperial General Staff, 1963-1964; Deputy Chief of General Staff, Ministry of Defence, 1964-1966; Hon Col, 10 Bn, The Parachute Regt, Territorial Army, 1965-1967; Commander-in-Chief, British Army of the Rhine, and Commander of Northern Army Group, NATO, 1966-1968; appointed GCB, 1967; Aide de Camp General, 1967-1968; Hon Col, 10 Volunteer Bn, The Parachute Regt, 1967-1973; Hon Col, Oxford University Officers Training Corps, 1967-1978; Principal of King's College London, 1968-1975; Col, The Queen's Royal Irish Hussars, 1969-1975; President, UK Classical Association, 1971; Member, Lord Chancellor's Committee on Reform of Law of Contempt, 1971-1974; Member, Disciplinary Tribunal, Inns of Court and Bar, 1972-1983; President, English Association, 1973; Hon Liveryman, Worshipful Company of Dyers, 1975; Freeman of the City of London, 1976; Visiting Professor in Classics, King's College London, from 1977; Deputy Lieutenant, Gloucestershire, 1982; awarded Chesney Gold Medal, Royal United Service Institute for Defence Studies, 1985; died, 1997. Publications: The profession of arms. The 1962 Lees Knowles lectures given at Trinity College, Cambridge ( The Times , London, 1963); Hungry generations (National Association of Boys' Clubs, London, 1970); I was a stranger (Chatto and Windus, London, 1977); The Third World War: a future history (Sidgwick and Jackson, London, 1978); The Third World War: the untold story (Sidgwick and Jackson, London, 1982); The profession of arms (Sidgwick and Jackson, London, 1983); Warfare in the ancient world (Sidgwick and Jackson, London, 1989). Theodore A Boeree, b 1879, was a Lieutenant-Colonel of Field Artillery in the Dutch Army and an officer of the Orange Nassau (the Dutch underground movement). He lived in Ede, a small town to the north-west of Arnhem, and witnessed the parachute drops on 17 Sep 1944 and the bombing of his town, but is not known to have been otherwise involved in the battle other than in the fact that he hid Hackett in his house for 10 days in Dec 1944. Immediately after the end of the war he started to research the underground movement and to gather information about the Battle of Arnhem, studying Dutch, British and German records. In 1955 two short articles were published in a military periodical Ons Leger ( Our Army ), later reprinted and sold in booklet form.