Hastings Ismay, 1st Baron Ismay

General Hastings Lionel “Pug” Ismay, 1st Baron Ismay KG, GCB, CH, DSO, PC, DL was a British Indian Army officer and diplomat. He was Winston Churchill’s chief military assistant during the Second World War. Ismay also served as Lord Mountbatten of Burma’s Chief of Staff in India, helping to oversee its partition. He is remembered for his role in setting up and defining the position of the Secretary General.

About Hastings Ismay, 1st Baron Ismay in brief

General Hastings Lionel “Pug” Ismay, 1st Baron Ismay KG, GCB, CH, DSO, PC, DL was a British Indian Army officer and diplomat. He was Winston Churchill’s chief military assistant during the Second World War. Ismay also served as Lord Mountbatten of Burma’s Chief of Staff in India, helping to oversee its partition. In 1951, when Churchill again became Prime Minister, he appointed Ismay Secretary of State for Commonwealth Relations. But Ismay resigned after only six months to become the first Secretary General of NATO in 1952. He died on 17 December 1965, at his home Wormington Grange, Gloucestershire. He is remembered for his role in setting up and defining the position of the Secretary General, which he helped establish and define until his retirement in 1957. He also wrote his memoirs, The Memoirs of General Lord Ismay. He served as chairman of the council of the Festival of Britain from 1948 to 1951, and co-chaired the Ismay–Jacob Committee, which reorganised the Ministry of Defence once again. His father was a member of the Viceroy’s Legislative Council, and his mother, Beatrice Ellen, was the daughter of an Army colonel. In 1907, Ismay found a permanent position in the Indian cavalry, joining the 21st Prince Albert Victor’s Own Cavalry, based at Risalpur. In 1910, he received the General Medal of Service for his service with the Indian Army. In 1914, he joined the Camel Corps in British Somaliland, where he joined in the British fight against the “Mad Mullah”, Mohammed Abdullah Hassan.

In 1925, he became an Assistant Secretary of the Committee of Imperial Defence. In 1936, he served as the military secretary for Lord Willingdon, the Vicoy of India, then returned to the CID as Deputy Secretary in 1936. On 1 August 1938, shortly before the outbreak of the Second world War, he began planning for the impending war. In May 1940, when Winston Churchill became PM, he selected Ismay as his chief military Assistant and staff officer. After the end of the war, IsMay remained in the army for another year, and helped to reorganise the Ministryof Defence. He then retired from the military and served asLord Mountbatten of Burma’s Chief ofstaff in India. He later wrote a memoirs of his time in the military, and served on a variety of corporate boards, including the Board of Governors of the Royal Institute of British Engineers and the Royal College of Defence. His memoirs were published in 1962. He retired in 1965, and died in December 1965. He had a son, Peter, who became a British Army officer in the Royal Regiment of Scotland. His grandson, Peter Ismay-Smith, was also a British army officer and served in the First World War with the 2nd Battalion, The Queen’s Royal Hussars and the Indian National Army.

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