Why a British Field Marshal and 74 Other Foreign Nationals Are ...

When John Dill died on Nov. 4, 1944, it shook the upper echelons of the United States military, right up through Army Chief of Staff Gen. George C. Marshall. His memorial at Washington National Cathedral was attended by hundreds, and thousands of U.S. troops lined the route of his funeral procession to Arlington National Cemetery, where he was interred. Today, his is one of only two equestrian statues erected at Arlington, the other being Union Gen. Philip Kearny.

It was a posthumous honor befitting any important or high-ranking U.S. military officer. Except Dill wasn’t a U.S. military officer: He was a British field marshal. Sir John Dill was a highly decorated veteran of World War I and chief of the British Staff Mission in Washington, a personal representative of Prime Minister Winston Churchill -- and, according to Arlington, he is one of only 75 foreign nationals to earn a final resting place in the U.S. military’s most hallowed burial ground.

There was only one problem: Dill and Churchill couldn't stand each other. (George C. Marshall Foundation)

Field Marshal Dill was probably a surprising choice for such an important post as Churchill’s personal representative, but only to anyone outside the British War Office. He had been in the British Army since 1901 and was an experienced combat officer, having served with distinction in the Boer War in South Africa, in World War I and the Arab Revolt in Palestine. There was just one problem: Churchill couldn’t stand him -- and the feeling was mutual.

Dill had been appointed chief of the Imperial General Staff (CIGS) within weeks of Churchill’s rise to prime minister, but the two butted heads almost immediately. Dill didn’t care for how much the PM interfered in the War Office’s affairs while Churchill regarded his CIGS as slow, defeatist and lacking imagination. But Churchill couldn’t just fire a man with a resume like Dill’s from the Army entirely, so he promoted Dill instead.

In late 1941, Dill was set to be sent to India as governor when the course of the entire war suddenly changed. After the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Adolf Hitler also declared war on the United States. With the Americans in the war, Britain suddenly had a powerful new ally. Dill was presented with the Knight Grand Cross of the Order of the Bath and sent to Washington, D.C., to become the chief of the British Joint Staff Mission.

While in this new, more diplomatic posting, Dill endeared himself to the Americans, especially to Army Chief of Staff George C. Marshall. Their close friendship was critically important to the Allied war effort, because of a shared trust, mutual respect and frank communications. Marshall, who was sometimes left out of President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s conversations with Churchill, could now get that inside information after Churchill shared those communiqués with the British General Staff. Without telling Churchill, Dill voluntarily provided Marshall with his telegrams from London, providing the chief of staff with critical insight to the president’s thinking. It was a calculated act that could have destroyed Dill’s career, but proved to be invaluable for Marshall.

Dill died from aplastic anemia on Nov. 4, 1944, a year after his diagnosis and the blood transfusions that kept him alive. Because Dill was so beloved by his American counterparts, Marshall used his influence as Army chief of staff to get Congress to pass a joint resolution allowing Dill to be interred at Arlington National Cemetery. President Roosevelt signed the resolution and awarded Dill the Army Distinguished Service Medal.

Sir John Dill's funeral at Arlington National Cemetery. (Department of Defense)

Dill wasn’t the first foreigner buried at Arlington. Italian Navy Lt. Luigi Bartolucci-Dundas was serving as assistant naval attaché to the Embassy of Italy in Washington when he died in 1920, for example. Army regulations allow for certain exceptions in exceptional circumstances:

“In time of national emergency, the remains of officers and enlisted men of the armed forces of other countries who die within the continental limits of the United States while serving as instructors or students with the armed forces of the United States may be buried in any post cemetery or post section of any national cemetery without expense to the United States other than for opening, closing, and marking of the grave."

The list of 75 foreigners buried at Arlington include German and Italian prisoners of war during World War II and a Chinese Kuomintang officer during the Chinese Civil War. A number of other foreign nationals’ remains are also interred there, as part of remains gathered from crash sites, whose identities could not be determined, many from South Vietnam.

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