John Whiteley

Who was John Whiteley?

General Sir John Francis Martin Whiteley GBE, KCB, MC was Deputy Chief of the Imperial General Staff. A career British Army officer, Whiteley was commissioned in 1915 into the Royal Engineers from the Royal Military Academy, Woolwich. During the First World War he served in Salonika and the Middle East.

In May 1940 he was posted to General Headquarters Middle East in Cairo as Brigadier, General Staff under General Sir Archibald Wavell. In March 1942 he became Chief of Staff of the Eighth Army, participating in the Battle of Gazala and the First Battle of El Alamein. In September 1942 Whiteley joined Lieutenant General Dwight D. Eisenhower's Allied Forces Headquarters as the British Deputy Chief of Staff. When Eisenhower was appointed Supreme Allied Commander for Operation Overlord in January 1944, Whiteley was one of three key British staff officers Eisenhower brought to England to staff the Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force. Whiteley initially became Assistant Chief of Staff, Intelligence at SHAEF before becoming deputy to the Assistant Chief of Staff, Operations, Major General Harold Bull in May 1944.