John Shea (Indian Army officer)
General Sir John Stuart Mackenzie Shea, GCB, KCMG, DSO (17 January 1869 – 1 May 1966) was a British officer in the Indian Army.[1] During the First World War, he held senior commands on the Western Front and the Middle Eastern theatre. Military careerEducated at Sedbergh School and the Royal Military College, Sandhurst,[2] Shea was commissioned into the Royal Irish Regiment as a second lieutenant in February 1888.[3] He was promoted to lieutenant on 11 February 1890,[4] and the following year transferred to the Indian Army where he was posted to the 15th Bengal Lancers.[3] He saw action with the Chitral Expedition in 1895, and was promoted to captain on 11 February 1899.[4] The Second Boer War started in South Africa later the same year, and Shea was awarded the Distinguished Service Order (DSO) for leading 200 South Australians in a night attack on Commandant Jan Smuts's laager.[5] For his service in the latter parts of the war, he received a brevet promotion to major on 22 August 1902.[6] He became an instructor at the Staff College, Quetta in 1906,[3] the same year he was promoted to major.[7] He was promoted to brevet lieutenant colonel in July 1912.[8] Shea served in the First World War, initially as a staff officer, first with the British Expeditionary Force and then with the 6th Division when he succeeded Colonel William Furse as the division's GSO1, or chief of staff.[9] In July 1915 he was promoted to the temporary rank of brigadier general[10] and became commander of the 50th (Northumbrian) Division's 151st (Durham Light Infantry) Brigade, a Territorial Force formation, which had recently arrived on the Western Front. He was made a temporary major general in May 1916[11] and became general officer commanding (GOC) of the 30th Division, a Kitchener's Army formation, which he led in the Battle of the Somme later that year. After being promoted to substantive major general in March 1917,[12] GOC 60th (2/2nd London) Division in Palestine in August 1917.[3] He commanded the division at the Battle of Mughar Ridge in November 1917, at the Battle of Jerusalem in December 1917 and at the First Battle of Amman in March 1918.[13] On 9 December 1917 he received the keys of the city of Jerusalem, an act symbolising its surrender by the mayor Hussein al-Husayni, after many other generals refused to take this responsibility.[14] He was appointed a Knight Commander of the Order of St Michael and St George in the 1919 New Year Honours.[15] After the War he became a corps commander in Palestine in 1918, GOC 3rd (Indian) Division in 1919 and, promoted in January 1921 to lieutenant general,[16] became GOC Central Provinces District in India in 1921.[3] He went on to be Adjutant-General, India in 1924 and, after relinquishing this appointment,[17] General Officer Commanding-in-Chief, Eastern Command, India in 1928 before retiring from the army in 1932.[3] In retirement, he served as the Commissioner for London Boy Scouts from 1936 to 1948.[18] References
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