Field Marshal John Standish Surtees Prendergast Vereker, 6th Viscount Gort, VC, GCB, CBE, DSO & Two Bars, MVO, MC (10 July 1886 – 31 March 1946) was a senior British Army officer. As a young officer during the First World War , he was decorated with the Victoria Cross for his actions during the Battle of the Canal du Nord .

General Lord Gort was appointed to the command of the BEF on 3 September 1939 and the BEF began moving to France on 4 September 1939. The BEF assembled along the Belgian–French border.

This Lord Gort was a distinguished soldier whose personal courage in the First World War was recognised with the highest decoration of the British Empire, the Victoria Cross, plus three further gallantry decorations, before achieving the most senior post in the British Army, Chief of the Imperial General Staff. [1]

Apr 20, 2015 · Lord John Gort was Commander-in Chief of the British Expeditionary Force in Western Europe in the months that led up to the evacuation at Dunkirk. It was Lord Gort who had to cope with the blitzkrieg tactic employed by the Germans – a …

Gort’s reputation recovered thanks to his successful direction of the defence of the besieged island of Malta, then a British colony. As its Governor-General and Commander-in-Chief for a year from May 1942, he kept supply lines open and oversaw the …

Dec 22, 2023 · At the outbreak of war, Gort assumed command of the new British Expeditionary Force (BEF) in France, arriving on 19 September 1939. Gort was criticized for not building defensive positions.

His full name was John Standish Surtees Prendergast Vereker, sixth Viscount Gort in the Irish Peerage, but he was normally refered to as Lord Gort. He attended Sandhurst in 1905-6, gaining an appointment to the Grenadier Guards in 1905.

John Vereker (Lord Gort) was born on 10th July 1886. At the start of World War II, he became the Commander-in-Chief of the British Expeditionary Force and, in this role, organised the evacuation of Dunkirk.

Lord John Gort led the British Expeditionary Force into Europe in the first year of World War One. His force were eventually driven to Dunkirk - where they were evacuated - by the German army’s use of the Blitzkrieg (or ‘lightning storm’) tactic.

Aug 17, 2023 · As Chief of the Imperial General Staff (C.I.G.S.), Lord Gort advocated the primacy of building a land army and defending France and the Low Countries over Imperial defence after France had said she would not be able on her own to defend herself against a German attack.