#5-009
To John G. Winant
January 5, 1945 [Washington, D.C.]
Confidential
My dear Mr. Ambassador:
I was touched by the sentiments in your letter of December twenty-seventh acknowledging my Christmas greetings. You certainly are most generous in your responses to me.1
Most confidentially, I wish to outline for your eye alone the procedure I have followed in the case of Sir John Dill.2
There was a period commencing explosively at Cairo and more or less continuing up to the time of Dill’s death, when the Prime Minister was antagonistic towards Dill. At Cairo in particular he was very emphatic in his expressions of disagreement and displeasure at Dill’s forthright statements which bore on the Prime Minister’s personal actions very directly. I am not familiar with the personal interchanges after that date but know that the Prime Minister was resentful of Dill’s frank differences with him at a time when he, the Prime Minister, was heavily pressing his Chiefs of Staff.
To offset, at least to a mild degree, this development, I undertook to have Dill honored in this country and a regular campaign was mapped out, commencing with the award of the Howland Memorial Prize by Yale University, at which time the Secretary of War, the Assistant Secretary of War, Mr. McCloy, and I, all made the trip with Dill to receive the medal (rather shocking the Yale faculty with a great deal of photography, not for United States consumption but to be sent to England).3 This was followed by the award of a degree by the College of William and Mary at which time the United States Chiefs of Staff, as well as the British Mission, all attended.4
While I was in the process of dickering with conservative Harvard who was reluctant to accept because Yale had taken the lead, Princeton came across on its own initiative and awarded him a degree.5 Meanwhile I had arranged for the same award by the University of Wisconsin but this was delayed—and finally dropped with his illness, because of their insistence that I should receive a degree at the same time. As I did not want to be too closely associated with Dill in these affairs lest there be some suspicion of the procedure, and have not accepted any degrees during the period of the war, the delay arose. We were in process of arranging for a degree by one of the principal universities on the West Coast when Dill’s illness brought all of this to a close.
As I have explained above, the purpose of these moves was to impress on the British public and therefore on the Prime Minister and the Cabinet the importance of the position Dill occupied in this country.
On his death I had every possible measure taken to dignify the occasion so as to leave a lasting memorial as a reminder of a perfect example by a British official of absolutely unselfish and objective dealings with British-American affairs. We welcomed the agreement for his interment in Arlington and saw to it that the ceremony was very impressive. I also had been careful to prepare statements, prior to his death, for the Chiefs of Staff and myself and for the President and the Secretary of War along with the citation for the DSM for the President to include in his statement. All this was released to the press the morning following Dill’s death. However, the election campaign made it very difficult to get appropriate publicity or treatment, but even so there was a great deal of attention focused on his passing.6
I arranged for a very special tract in Arlington Cemetery, a triangle formed by three roads, beautifully wooded and containing an elevation appropriate for a memorial. This has been set aside by formal direction of the Secretary of War so that when we manage the raising of memorial funds a suitable site will be available.7
Meanwhile I prepared a draft for a Joint Resolution by Congress and succeeded in having Senator Tom Connally introduce it, apparently on his own initiative. It was cleared through the Foreign Relations Committee and then introduced on our suggestion by [Sol] Bloom on the House side. The speeches were not delivered on the Floor but by “permission to print.” The matter was handled in this way not only to clear it while Congress was operating under heavy pressure but more particularly to prevent some anti-British zealot from utilizing the occasion for comments engendered by strong feeling in this country over British action in Greece and lack of evidence of British activity on the Western Front.
Congress passed the Resolution and now today the President is handing Lady Dill the DSM with the citation and also a copy of the Resolution. The British and American Chiefs of Staff will be there and the British Ambassador.8 I imagine this will get suitable publicity on the basis of which I want to go ahead towards the raising of funds for a memorial.
Yesterday I sent Lord Halifax9 a volume containing the photographs of the funeral and interment, all newspaper clippings including the editorials regarding Dill, the statements by the President and the Secretary of War, etc., and the action of the Committees of Congress and of Congress itself in passing the Resolution.
I am telling you all this so that you will be aware of my purpose which is to make every possible use of Dill’s example in generous and understanding military cooperation to offset the effect of these post-war and other political recriminations. We have in mind a bronze tablet marking the general plot which will give the title of Dill’s interment there with the citation of the President and Joint Resolution of Congress, and then we have in mind an equestrian statue in bronze without pedestal; as Lady Dill says, of the Virginia hunter type of horse and not the rearing steed of the Civil War and Jacksonian period.
As I have said, this letter is to advise you of what we have done and why, and what we are planning to do.
Faithfully yours,
Document Copy Text Source: George C. Marshall Papers, Pentagon Office Collection, Selected Materials, George C. Marshall Research Library, Lexington, Virginia.
Document Format: Typed letter.
1. General Marshall had sent Ambassador Winant Christmas greetings with “admiration and personal appreciation for the invaluable cooperation and support you have given the Army throughout the past year. Your personal attitude and strong leadership have made a material contribution to our military successes.” (Marshall to Winant, December 23, 1944, GCMRL/G. C. Marshall Papers [Pentagon Office, Selected].) To which Ambassador Winant replied: “Thank you for one of the nicest Christmas messages I have ever received.” (Winant to Marshall, December 27, 1944, ibid.)
2. Winant had written Marshall that Sir Henry Maitland Wilson was the “unquestioned free choice of the responsible men here” to succeed Sir John Dill as head of the British Joint Staff Mission in Washington, D.C. “I found that much as General [Hastings] Ismay is liked by the Prime Minister and Sir Alan Brooke and other principals, and responsible as he is for the efficient secretariat that underlies and coordinates both the work of the Chiefs of Staff and the War Cabinet,” wrote Winant, “that his independent judgment on major war problems would not receive the same consideration by those concerned as would be conceded to General Wilson, who is much his senior.” (Ibid.)
3. For information regarding Sir John Dill receiving the Howland Memorial Prize and General Marshall’s remarks at Yale University on February 14, 1944, see Papers of George Catlett Marshall, #4-248 [4: 295–96], and #4-256 [4: 304–6].)
4. Dill received the honorary degree of doctor of laws during a special convocation at the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia, on April 3, 1944. (New York Times, April 4, 1944, p. 12.)
5. Princeton University awarded the honorary degree of doctor of laws to Sir John Dill on May 20, 1944.
6. For information regarding Sir John Dill’s death, see Papers of George Catlett Marshall, #4-568–#4-570 [4: 652–54].
7. Sir John Dill’s equestrian statue, “erected to a great soldier-statesman by his American friends and associates,” was dedicated at Arlington National Cemetery on November 1, 1950. (Alex Danchev, Very Special Relationship: Field-Marshal Sir John Dill and the Anglo-American Alliance, 1941–44 [London: Brassey’s Defence Publishers, 1986], p. 1.) “Here before us in Arlington Cemetery, among our hallowed dead lies buried a great Englishman, Field Marshal Sir John Dill,” said Marshall during the dedication. “He was my friend, I am proud to say, and he was my intimate associate throughout most of the war years, commencing with the historic meeting at Argentia in Newfoundland, in August 1941.” (Remarks by Secretary of Defense George C. Marshall at Unveiling of Sir John Dill Monument, November 1, 1950, GCMRL/G. C. Marshall Papers [Secretary of Defense, Speeches].)
8. For more information regarding the Distinguished Service Medal and Joint Resolution of Congress, see Marshall Memorandum for the President, January 2, 1945, Papers of George Catlett Marshall, #5-004 [4: 5–6].
9. Lord Halifax served as the British ambassador in Washington.
Recommended Citation: The Papers of George Catlett Marshall, ed. Larry I. Bland and Sharon Ritenour Stevens (Lexington, Va.: The George C. Marshall Foundation, 1981– ). Electronic version based on The Papers of George Catlett Marshall, vol. 5, “The Finest Soldier,” January 1, 1945–January 7, 1947 (Baltimore and London: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2003), pp. 11–14.