John Read

Lieutenant-General Sir John Hugh Sherlock Read (6 September 1917 – 5 March 1987) was a senior British Army officer. He served as the Assistant Commandant of the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst, the Director of Military Operations at the Ministry of Defence, the Assistant Chief of the Defence Staff. He was also Director of International Military Staff at NATO Headquarters. Read was knighted by the Queen on 1 January 1972.

Biography Born on 6 September 1917, was the son of Group Captain John Victor Read and Elizabeth Hannah May (née Link) Read. He was educated at Bedford School, at Magdalene College, Cambridge, and at the Royal Military Academy, Woolwich. During the Second World War, he served in France, Belgium, Egypt, Palestine, Greece and Austria. Between 1945 and 1957, he served in Austria, Germany, Hong Kong and Singapore.

Read was Assistant Commandant of the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst, between 1966 and 1968, and Director of Military Operations at the Ministry of Defence, between 1968 and 1970. He was Assistant Chief of the Defence Staff at the Ministry of Defence, between 1970 and 1971, Read was made a Knight Commanders of the Order of the Bath (KCB) in the Queen's New Year's Honours of 1972. She predeceased him in 1985.

Read died in a car accident on 5 March 1987. He was 69.