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.

[6] In November 1908, Gort visited his uncle, Jeffrey Edward Prendergast Vereker, a retired British army major, who was living in Canada, at Kenora, Ontario.

During a moose hunting trip, Gort slipped off a large boulder, causing his rifle to discharge; the bullet injured a local guide, William Prettie, who later died of his wound in Winnipeg.

[10] He went to France with the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) and fought on the Western Front, taking part in the retreat from Mons in August 1914.

[14] Promoted to the brevet rank of major[3] in June 1916, he became a staff officer at the headquarters of the BEF and fought at the Battle of the Somme throughout the autumn of 1916.

Although hit in two places in the shoulder by the bursting of a shell early in the day and in great pain, he refused to leave his battalion, and personally superintended the consolidation subsequent to a successful attack.

Lt.-Col. Viscount Gort then proceeded to organise the defence of the captured position until he collapsed; even then he refused to leave the field until he had seen the "success signal" go up on the final objective.

[20] He won a second Bar to his DSO in January 1919, with the citation reading: For conspicuous gallantry and devotion to duty in command of his battalion.

During the three following days he again made forward reconnaissances, and leading his battalion gradually on, advanced the line 800 yards and gained a canal bank.

[29] After acquiring a de Havilland Moth aircraft named Henrietta in 1930, Gort became chairman of the Household Brigade Flying Club.

[37] His appointment was generally well received in the army, although there was some resentment in his having passed over a number of much older and more senior officers, among them John Dill, Archibald Wavell and Alan Brooke, who would later become an outspoken critic of Gort.

The experience of David Lloyd George's 1917 Alexandretta project "proved that [maritime side-shows] invariably led to vast commitments out of all proportion to the value of the object attained".

[42] On the outbreak of the Second World War, Gort was appointed by Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain as the Commander-in-Chief of the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) in France, arriving there on 19 September 1939.

He accompanied Duff Cooper, to Rabat in Morocco, to rally anti-Nazi French cabinet ministers, but was instead temporarily held on his flying boat.

Gort was in attendance, along with Generals Dwight D. Eisenhower and Harold Alexander, when Marshal Pietro Badoglio signed the surrender of all Italian forces in Valletta harbour on 29 September 1943.

Chief Justice Fitzgerald issued his report in which he proposed to divide the city into separate Jewish and Arab Quarters.

"[59][60] After leaving Palestine and returning to England, Gort was admitted to Guy's Hospital in London, where exploratory surgery revealed that he was dying from inoperable liver cancer.

[60] As he did not have a surviving son, the Irish Viscountcy of Gort passed to his brother, Standish Vereker, and the British creation became extinct.

[54] Gort married Corinna Katherine Vereker, his second cousin, on 22 February 1911; the couple had two sons and a daughter,[6] before divorcing (1925).

[2] Gort's daughter, Jacqueline Corinne Yvonne Vereker, who was born on 20 October 1914, married (June 1940) The Honourable William Sidney, later the 1st Viscount De L'Isle.