Nigel Bagnall

Field Marshal Sir Nigel Thomas Bagnall GCB, CVO, MC & Bar (10 February 1927 – 8 April 2002) was Chief of the General Staff, the professional head of the British Army from 1985 to 1988. Early in his military career he saw action during the Palestine Emergency, the Malayan Emergency, the Cyprus Emergency and the Indonesia–Malaysia confrontation, and later in his career he provided advice to the British Government on the future role of Britain's nuclear weapons.

Army career

Born the son of Lieutenant Colonel Harry Stephen Bagnall and Marjory May Bagnall and educated at Wellington College, Bagnall undertook National Service for a year before being commissioned into the Green Howards on 5 January 1946. On 13 February 1946 he transferred to the Parachute Regiment and was deployed to Palestine where the British Mandate was about to end. Promoted to lieutenant on 24 September 1949, he served in Malaya, where as a platoon commander, he was awarded the Military Cross in Spring 1950 and a bar to the Military Cross in Autumn 1952.