Air Vice Marshal John Hugh Thompson, (born 18 September 1947) is a former

Royal Air Force The Royal Air Force (RAF) is the United Kingdom's air and space force. It was formed towards the end of the First World War on 1 April 1918, becoming the first independent air force in the world, by regrouping the Royal Flying Corps (RFC) an ...

officer who became Head of the British Defence Staff in

Washington, D.C. ) , image_skyline = , image_caption = Clockwise from top left: the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall, United States Capitol, Logan Circle, Jefferson Memorial, White House, Adams Morgan, ...

from 2000 until his retirement in 2002.

RAF career

Educated at Fielding High School in

New Zealand New Zealand ( mi, Aotearoa ) is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and over 700 smaller islands. It is the sixth-largest island count ...

, Thompson joined the Royal Air Force in 1970.'' Who's Who 2010'', A & C Black, 2010, He became Station Commander at

RAF Wittering Royal Air Force Wittering or more simply RAF Wittering is a Royal Air Force station within the unitary authority area of Peterborough, Cambridgeshire and the unitary authority area of North Northamptonshire. Although Stamford in Lincolnshire i ...

in 1988, Senior Air Staff Officer at RAF Rheindahlen in 1993 and an assistant to the

High Representative for Bosnia and Herzegovina The High Representative for Bosnia and Herzegovina, together with the Office of the High Representative (OHR) in Bosnia and Herzegovina, were created in 1995 immediately after the signing of the Dayton Agreement which ended the 1992–1995 Bos ...

in 1996. He went on to be Commandant of the

Royal Air Force College Cranwell The Royal Air Force College (RAFC) is the Royal Air Force military academy which provides initial training to all RAF personnel who are preparing to become commissioned officers. The College also provides initial training to aircrew cadets and ...

in 1997 and Head of the British Defence Staff and Defence

Attaché In diplomacy, an attaché is a person who is assigned ("to be attached") to the diplomatic or administrative staff of a higher placed person or another service or agency. Although a loanword from French, in English the word is not modified accord ...

in 2000 before retiring in 2002.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Thompson, John 1947 births Companions of the Order of the Bath Living people Royal Air Force air marshals British air attachés Commandants of the Royal Air Force College Cranwell