Ships
- HMS Nigeria (60) Captain from 18 June 1940 · Relieved on 28 June 1942
John George Lawrence Dundas commanded Nigeria from 18 June 1940 until 28 June 1942. Uboat.net and the Navy List compilation give the same two dates. He was a captain then. The ship was still building when the command is dated, and he was the captain named when she commissioned.
Uboat.net gives his birth as 3 November 1893 and his death as 26 March 1952, aged 58, with no place for either. Unithistories.com places the birth at Marylebone, London, and the death at Roanoke, Virginia. It names his parents as the Hon. Cospatrick Thomas Dundas (1862–1906) and Maud Wentworth-Fitzwilliam, who remarried in 1912 and became Lady Cordeaux. He married Ruth Northrop Coleman on 22 September 1928. She was the daughter of the Postmaster of Minneapolis. They had one son and four daughters.
Unithistories says he was educated at the Royal Naval College, Dartmouth, and entered the Navy on 15 September 1906. Uboat.net lists him as midshipman from 15 September 1911, acting sub-lieutenant from 15 January 1914, sub-lieutenant from 15 September 1914, lieutenant from 15 December 1915, lieutenant-commander from 15 December 1923, commander from 31 December 1928, and captain from 30 June 1935. The same page makes him rear-admiral on 8 January 1944 and vice-admiral, retired, on 13 June 1948, and dates his retirement 12 January 1946. Unithistories adds a commodore first class dated 20 February 1943 with a question mark, and a queried retirement in 1945 or 1946 against the rear-admiral step.
Before the war the Navy List compilation has him on the staff course at Greenwich, at the gunnery schools Pembroke and Excellent, in Vindictive, as staff officer (operations) and squadron gunnery officer to the Atlantic Fleet destroyer flotillas, as fleet gunnery officer in the Mediterranean, as executive officer of Valiant, at the Staff College, Camberley, and at the Imperial Defence College. He commanded the escort vessel Folkestone on the China Station from 19 December 1936. From 31 May 1938 until April 1940 he was Assistant Director of Plans at the Admiralty.
Nigeria is the only warship command on his uboat.net page. The event list commissions her at High Walker, Newcastle on Tyne, at 0900 on 3 September 1940, and says Rear-Admiral H. M. Burrough hoisted his flag in her later that day. On 28 June 1941 she intercepted the German weather ship Lauenburg with Tartar. On 7 September 1941, with Aurora, she sank the training ship Bremse and damaged her own bow. Through the first half of 1942 she was on the Arctic convoys, including the distant cover for PQ 17. He left her on 28 June 1942, before Pedestal.
His mention in despatches is dated 16 August 1940. Unithistories ties that mention to Dunkirk, which is before this command. The CBE is the New Year list of 1 January 1942. The page does not say it was for Nigeria. The CB is 18 December 1945, for the wind-up in Europe. Unithistories also lists a Legion of Honour and a Croix de Guerre against Operation Dragoon, a Legion of Merit on 6 November 1945 for Mediterranean service from January to August 1944, and a Phoenix award on 15 April 1947, with a question mark on the last.
After Nigeria the same compilation makes him chief of staff to the Commander-in-Chief Mediterranean from 20 February 1943, with a note that the appointment may have been as early as August 1942, then chief of staff to the Commander-in-Chief Levant, then chief of staff in the Mediterranean again, and Assistant Chief of Naval Staff in 1944 and 1945.
Uboat.net retires him on 12 January 1946 and promotes him vice-admiral on the retired list on 13 June 1948. He died on 26 March 1952. Unithistories places that death at Roanoke, Virginia. No later sea command was on the fetched pages.