Surgeon Vice-Admiral Medical Director General (Naval) Sir John Harrison KBE

SURGEON VICE-ADMIRAL SIR JOHN HARRISON

Born in Simla in northern India as a child of the Raj, John Harrison’s distinguished career in medicine culminated as the Royal Navy’s Medical Director General during the 1982 Falklands conflict.
He started his training at St Bartholomew’s Hospital at the outbreak of the Second World War. In 1943 he married Jane Harris who was serving as a Wren at the time and in 1944 treated the D-Day wounded in Winchester County Hospital. Qualified in 1947, he joined the navy as a Surgeon Lieutenant RNVR, being appointed to the Royal Marines barracks at Deal.
.He was granted a regular commission in the RN in 1948 and served for two years on the West Indies station in the frigate Sparrow. This was a welcome relief from Cold War austerity with ‘showing the flag’ port visits around north and South America. In line with deep-rooted naval custom, the doctor became the wine caterer – indeed Harrison’s appraisal report from his captain briefly made the statutory remarks about his medical duties but spread itself in praise for his work as Mess Social Secretary and Wine Caterer. His career might have taken a different turn had his captain known that every available space, including ammunition lockers, were crammed with cases of Chilean wine on return to England.
After tours with the boys’training establishment HMS Ganges at Shotley and the Chatham naval barracks, he returned to Bart’s in order to specialise in radiology. He practised as a specialist for a most enjoyable two years in Hong Kong followed by tours at Chatham, Malta and Haslar Naval Hospital at Gosport.
He was promoted to surgeon commander in 1962 and in 1967 was appointed Consultant Adviser in Radiology and served as such to successive Medical Directors General (Naval). His special interests in radiological applications for sarcoidosis, the radiology of the ear, the use of tomographic techniques and in the study of dysbaric osteonecrosis – a serious bone disease afflicting divers – gave rise to authorship of numerous published papers.
In 1967 he joined the Medical Research Council’s Decompression Sickness Panel as radiologist and was awarded in 1969 the navy’s prestigious Errol Eldridge Prize for his work on naval ‘clearance’ divers – the navy’s full-time explosives-trained specialists who dive to greater depths, use mixture breathing and are more vulnerable to occupational disease.
Promoted to surgeon captain in 1970, he continued as a consultant in radiology until appointed deputy Medical Director-General in 1975. His superior, Vice-Admiral Sir James Watt (obituary January 21, 2010) spoke of him in particularly warm terms; ’He carries his office with quiet dignity and commands universal respect. His shrewd penetrating mind quickly exposes the heart of any problem and enables him to reach a mature judgement and fair, authoritative decisions……an exceptional officer of the greatest integrity.’ In this post he was awarded the Order of St John and appointed Queen’s Honorary Physician until 1983
On promotion to surgeon rear-admiral, Harrison was appointed in 1977 Dean of Naval Medicine and officer in charge of the Institute of Naval Medicine, the navy’s internationally recognised centre of excellence for occupational health advice, information, training and research.
As Medical Director-General, Harrison had a major role in overseeing the medical provision for the naval Task Force that was so rapidly despatched in 1982 to recover the Falkland islands from the Argentine invasion – he had proved himself a more than adequate ‘Whitehall warrior’ while fighting for departmental resources under normal circumstances and was delighted with the speed with which supplies appeared, no questions asked, in wartime. Admiral Sir Henry Leach, First Sea Lord, remarked in his memoirs: ‘ Many of those wounded in action but alive today owe their continued existence to the tireless expertise of the doctors and nursing staffs. It is a pity that their selfless work went largely unrecognised by the media and the public’.
He was appointed KBE in 1982 and retired from the navy in 1983.
He continued his interest in the health of divers working for the Royal Navy, other navies and the offshore oil industry in the North Sea. He has been chairman of the Defence Medical Services postgraduate council and a member of the council for postgraduate medical education of England and Wales. He was president of the Section of Radiology in the Royal Society of Medicine 1984-5 and president of the Medical Society of London (founded 1773) from 1985-6.
His wife Jane pre-deceased him in 1988. He is survived by their two sons.

Surgeon Vice-Admiral Sir John Harrison KBE
Medical Director-General of the Navy 1980-83
was born at Simla on May 5, 1921. He died on March 7
aged 88.