Dennis Chesney was born on 1st May 1892, and was first commissioned into the Worcestershire Regiment, from the Royal Military College, Sandhurst, on 20th September 1911.

He was posted to the 4th Battalion Worcestershire Regiment, first at Bareilly, India, and then in Burma until the outbreak of war, when the Battalion returned to U.K.

After a short time in England, the 4th Battalion became part of the famous 29th Division with which it went to Gallipoli in early 1915 and it was while serving with the 4th Battalion immediately following the 2nd Battle of Krithia that Dennis Chesney was severely wounded in the right arm which had to be removed shortly afterwards.

On recovery he was employed on staff duties until the end of the war, for which services he was awarded the O.B.E.

In the early 1920's he was posted to the 1st Battalion Worcestershire Regiment, in India, and he was Adjutant of the 1st Battalion, under the command of Lieut.-Colonel L. M. Stevens, D.S.O., from 1925 to 1927. He was one of the officers who took part in the 1st Battalion's famous 400 mile march from Meerut to Allahabad in January 1927.

From 1928 to 1930 he did a tour of duty as Company Commander at The Depot (then commanded by Lieut.-Colonel J. F. Leman, D.S.O.) and in 1931 he rejoined the 1st Battalion Worcestershire Regiment, at Plymouth, as Company Commander of Headquarter Company.

In 1933 he was posted from the 1st Battalion to the 2nd Battalion, which Battalion moved that year from Malta to Tientsin, China, and Dennis Chesney served with the 2nd Battalion Worcestershire Regiment, either at Tientsin or as Commander of the Legation Guard at Peking, until the 2nd Battalion left China, for India, in the autumn of 1936.

He remained with the 2nd Battalion, now at Sialkot, Punjab, India, first as a Company Commander and later as Second-in-Command to Lieut.-Colonel C. Deakin, O.B.E.

In 1939, prior to the outbreak of the Second World War, he came home from India on long leave, but in early October 1939, he was appointed Commanding Officer of the 10th Battalion, The Worcestershire Regiment, at Malvern, and the following summer he took the 10th Battalion to Northern Ireland as a unit of the 61st Infantry Division.

Dennis Chesney remained in command of the 10th Battalion until 1941 when he was posted to a Royal Pioneer Corps Battalion in London and was succeeded, as C.O., by Lieut.-Colonel A. T. Burlton.

On his retirement from the Regiment and the Army after the war, he became a very regular visitor to and supporter of Regimental Headquarters, a member of the Regimental Committee and a member of the W.R.A. General Committee — in each case up to the time of his death.

Lieut.-Colonel D. Chesney