John Allan (Salvation Army officer)
John James Allan (1887–1960) was an American Salvation Army officer and a United States Army chaplain who served as the 8th Chief of the Staff of The Salvation Army and as a colonel in the U.S. Army.
He was born in Hazleton, Pennsylvania, the son of Salvation Army officers from Scotland. Before joining the Salvation Army, he worked at the Army’s eastern territorial headquarters. He played cornet in the New York Staff Band for twenty years and published music. He married Maude E. Parsons in 1909. Allan was also a founder of the United Service Organizations.
Allan was commissioned as a Salvation Army officer in 1906 and served as assistant corps officer in Mount Vernon, New York. In 1918, he joined the U.S. Army as a chaplain with the 77th Division in Europe during World War I. Under fire, he carried dead soldiers back to camp so their remains would not be abandoned, and he received the Croix de Guerre and the Order of Orange-Nassau for his actions.
After the war, he returned to Salvation Army work in New York until 1923, then served as divisional commander from 1923 to 1933. In World War II, from 1940 to 1942, he was the second to the Chief of Chaplains in Washington, DC. In 1942 he was promoted to commissioner and became the territorial commander of the USA Central Territory.
In 1946 General Albert Orsborn appointed Allan as Chief of the Staff at the Salvation Army’s international headquarters in London. In this role, he traveled widely to oversee the Army’s work around the globe. He met Kwame Nkrumah, the prime minister of the Gold Coast, in 1954. Ill health led him to step back in 1953 as Chief of the Staff, and he served as Special Delegate from 1953 until his retirement in 1957.
John James Allan died in Clearwater, Florida, in 1960.
This page was last edited on 3 February 2026, at 10:35 (CET).