Deputy First Minister and Communities Minister Gordon Lyons laid a poppy wreath on the grave of Field Marshal Sir John Greer Dill at Arlington National Cemetery in Washington DC. The wreath bore the Northern Ireland crest and came from the Oldpark/Cavehill Branch of the Royal British Legion in Belfast.

The ceremony took place yesterday to honour Dill, who was born in Lurgan, County Armagh. A Colour Guard from the St Andrew's Society of Washington DC, made up of UK and US military veterans, greeted the DUP ministers.

Dill served as chief of the Imperial General Staff from 1940 to 1941. He then moved to Washington DC as Winston Churchill's personal representative and head of the British Joint Staff Mission.

In Washington, Dill collaborated with US General George Marshall on ties between the two nations. He died in November 1944 and was buried at Arlington by Joint Resolution of Congress, the highest ranking non-American interred there.

A mounted statue of Dill stands at the cemetery, unveiled by President Harry S Truman. Truman noted the statue serves as a memorial to Dill and to the Anglo-American partnership that contributed to victory in the war.