Rapid Rise Of New British Commander

Auckland Star, Volume LXXIII, Issue 195, 19 August 1942, Page 4

Rapid Rise Of New British Commander

COR the second time in this war General Sir Harold Alexander, who is the new Commander-in-Chief in the Middle East, has succeeded General Sir Claude Auchinleck to an important command. The first occasion was in December, 1940, when he received the appointment of G.0.C., Southern Command in Britain.

" 'Fighting Alex' to his officers and men, General Alexander escaped across the Chindwin River in a stern wheeler reminiscent of 'Show Boat,' and was one of the last to leave Burma before the advancing Japanese last May," says the London Sphere. "He had his headquarters in the dusty compound of a Burmese house built on stilts on the river's edge. Two years earlier, in May, 1940, he was the last man to leave Dunkirk, at the end of the campaign in Belgium."

In the Surma retreat General Alexander, who was G.0.C., had many narrow escapes, one when the house he had been using as his headquarters received a direct hit from a Japanese bomb—he had left it only a few minutes before, and saw it go up in flames and smoke from a trench which was straddled by other bombs. With him on board the stern wheeler when he crossed the Chindwin were 1000 British troops leaving the country for Assam. He removed his heavy campaigning boots in case the boat was hit, and then helped to repair holes made by bomb splinters caused by an air attack as the vessel steamed away. No serioua damage was done, and the crossing of the Chindwin was made successfully. New Army Already Trained "Of course we shall take Burma back. It's part of the British Empire." This was the lightning retort made by General Alexander when asked in New Delhi if there were plans for recapturing the lost territory.

He continued: "The cause of the retreat, apart from the fact that tho army was 'living on its hump,' was that Burma has only two main roads running north and south. "To be dependent on motor transport, and therefore on roads, was far too serious a disadvantage for the British to overcome.

"The Japanese, on the other hand, had ideal light equipment carried on pack ponies and Coolies, and soldiers specially trained for jungle fighting. "The experience which has been forced down our throats is now being passed on to the army, which has already been trained for the next battle of Burma."

Asked whether the destruction of the Burma oilfields was complete, General Alexander said: "The key saboteur, who had had experience in scorched Russia, has done his work superbly. ''It was the opinion of experts that the Japanese won't get a single ounce of petrol from the Burma oilfields for a year." Scrapped Old Battle Drill General Alexander is an Irishman who has risen with unusual rapidity in spite of his independent character. In his complete intrepidity, humour, and unconventionality he resembles another famous Irish soldier of the last generation, Field-Marshal Sir Henry Wilson. Since Dunkirk, where he was left in command after Lord Gort was ordered to return to London, he has caused much of the old battle drill to be scrapped. The army's battle training schools are not a little due to him.

Son of a peer, he is just 50 years of age, and is the youngest British officer to receive a major command. He was educated at Harrow and Sandhurst. At the time of the German invasion in the west in May, 1940, he commanded the Ist Division in France. His fighting retreat in Burma in March, April and early May added new honours to his fine military record. New Desert Commanders Lieutenant - General Montgomery, who succeeds Major-General Ritchie as commander of the Bth Army, was under the command of General Auchinleck when the present defence line of El Alamein was organised in Egypt. He commanded the first battalion, Royal Warwickshire Regiment, from 1931 to 1934. In the last war he won the D.S.O. and was six times mentioned in dispatches. He helped to restore order in the open warfare between the Jewish and Arab communities in Palestine. When the cavalry unit was mechanised he led it in Belgium. Major-General Lumsden takes the place of General W. H. Gott, commander of the armoured divisions in the Middle East, who was killed in the fighting in Libya in June. In May, 1940, he led the first mechanised British forces which crossed from France into Belgium to meet the German invasion. During the retreat he commanded a regiment of mechanised cavalry with marked skill, and was one of the first British officers decorated for outstanding gallantry. Before the war he was with the 12th Lancers, which became mechanised. ,