NEW COMMANDER

Auckland Star, Volume LXXIV, Issue 7, 9 January 1943, Page 6

NEW COMMANDER

FIRST DIVISION

MAJOR-GENERAL WILDER

(P.A.) WELLINGTON, Friday. Two important changes in New Zealand home defence army commands were announced to-day by the Minister of Defence, Mr. Jones. Brigadier A. S. Falconer, C.8.E., D.5.0., M.C., E.D., who recently returned from the Middle East, has been appointed to command the division hitherto commanded by Major-General A. S. Wilder, D.5.0., M.C., V.D. Major-General Wilder is to assume the command of the Ist Division -in succession to Major-General H. E. Barrowclough, D.S.O. and bar, M.C., now overseas in command of the Second New Zealand Expeditionary Force in the Pacific. Brigadier Falconer left New Zealand in command of a South Island battalion with the Second Echelon, and his appointment to a brigade followed his arrival in Egypt from Britain. In civilian life he was well known as organiser for the National party in New Zealand and he twice contested the Dunedin North seat. He was honoured with the C.B.E. and Avas mentioned in dispatches for conspicuous service with the Expeditionary Force. Major-General Wilder relinquishes command of the Southern Division, to which he was appointed in May of last year at the same time as Major-General Barrowclough, with whom he had been brought back from the Middle East to help with the development of the home defence forces, was appointed to command the Northern Division. Gerieral

Wilder is, like Brigadier Falconer, a non-professional soldier. He was appointed to the Expeditionary Force early in the war, became commandant of the Maadi Training Camp and later succeeded to the command of the Fifth Infantry Brigade when Brigadier J. Hargest, D.5.0., M.C., was captured in Libya late in 1941. Since General Barrowclough was appointed to the Second N.Z.E.F. in the Pacific, his former command has been under the temporary command of Brigadier G. Dittmer, M.8.8., D.5.0., M.C., previously in command of the Maori Battalion overseas.