TO VISIT NEW ZEALAND

Press, Volume LXXXIII, Issue 25309, 8 October 1947, Page 3

TO VISIT NEW ZEALAND

FORMER BTH ARMY COMMANDER LipUTENANT-GENERAL SIR OLIVER LEESE Lieutenant-General Sir Oliver Leese, who succeeded Field-Marshal Viscount Montgomery as commander of the Bth Army in Italy in December, 1943, will visit New Zealand, with Lady Leese shortly. He will leave Britain by the Waipawa on October 11. and a Press Association telegram from London

states that they expect to spend Christmas in the Dominion as the guests of the Governor-General, LieutenantGeneral Sir Bernard Freybetg, and Lady Freyberg. Lieutenant-General Leese was one of three commanders who directed corps operations at El Alamein and in later campaigns leading up to his appointment as an Army commander. In November, 1944, he took over command of the 11th Army Group in the SouthEast Asia Command. When American forces in Burma and Iridia were also placed under his control he became Commander of the Allied Land Forces in South-East Asia. When sentence of death had been imposed on the German general, FieldMarshal Kesselring, earlier this year, General Leese defied precedent and declared that Kesselring should not die. He stated that Kesselring was a gallant soldier who had fought his battles fairly, and the Bth Army men who fought against him had no complaints about his conduct.