3rd INFANTRY BRIGADE

Press, Volume XCII, Issue 27705, 8 July 1955, Page 14

3rd INFANTRY BRIGADE

MAJOR L. A. KERMODE'S APPOINTMENT

SUCCESSOR TO MAJOR R. N. GRIGGS

Major L. A. Kermode, who returned to New Zealand at the beginning of last month after spending two years at British Military Headquarters in Egypt, will today become Brigade Major of the 3rd Infantry Brigade. He succeeds Majof R. N. Griggs, who is one of three New Zealand officers who have been seconded for staff appointments in the Far East Command.

Major Griggs will leave Whenuapai on July 29 on his way to British Headquarters in Kaula Lumpur. He will be Deputy-Assistant Quartermaster-Gen-eral (Plans), Malaya Command.

Major Kermode, who is an officer of the New Zealand Regiment, was commissioned from the Royal Military College at Duntroon in 1939. After serving during World War II in the Pacific and later in Italy, spent a year in Japan at British Headquarters in Kure. In 1948 he went ib England, where he spent a year af the Staff College, Camberley. He was stationed in Auckland until he left for Egypt in May, 1953.

Major Griggs’s Career Major Griggs, who has been Brigade Major at the headquarters of the 3rd Infantry Brigade in Christchurch for the last two years, joined the Army in May, 1939, as a private. After the outbreak of World War 11, he served in Fanning Island.

After commando training in Australia in 1940-41, he returned to New Zealand, and was commissioned. He went overseas again with the 9th Reinforcements, and served in the 19th Armoured Regiment throughout the Italian compaign. After the war he spent a year in Crete with a New Zealand party which searched for men who had been posted as missing.

Major Griggs returned tq New Zealand at the end of 1946, and in April of the next year he qualified for a commission in the Regular Forces. After serving at Army Headquarters for a year, he went to the Staff College, Camberley, in 1949. He subsequently attended courses at various English military establishments, including Combined Operations, the School of Infantry, and the Armoured School. When he returned to New Zealand he commanded the Tactical School at Waiouru before being posted to his appointment in Christchurch.