NEW CHIEF OF STAFF

Press, Volume XCV, Issue 28267, 3 May 1957, Page 8

NEW CHIEF OF STAFF

Appointment At S.M.D. A former K Force commander Major E. H. L. Maxwell, of Christchurch, has been appointed chief of staff at Southern Military District headquarters with promotion to the rank of temporary lieutenant-colonel. He succeeds Lieutenant-Colonel J. A. Worsnop. who has been posted as commander of Area 10 in succession to Lieutenant-Colonel F. L. H. Davis, who died last month.

The changes were announced by Army headquarters yesterday. An artillery officer, Colonel Maxwell has held an appointment as GSO2 in Christchurch since he returned from the Far East last August. Colonel Maxwell was born in Christchurch and educated at the old Norma] School and Boys’ High School, where he was a member

of the Ist Rugby XV in 1936. After a short period at the Christchurch Teachers’ College, he left to take a special entry course at the Royal Australian Military College, Duntroon. from where he graduated in 1939. In 1942 Colonel Maxwell went overseas on active service with artillery in West Fiji and later to the Middle East. He took part in the North African and Italy campaigns; in the latter, during the Battle for Florence, he was awarded the Military Cross. At the end of the war, Colonel Maxwell went direct to Japan to serve with the occupation forces there, returning to New Zealand in 1946 to be stationed at Southern Military District as GSO2. His next appointment was to Larkhill in Britain in 1947, where he underwent special gunnery training. He returned to New Zealand in 1949 as GSO2 (Artillery) at Army Headquarters in Wellington, and in 1951 when the Headquarters, New Zealand Division, was formed, went there as brigade major of divisional artillery. He remained in that post until April, 1955, when he went to Korea to command K Force with the rank of lieutenant-colonel. He relinquished the command last August