STRENGTH OF WEST

Press, Volume XCVI, Issue 28471, 28 December 1957, Page 9

STRENGTH OF WEST

Montgomery’s View (Rec. 8 p.m.) LONDON, Dec. 26. Field-Marshal Lord Montgomery said today the West’s military might was such a deterrent to a potential aggressor that, unless it was dissipated by political leaders, there was little likelihood of another global war. Speaking to disabled former servicemen at a hospital in Renfrewshire, he said that during the last decade the West had built up a powerful deterrent force. He warned against it being thrown away.

The victor of El Alamein then turned his verbal guns on the colonels of the Highland Light Infantry and the Royal Scots Fusiliers who were recently asked to resign over the kilt versus trews controversy. “I think all this business . . is nonsense,” Ffeld-Marshal Montgomery said. “I think these retired colonels should have their heads banged together—yes, bang their heads together.” The colonels were asked to resign by the Secretary for War last month after they had been unable to agree with the Army

Council that trews and not the kilt should be by the unit to be formed through the amalgamation of both regiments. Meanwhile, the War Office has announced the • appointment of two new colonels of the regiments, “The Tinies” reported. Brigadier Archibald BuchananDunlop replaces Major-General Edmund Hakewill-Smith as Colonel of the (Fusiliers. MajorGeneral RonaldJ Davis replaces Major-General Robert Urquhart as Colonel of the Light Infantry.