RETIREMENT FROM ARMY

Press, Volume CII, Issue 30154, 11 June 1963, Page 16

RETIREMENT FROM ARMY

Brigadier J. R. Page

Playing, coaching and administration of Rugby have been major interests for Brigadier J. R. Page, who has just retired from the Army. Even in Australia as senior officer of the New Zealand Joint Services liaison staff, which was his post before retirement, he was active in Rugby. He was coach of the Australian National University Rugby team for more than two years. Representing New Zealand m the 1931, '32, '34 and '35 series of games, he was a member of the teams .that toured Australia and of the All Black team which toured Britain in 1935. He was a member of the management committee of the Wellington Rugby Football Union from 1946 to 1949 and was on the executive committee of the New Zealand union in 1953 and 1954.

Brigadier Pa o e, who is 55. began his military career in 1926 by attending the Royal Military College, Sandhurst, as an officer cadet. He graduated in 1928, returned to New Zealand after a short attachment to the British Army and became assistant area officer in Wellington. Various postings to artillery groups followed in the next eight years (including a course in coastal and antiaircraft artillery in Britain) until promotion to captain in November, 1937, for a simultaneous appointment as adjutant of the 3rd Artillery Brigade Group and Officer Commanding the Field Cadre, Royal New Zealand Artillery. Christchurch.

Brigadier Page went to the Middle East with the Second New Zealand Division to command the 26th Battalion in Greece and Libya. In November, 1941, he was wounded at Sidi Rezegh and had to be invalided to New Zealand. During service overseas he was mentioned in dispatches and awarded the D.S.O. For the remainder of the war, he was General S.aff Officer for Training at Army Headquarters with promotion to lieutenant-colonel m 1943

Brigadier Page served from 1947 to 1950 as Military Secretary. Then he became commander of the Northern Military District with the rank of brigadier Two years later he was appointed to the Arfny Board as AdjutantGeneral. He was awarded .he C.B.E. in 1953 In 1956, he became Quarter-master-General and in 1960 was appointed to the Joint Services liaison staff in Canberra.

Brigadier Page and his family are now living in Lower Hutt.