BRITISH FORCES

Evening Post, Volume CXXIX, Issue 96, 23 April 1940, Page 9

BRITISH FORCES

THE THREE STAFFS

VICE-CHIEFS MADE

PRESSURE OF WORK

(By Telegraph—Press Association —Copyright.) (Received April 23, 12.30 p.m.) LONDON, April 22. Vice-chiefs have been appointed for the three lighting services as follows:—

Naval Staff, Vice-Admiral T. S. V, Phillips.

Imperial Staff, General Sir John Dill, at present commanding ...the First Corps in France. Air- Staff, Air Marshal R. t. C. Peirse.

It is officially stated that the appointments of the vice^shiefs of the defence forces is the result of increasing pressure due to the war upon the time and energy of the chiefs of staffs.

"The effect of the air warfare necessitates'a 24-hour shift for all three services," says the statement. "Assuming that the strain may be prolonged, the Government has considered it essential to relieve it as far as possible. "The holders of the new posts will be members of the Board of Admiralty, the Army Council, and the Air Council respectively. They will also be available for consultation by their subordinate staffs when the chiefs of staffs themselves are attending meetings or are otherwise engaged. They will be available to attend meetings of the War Cabinet at which the chiefs of staffs are unable to be present, and will thus form a link between the War Cabinet and the chiefs of staffs.

"The arrangements are not intended to /interfere with the positions of the chiefs as the principal advisers to the political heads of the services."

Vice-Admiral Phillips has been Lord Commissioner of the Admiralty and Deputy Chief of the Naval Staff since last year. After being educated at Stubbington House, Fareham, • and in H.M.S. Britannia, he entered the Navy in 1903. ■ After the last war he was appointed to the Staff College for about a year and then served on the Permanent Advisory Committee for Naval, Military, and Air Questions at Geneva from 1920 to 1922. He was Assistant Director of Plans at the Admiralty from 1930. to 1932 and Chief of Staff and Flag Captain to the Com-mander-in-Chief of the East Indies Squadron for the next three years. Until 1938 he was Director of Plans ■and was Commodore Commanding the Home Fleet Destroyer Flotillas in 1938-39, when he was also A.D.C. to the King.

Air-Marshal Peirse, C.8., . won the D.S.O. in 1915 and was later awarded