EMPIRE TOUR

Greymouth Evening Star, 7 August 1946, Page 7

EMPIRE TOUR

MONTGOMERY’S PLANS

PURPOSE OF LONDON DEFENCE CONFERENCES “NO DESK GENERAL” (Rec. 10.50 a.m.) LONDON, August 6. Revealing plans for an Empirewide tour beginning on August 19 and lasting until the end of 1947, Field-Marshal Lord Montgomery said at a press conference to-day that he would visit Australia and New Zealand in July of next year. Referring to next week’s conference with 180 Empire generals, Lord Montgomery said it was planned to hold "similar conferences every six months to study all problems of war of the future. The first would deal with offensive war and the others. with defensive war overseas and other military operations. He said that he was never a “desk general” and did not intend to be one now. 'He planned to spend two months abroad and a month in London and

then to reverse the process. He was leaving for Canada on August 19 for a fortnight and would then visit General Eisenhower to see American military establishments with him. He intended to visit Egypt and Palestine in December and then go on to India and Malaya. Next March he would visit Egypt, the Sudan, East Africa and India and then Australia and New Zealand in July and West Africa and South Africa in December. Lord Montgomery added that it was not feasible to carry out the training of a post-war army in the Dominions and elsewhere. Training in wartime had to be carried out in England and peace-time training facilities must be based on war-time needs.