NEW STAFF CHIEF

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXX, Issue 21227, 16 October 1943, Page 3

NEW STAFF CHIEF

SOUTH ASIA COMMAND GEN. SIR H. POWNALL (British Official Wireless.) (11 a.m.) RUGBY, Oct 15. It is officially announced that Lieut.-General Sir Harry Pownall, D. 5.0., has been appointed chief-of-staff’ to the Supreme Allied Commander of the South-east Asia Command. Major-General A. C. Wedemeyer, United- -States Army, has been appointed deputy chief-of-staff to the supreme Allied commander, who is Admiral Lord Louis Mountbatten. General Pownall is 55 years of age. At the outbreak of the war he was appointed Chief of the General Staff, with the British Expeditionary Force. After Dunkirk he was made K.C.B.

In July, 1940, he was given the important appointment of InspectorGeneral of the Home Guard in the vital period when the first steps were taken to change from a keen but illequipped volunteer force to the welltrained and well-armed citizen army it has now become. Later, General Pownall was sent to Northern Ireland as general officer commanding until May. 1941, when he returned to the War Office as viceChief of the Imperial General Staff. In December, 1941, he sailed for the Far East as commander-in-chief of the British forces. In January, 1942, lie became Chief of Staff to the Supreme Command in the Pacific, and in March, 1943, became Commander-in-Chief at Ceylon. A year later he was made Commander-in-Chief, Persia and Iraq, a post he held until to-day.