ROYAL ARMOURED CORPS

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LXXIII, 10 December 1940, Page 5

ROYAL ARMOURED CORPS

NEW COMMANDER APPOINTED [British Official Wireless] (Received 10th December, 11.55 a.m.) RUGBY, 9th December. The King has approved the appointment of Major-General H. R. L. G. Alexander to be General Officer C.-in-C. of the Southern Command. Major-Gen-eral G. le Q. Martel to be Comander of tne Royal Armoured Corps. Major-General Alexander will succeed Major-General C. J. C. Auchinleck wh has been appointed C.-in-C. in India. He was in command of th® B.E.F. during the last days of the evacuation from Dunkirk. He is 49 years of age. The appointment of Commander of the Royal Armoured Corps is a new appointment and Major-General Martel is particularly fitted for it. He served oil the staff of the Tank Corps in France for eighteen months in 1917’8 was Assistant Director of Mechanisation at the War Office from October, 1936, to December, 1937, and thereafter Deputy Director of the same branch until February of last year. He is 51 years of age. The creation of such an appointment marks the reaching of a definite stage in the policy of rapidly increasing the armoured strength of the army to which the mili. tary authorities have been devoting themselves