MAJOR-GENERAL PARKINSON

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume 79, 18 April 1944, Page 5

MAJOR-GENERAL PARKINSON

NEW COMMANDER OF SECOND NEW ZEALAND DIVISION Wellington, This Day. | Major-General G. B. Parkinson, D. 5.0.. who now commands the 2nd | New Zealand Division in Italy, is an : artillery and tanks specialist. He was born in Wellington in 1896, and was educated at Wellington College. He graduated at the Royal Military College of Australia in 1916 and left with the Expeditionary Force in 1917. In 1920 he was posted for duty in Fiji, and in the following year was ; promoted to captain. In 1924 he was appointed officer in charge of harbour defences, Northern Command, and in 1925 went to England to undergo a gunnery course, which kept him there until 1927. In 1931 he became Assistant Adjutant and QuartermasterGeneral to the Central Command. Wellington, and a year later was promoted to major. Leaving New Zealand with the 4th Feild Regiment as a lieutenantcolonel in 1940, he served in the Greek Campaign, and was awarded the D.S.O. During his service overseas he was five times mentioned in dispatches. Towards the end of 1941 he was promoted to brigadier, and returned to New Zealand to command the newly formed New Zealand Tank Brigade. On his way from Egypt he visited various British units in the Middle East to study the latest developments in tank warfare, spent some time at an armoured fighting vehicle school in India, and made observations on the methods employed in raising new units in Australia. He did valuable work in organising the armoured force in New Zealand and then returned to the Middle East with the Bth Reinforcement Tanks Headquarters which he had raised. BELATED DOCUMENTS RELEASED Washington. April 16. The Stale Department has released documents revealing that Britain rejected an American proposal in 1929 that Britain refrain from establishing military, naval and military aviation stations in her Western Hemisphere possessions in return for an American pledge to refrain from similar activity in the Far East. Tlie proposal, under which the world aoparently would have been divided into two spheres was made at the historic MacDonald Hoover meeting at Rapidan. Virginia. Mr MacDonald also turned down President Hoover's proposal that food ships should be granted the same immunity from attack in wartime as hospital ships. U.S. MINE WORKERS' COMPLAINT Washington. April 15. Alleging conspiracy to defraud United Mineworkers Assoeial:on members. Mr John L. Lewis, president, forwarded a letter to the Secretary of tlie Interior. Mr Harold Ic-kes. demanding prompt payment of 18 000 000 dollars retrospective portal-to-oortal pay for soft coalminers. He added that miners the failure of the Government to redeem its promise. Mr Lewis contended that 18.000.000 dollars were collected by owners through the sale of coal at advanced prices, owners using the sum to operate the industry instead of using their ov>n corporate funds. DISAPPEARANCE WITHOUT TR \< K Washington. April 16 Several American merchant sh os have disappeared since the outbreak of the war without trace. Maritime Commission officials said they could not give the number for security reasons. They added that when details were released they would provide first-clas s mystery thriller#