GREAT SOLDIER

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXIV, Issue 22864, 20 October 1937, Page 16

GREAT SOLDIER

CAREER IN THE ARMY GENERAL. BRAITHWAITE DEAD FOUR YEARS IN DOMINION LONDON. Oct. 18 The death is announced of BrigadierGene*al William Garnett Braithwaite. It was as Brigadier-General commanding tho 2nd Infantry Brigade of the New Zealand Division in France that General Braithwaite became known to practically every. member of the division. Ho was on loan to tho New Zealand Territorial Forces as General Staff Officer at Auckland when the Great War broke out and was sent overseas with tho! ]Now Zciilflnd Expeditionary Forco. The reputation that he enjoyed as a very efficient soldier became enhanced "when he was given command of the 2nd Brigade on tho expansion of the New Zealand into a division, in Lgypfc in 1016. There was for him an affection, entirely unsought, that was a tribute to •his qualities of leadership and his stern sense of justice. Behind a somewhat forbidding manner' General Braithwaite concealed a most kindly nature. Ho was the terror ' of the purposely delinquent and woe betide any subaltern Avho did not live up to the high standards which he demanded of his officers, especially in the care of the men' committed to their charge. Ho was wont to halt a second lieutenant by the roadside and question him at length to test his knowledge of the physical state and morale of his men. He knew that slackness in officers was quickly revealed in the qualities of the soldiers. After a gruelling cross-examination, ho would bark a final question: "And what did yotfr platoon have for breakfast this morning?" Pity the youngster who had left the first rounds to a colleague and was ignorant of this important fact. But a worse fate was in store for the foolish ono who tried to bluff an answer. General Braithwaite had a Tiabit of riding into a camp and questioning the cooks and examining the diet sheets, and if tho results did not correspond with what ho had been told earlier, the subsequent inquest was something to avoid. General Braithwaite had command of the brigndo on the Somme, 1916, at Messines, 1917, and at Passchendaele, where ho was credited with having made more than forceful protest against the- launching of the disastrous attack, and on Bellovue Spur on October 12. Ho left the division at tho end of 1917 and retired from the service in 1925 after having served continuously since 3891. Ho was mentioned eight times in despatches and was made a C.M.G. and a C.B. General Braithwaite was born on October 21 and would have been 77 to-morrow had he lived.