COLONEL GROVES LEAVES N.Z.

Southland Times, Issue 25478, 26 September 1944, Page 4

COLONEL GROVES LEAVES N.Z.

SERVICE IN TRAINING TANK FORMATIONS

(P.A.) AUCKLAND, Sept. 25. After spending almost three years in New Zealand, Lieutenant-Colonel H. B. M. Groves, M.C. and bar, Royal Armoured Corps, has left for an overseas destination. He was accompanied by Mrs Groves and their two children, one of whom was born in New Zealand. Lieutenant-Colonel Groves is wellknown to many New Zealand soldiers as commanding officer of the Armoured Fighting Vehicles School at Waiouru, which was established late in 1941 for the purpose of training an army tank brigade for service overseas and which also played a most important part in training officers and other ranks for the armoured formations of the home defence forces.

Lieutenant-Colonel Groves arrived in New Zealand in September 1941 and was the first and only commanding officer of the school, which is now closed. Under his very efficient command the school achieved a standard which compared very favourably with that of the more famous armoured fighting vehicles schools in the Middle East and in other countries. Its contribution to the Expeditionary Force and to the home defence forces was in itself a monument to his capacity. VETERAN TANK OFFICER A veteran tank officer of the last war, Lieutenant-Colonel Groves spent four years in the Middle East and fought in the Libyan campaign before he was specially selected to take command of the New Zealand school. He organized the first tank school in Egypt, to which a number of men from New Zealand cavalry units were sent for training and which is now one of the best-known tank schools in the world. At this school, at Messines in the last war and in Libya Lieutenant-Colonel Groves formed an admiration for New Zealand soldiers which he continued to show throughout his period in the Dominion.