NEW APPOINTMENT

Timaru Herald, Volume CLIII, Issue 22476, 11 January 1943, Page 4

NEW APPOINTMENT

Distinguished War Record CAREER OF BRIGADIER FALCONER Brigadier A. S. Falconer, C.B.E, D. 5.0., M.C., E.D., who recently returned from the Middel East, and who is to take over the command of a South Island Division, has a distinguished war record. He served in Gallipoli, Egypt, and France in the last war, leaving in 1914 as a sergeant and returning in 1919 a major. He was awarded the D.S.O. and M.C., and was twice mentioned in dispatches. On his return from the war he retained his interest in military training, serving with the Otago and Southland regiments, the former of which ne commanded for five years with the rank of lieutenant-colonel, before being transferred to the reserve of officers. He unsuccessfully contested the Dunedin North seat against the sitting member, Mr J. W. Munro, at the general elections of 1935 and 1938. In May, 1940, he left with the Second Echelon as a lieutenant-colonel, being promoted to the rank of brigadier during the fighting in Crete. In Greece, Brigadier Falconer, then a lieutenant-colonel, was with the Fifth Brigade under Brigadier Hargest. This brigade held a position on the northern slopes of Mount Olympus, and then, in accordance with the general scheme of operations, withdrew to Thermopylae. The Fourth and Sixth Brigades were left to hold the position while the Fifth Brigade moved by motor transport to Athens, and thence to a hide-out near an embarkation beach. The German attack on Crete started on May 20, and Brigadier Falconer left Crete for Egypt on the night of May 24-25 in a destroyer. Brigadier Falconer then went to Maadi, and here he had the task of reporting to the Commander-in-Chief, General Wavell, and to the Prime Minister (the Rt. Hon. P. Fraser) on the situation in Crete. He later took command of the Ninth Training Brigade and, after the motor-car accident in which the Prime Minister was involved and in which Brigadier Falla was injured, Brigadier Falconer was appointed to’command the camp at Maadi in place of Brigadier Falla. He was then given the command of a mixed force charged with the defence of Cairo, that being his final job before he left on his return to New Zealand. He was awarded the C.B.E. in September of last year, and was mentioned in Lieutenant-General Sir Bernard Freyberg’s dispatches earlier in the year.