A FINE RECORD

Dominion, Volume 12, Issue 237, 1 July 1919, Page 8

A FINE RECORD

FROM PRIVATE TO BRIGADIER-

GENERAL

RETURN OF BRIGADIER-GENERAL A. E. . STEWART, D.S.O.

Among tho officers to arrive back home hi the.Prinzessin yesterday was BrigadierGener'aPA'.' E. Stewart D.5.0., of Milton, :.wlio' has been away from New Zealand for; four years on active service. ; Bri-gadier-General Stewart, has had exactly 31 years of soldiering, rising from tha rank of private to that of LieutensaitColonel Commanding tho 4th Otago .Volunteer Battalion. He has the Colonial Forces'' decoration for twenty years as 'a 'commissioned officcr, and also wears the Croix de' Guerre, awarded on hehalf <*f the First French Army, with which his '■battalion co-operated near Ypres in July, 1917. v ' . , , As a soldier of the enterprising and fearless'type, General Stewart has a high reputation. After an interesting expen- . ence in holding tho lines of communication of tho \\ostern Egyptian l frontier against the Senussi, he left for-France with the New Zealand Division in March, 1916. In tho early Sonime fighting Ins battalion (the Second Rifle Brigade.) was given the task of capturing the l'lers support trench .and the northern part of the -village ot' Flers. The battalion did heroic work,' capturing nil objectives and Tepelling a strong counter-attack, in recognition of this the D.S.O. was awarded to the battalion commander, and various other decorations to officers anu 111 January, 1918, General (then lieutenant-colonel) took ovar the oecond Infantry Brigade, when General Brmth- ' waite was invalided. On being relieved bv General Hart he received orders to take over and disband tho Fourth Man- ( try Brigade for the' purpose of forming an entrenching group. "Il'he I'ourth Brigade," said General Stewart, m the course of an interview, "to one of the iincst brigadc-s in the division, and it was particularly unpleasant to see it melt away into an entrenching group. 1 rom tho viewpoint of officers and men keen on doing their duty, I found no'soldiers like them. I am in a position to give 'this credit because of being associated with tho brigade only for a short time. Their efficiency was dus to the personal'itv and' training under General Hartand ' itfaior Eastwood. I may be pardoned for caving also that the Third Brigade, with wliich I was most intimately acquainted, was the finest fighting, brigade in the . division, due in great measure to the soldierly qualities of Brigadier-General M. T,. Fulton and Major R. G. Purdy, both killed in action." In the critical days of March, 1918, General Stewart was ordered at short notico to take over temporary command of the Third (Rifle) Brigade, when the division was about to proceed south to Amiens to assist in stopping tho Gerinah advance after the, retirement ot the J'iftli Army. .He commanded the brigade in the hazardous. fighting at Mailly Mailly, and in the sharp action in front o? Colinchamps. General.Fplton then returned from leave, but within twenty, four hours cf resuming command he met- a. soldiers' death, and General Stewart was appointed to tho permanent oommanu of the /brigade. General Stewart was a familinr figun . up and down tho lino until the middle of July, 1918, when he was shot .by a sniper while crawling over a parapet in thV. front .trenches. He was for some time'ill hospital in Rouen and Brocken'liwrst; and in September, 1918, took command of the/New Zealand Training Depot at Sling, which, in January of this year, was made the chief demobilising centre, . .remaining there until relieved by General Young about tho middle of April, 1919.