SOUTH ASIA COMMAND

Dominion, Volume 37, Issue 19, 18 October 1943, Page 5

SOUTH ASIA COMMAND

Chief Of Staff Appointed (British Official Wireless.) RUGBY, October 15. It is officially announced that Lieu-tenant-General Sir Harry Pownall, D. 5.0., has been appointed Chief of Staff to the Supreme Allied Commander of the South-east Asia Command, Lord Mountbatten. Major-General A. C. Wedemeyer, United States Army, has been appointed deputy chief of staff. Lieutenant-General Pownall, who is 55, wag appointed chief of the General

Staff with the B.E.F. at the outbreak of war. After Dunkirk he was made a In July, 1940, he was given the important appointment of inspector-general of the Home Guard in a vital period when the first steps were taken to change it from a keen, but ill-equipped, volunteer force to a well-trained, well-armed citizen army it has now become. Later Lieutenant-General Pownall was sent to Northern Ireland ns G.O.C. till Mar '1941, when he returned to the War Office as Vice Chief of the Imperial General Staff. In December, 1941, he sailed for the Far East as commander-in-chief of the British Forces. In January, 1942, he became chief of staff to the Supreme Command in the Pacific, and in March, 1943, became commander-in-chief in Ceylon. A year later he was made commander-in-chief in Persia and Iraq, a post which he held till today.