NEW CHIEF

Wairarapa Times-Age, 25 October 1943, Page 2

NEW CHIEF

OF COMBINED OPERATIONS MAJOR-GENERAL LAYCOCK. PICTURESQUE CAREER. LONDON, October 24. Major-General R. E. Laycock has been appointed to succeed Lord Louis Mountbatten as Chief of Combined Operations. He is 36 years of age and the youngest major-general in the British Army. Major-General Laycock has had a meteoric career. He was a member of the commando --party which made the raid on General Rommel’s headquarters in Libya in 1942. The mission succeeded in destroying the headquarters, but General Rommel was absent at the time. Only two of the attackers made their escape, one being Major-General Laycock. The new Chief of Combined Operations is registered as a Finnish able seaman. This came about when he sailed in a four-masted Finnish windjammer round the Cape from Copenhagen to Portuguese East Africa, and spent 80 days at sea. . Before the war Major-General Laycock used to go from port to port. In Qus way he visited ports in Finland, Denmark, Holland, Belgium, France, Germany, Italy and Sweden. He was also a keen amateur yachtsman, chartering Brixham trawlers with fellow officers and sailing them round Britain. The first United States Ranger battalion to be sent to Europe was trained under Major-General Laycock’s command. He introduced a system of training for these United States troops with a British unit. The result was excellent and great camaraderie exists today.