FINE WAR RECORD

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 83, Issue 35, 11 February 1939, Page 14

FINE WAR RECORD

DEATH OF GENERAL BORN IN NEW ZEALAND. WON TRIPLE DECORATIONS. WELLINGTON, Feb. 9. The death in England is announced of Brigadier-General Archibald Jack, C. 8., C.M.G., C.8.E., who had a very distinguished war record . He was the elder son of the late Mr. Mac Lean Watt Jack, of Hokitika. Brigadier-General Jack was born in Hokitika and educated at the Hokitika Public School and the Otago Boys’ High School. He entered the Public Works Department in Wellington, where he received his training as an engineer. After taking part in the South African War he undertook railway construction work and management in South Africa, China, and the Argentine. He obtained leave of absence from the Argentine to take part in the Great War, and was torpedoed in the English Channel while in sight of the English coast. He was- appointed British representative with the rank of lieutenantcolonel on the Allied Railway Mission, which entered Russia from the Rumanian side in 1917. After nine months in Southern Russia, Turkestan and East Persia the mission was disbanded because of the Russian Revolution. When making his way back to England by way of Bagdad and Bombay, Brigadier-General Jack was in Baku when it was bomborded by the Caspian fleet, which had been bought by the Bolsheviks for 800,000 roubles. To Siberia. From Bombay he was sent by the War Office to Siberia to be chief of the railway section of another mission which entered Russia from the east. He was attached to General Kolchak’s staff and in July, 1918, operating on a single line of railway, he successfully evacuated 72 fully-loaded trains in 48 hours, thus saving the 100,000 inhabitants of Perin which was under lire from the Bolsheviks. In 1918 he was promoted BrigadierGeneral, was mentioned in dispatches, and awarded the triple decorations of C. 8., C.M.G., and C.B.E. for his services to the Allied cause. At the end of the war he went to Cuba as general manager of United Railways of Havana, an important English company. On his retirement some years ago he resided in Kent. In 1911 he married Miss Gertrude Miller, a daughter of the late Mr. Frederick Miller, K.C., London. He is survived by his widow, one son, Lieutenant Mac Lean Jack of the Royal Engineers, India; one brother, Mr. R. M. Jack (Wellington); and one sister, Mrs. A. S. Malcolm (Balclutha). Since he left New Zealand Briga-dier-General Jack has returned only once, when he paid a short visit to the country in 1925.