George Giffard

Lieutenant Colonel George James Giffard

Sir George James Giffard ( September 27, 1886 in Englefield Green, Surrey - November 17, 1964 in Winchester ) was a British general who commanded an Allied army group in Southeast Asia during World War II .

Life

George Giffard was born in 1886 and joined the Royal West Surrey Regiment on January 24, 1906. After seven years of service in the first battalion , he was sent to the Kings African Rifles in West Africa . During the First World War he served 1915-18 in the British Army in German and Portuguese East Africa . He was named brigade commander at the age of 32, received the Distinguished Service Order on June 4, 1917, and was mentioned several times in war disputes.

After the war he attended a staff course at the Royal Naval College in his home country, after which he returned to the West African Frontier Force in 1920. In 1925 again in service with The Queen's regiment and accompanied the Shanghai Expeditionary Force to China . After returning to Great Britain in 1928 he worked as an instructor at Staff College Camberley , in 1931 he attended Imperial Defense College . From March 13, 1931 to July 22, 1933, he commanded the second battalion of the Royal Queens Regiment in Aldershot . In July 1936 he was promoted to colonel and then appointed chief of staff of the British 2nd Division in the local North Camp. During the last year of his service, the British 2nd Division was under the command of Major General Archibald Wavell , who was very impressed with his skills. From 1937 to 1939 he was Inspector General of the Royal West African Frontier Force . He then returned briefly to London as the Secretary of State's commissioner for the war and was then briefly posted to Palestine and Jordan as military commander . When war broke out, Giffard was sent back to West Africa in late 1940 to take command of the diverse defense forces of Nigeria , Sierra Leone and Gambia . By 1942 his training had reached the level of efficiency that allowed the War Office to offer its newly formed West African 81st and 82nd Divisions for military service.

General Wavell, now went up to the commander in India, took Giffard after the loss of Burma to India and gave him in May 1943 as the successor to Noel Irwin command of the Eastern Army of the Commonwealth Troops in Bengal . After the failed First Arakan Campaign, Giffard devoted himself to restoring the morale of the Indian troops by improving medical care and catering and revising personnel policy. On New Year's Day 1944 he was raised to the personal nobility as Knight Grand Cross of the Order of the Bath . Lieutenant General Slim , who also held him in high regard, described him as a man of high physical and mental health who shied away from public appearances and had a deep understanding of how war had to be waged in the jungle. In October 1944 he became the commander of the Allied 11th Army Group in Burma.

To Lord Mountbatten , his warfare was rigid and unimaginative. Giffard found himself increasingly isolated between the young dynamic officer's military views and the intentions of the American General Stillwell . Lord Mountbatten recommended that a new Land Forces Commander be appointed to SEAC. It took the Americans and British six months to agree on who the officer should be. During this time the 11th Army Group was disbanded and a new supreme command for the Allied Land Forces in South East Asia (Allied Land Forces South East Asia) was established. According to Mountbatten, Giffard behaved "... in an absolutely polite and loyal manner ... if he had acted sooner, I might never have had to apply for his replacement ..."

Giffard returned to England in 1944 and still acted as adjutant to King George VI. , but otherwise no longer held any offices. In August 1946 he left the service and was elected President of the Army Benevolent Fund. In 1954 he found recognition by being made honorary colonel and commander of the Royal West African Frontier Force and the Northern Rhodesia Regiment . He died on November 17, 1964 at the Royal Hampshire County Hospital in Winchester.

literature

• William Slim: Defeat Into Victory, Casell and Company 1956, reissued in 1972 under the Pan Military Classics Series London, pp. 168-192
• Charles Romanus / Riley Sunderland: China-Burma-India Theater: Stilwell's Command Problems, Center of Military History, Washington 1978

Web link

• http://pwencycl.kgbudge.com/G/i/Giffard_George.htm
• http://www.queensroyalsurreys.org.uk/colonels/039.html