Claude Auchinleck - Between The Wars

Between The Wars

Between the wars, Auchinleck served in India. He was both a student and an instructor (1930–1933) at the Staff College at Quetta and also attended the Imperial Defence College. In January 1929 he had been promoted to lieutenant-colonel and appointed to command his regiment which had become in the 1923 reorganisation of the British Indian Army the 1st battalion, 1st Punjab Regiment. In 1930 he was promoted to full colonel, with seniority backdated to 1923, and in 1933, he was appointed temporary brigadier to command of the Peshawar Brigade, which was active in the pacification of the adjacent tribal areas. During his period of command he was Mentioned in Despatches for services in Upper Mohmand from July to October 1933. The Second Mohmand Campaign of 1935 in the Mohmand area led to the first use of tanks in India. Auchinleck was again mentioned in despatches and received the CSI and CB for his skill in managing the operation.

Auchinleck married Jessie Stewart in 1921. Jessie was born in 1900 in Tacoma, Washington State, to Alexander Stewart, head of the Blue Funnel lines that plied the west coast of the United States. When he died about 1919, their mother took her, her twin brother Alan and her younger brother Hepburne back to Bun Rannoch, the family estate at Innerhadden, Perthshire. Holidaying at Grasse on the French Riviera, Auchinleck, who was on leave from India at the time, met Jessie on the tennis courts. She was a high-spirited, blue-eyed beauty. and Things moved quickly, and they were married within five months. Sixteen years younger than Auchinleck, Jessie became known as 'the little American girl' in India, but adapted readily to life there.

In November 1935 Auchinleck was promoted to major-general and on leaving his brigade command in the following April was on the unemployed list (on half pay) until September 1936 when he was appointed Deputy Chief of the General Staff and Director of Staff Duties in Delhi. After this he was appointed to command the Meerut District in India in July 1938. In 1938 Auchinleck was appointed to chair a committee to consider the modernisation, composition and re-equipment of the British Indian Army. The committee's recommendations formed the basis of the 1939 Chatfield Report which outlined the transformation of the Indian Army. It grew from 183,000 in 1939 to over 2,250,000 men by the end of the war.