Lieutenant-General Sir Leslie Morshead: Commander, 9th Australian Division

General Sir Leslie Morshead trained his battalion under the eye of Major-General John Monash, one of the most meticulous and imaginative trainers the Australian Army has produced. March 1941 was dominated for Morshead by two parallel struggles, the equipment of his division and its concentration on sound tactical principles. Connell Wavell, who had also decided that Maughan Tobruk must be held came up, at Harding’s request, on 8 April, bringing Major-General J.D. Lavarack, commander of the 7th Australian Division, but now to take charge of Cyrenaica Command. The Eighth Army had already passed the nadir of its fortunes when Morshead led the last fresh division in the Middle East into battle at El Alamein. To Morshead and the 9th Division this was a godsend after their long experience in Tobruk, shared by no other division in the Eighth Army. Morshead, like other Australian generals, never handled large forces as an independent commander.