Lieutenant-General Sir Alexander Galloway, KBE, CB, DSO, MC (3 November 1895 – 28 January 1977) was a senior British Army officer.
During the Second World War, he was particularly highly regarded as a staff officer and, as such, had an influential role in the outcome of Operation Crusader during the Western Desert Campaign in late 1941.
[12] Remaining in the British Army during the interwar period, Galloway had a number of regimental and staff jobs, serving from 1925 to 1926 as adjutant to the 2nd Battalion, Cameronians.
His fellow students there included several future general officers such as Richard McCreery, Gerald Templer, John Harding, Gerard Bucknall, William Holmes, Philip Gregson-Ellis, Gordon MacMillan and I. S. O. Playfair.
[1] Wilson lent Galloway to Richard O'Connor, commander of the Western Desert Force to help in the planning of Operation Compass.
[25] Although sent as part of 6th Infantry Division to reinforce Australian I Corps fighting in the Syria-Lebanon Campaign, the brigade saw no action and by September Galloway was back in Cairo to take up the appointment as BGS to Alan Cunningham, the commander of the newly formed Eighth Army.
[26] On 23 November, during Operation Crusader, learning that the British armour had been heavily defeated by the tanks of Erwin Rommel's Africa Corps, Cunningham drafted orders to discontinue the offensive and withdraw his forces.
Galloway, on his own initiative, delayed issuing the orders and contacted Cairo to suggest that Claude Auchinleck, the Commander-in-Chief Middle East Command, should come forward to review the situation personally.
Although Rommel's "dash to the wire", an attempt to sever Eighth Army's lines of supply, caused alarm and confusion in Eighth Army's rear echelon, Rommel's armour was held at the Libyan border with Egypt by the artillery of 4th Indian Infantry Division and then forced to retrace its steps as a result of lack of supply.
[27] During Crusader on 27 November 1941, Galloway was promoted acting major-general,[28] to become Deputy Chief of the General Staff (DCGS) at GHQ Middle East.
[31] During the division's period of re-fitting and training in North Africa Galloway's rank of major-general was made substantive in December 1943[33] and then in March 1944 he had an interlude in Italy when Major General Francis Tuker, the commander of the 4th Indian Infantry Division, which was in the front line at Cassino fell ill. Galloway arrived to take temporary command on 8 March 1944, in time for the Third Battle of Monte Cassino.
[35] In early 1945, returned to good health, Galloway spent a month in command of 3rd Infantry Division while Lashmer Whistler took leave.
[35] At the end of the war Galloway was appointed Chief of Staff of 21st Army Group, replacing the exhausted Freddie de Guingand.
Galloway was unusually blunt for one in a diplomatic role, which created friction between his office and the host government, and with the British Legation in Amman.
He went on to say: "There is need to distinguish between a tempting political maneuver and the hard, unpalatable fact that the refugees cannot in the foreseeable future return to their homes in Palestine.
On Friday 29 August 1952 Galloway published a piece in the conservative Daily Telegraph and Morning Post entitled 'What Can be Done About the Arab Refugees?
There is need to distinguish between a tempting political manoeuvre and the hard, unpalatable fact that the refugees cannot in the foreseeable future return to their homes in Palestine.