H. Woodring, Devers was promoted over 474 other colonels to brigadier general on 1 May 1940, becoming, at age 52, the youngest brigadier general in the army. In July he was recalled to Washington from the Panama Canal Zone to assume command of the Provisional Brigade in the District of Columbia area. In September, Marshall, with the approval of new Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson, named Devers Senior U.S. Army representative to the Presidential Board tasked with surveying bases in the Caribbean and Newfoundland to be leased from the British under the Destroyers for Bases Agreement. When Devers said that he could use an Air Corps officer, Marshall told him to take the one outside his door, who happened to be Lieutenant Colonel Townsend E. Griffiss. Devers was promoted to major general on 1 October 1940 and was sent to command the newly-formed 9th Infantry Division at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, to replace Brigadier General Francis W. Honeycutt, who had been killed in an air crash. Devers would supervise training of the 9th and manage Bragg's huge base expansion program. Devers directed basic and advanced infantry training at Bragg for the thousands of troops under his command: regular army, national guard, reservists, and draftees. Among his colonels was Alexander M. (Sandy) Patch, the commander of the 47th Infantry. During Devers's tour, Fort Bragg's strength grew from 5,400 to 67,000 soldiers. Meanwhile, he pushed forward immense construction projects for base housing, training facilities and roads on the overcrowded post. By working closely and co-operatively with engineers, local contractors, quartermasters and staff and by cutting through red tape, Devers oversaw completion of 2,500 buildings and of roads in six months. Armored Force On 1 August 1941, General Marshall named Devers Chief of the Armored Force, headquartered at Fort Knox, Kentucky, replacing the terminally-ill Major General Adna R. Chaffee, Jr. Devers reported directly to Marshall. He was responsible for inspecting, organizing and training the army's armored divisions and separate non-divisional tank battalions, including all non-tank personnel assigned. McNair's Army General Headquarters (GHQ) was in tactical charge of all U.S. ground forces, but GHQ specifically did not control the semi-autonomous Armored Force, which was considered a "quasi-arm." The Armored Force had complete control of its own training, doctrine, and organization. In a major reorganization of the War Department in March 1942, McNair was named Commander of a new component, Army Ground Forces (AGF),