to the Iraqi Army. He was brevetted to major on 1 January 1931 and promoted to the substantive rank on 10 August 1933. He was brevetted lieutenant colonel on 1 January 1935 and, in the same year, he married Geraldine Clare Lucas-Scudamore. They had two children, a son and a daughter. The following year Allfrey was appointed as a General Staff Officer Grade 1 (GSO1) at the Staff College, Camberley from 1936 to 1939, despite never having attended as a student, and was promoted to the substantive rank of colonel on 6 August 1939, shortly before the outbreak of the Second World War. Second World War France and Britain At the start of the Second World War, in September, Allfrey held a senior staff position, as a GSO1, in the United Kingdom, continuing in this role in France with the British Expeditionary Force (BEF). In February 1940, however, he returned to the United Kingdom to take up the post of Corps Commander Royal Artillery (CCRA) at II Corps, then commanded by Lieutenant General Sir Alan Brooke. On 19 July 1940, after having participated in the Battle of France and the Dunkirk evacuation, and after a brief spell as CCRA at IV Corps, under Lieutenant General Claude Auchinleck, he was promoted to the acting rank of major general to soon took over from Major-General William Green in command of South-Western Area, part of Southern Command, which was responsible for the defence of the counties of Devon and Cornwall in the event of a German invasion, and was then, in the aftermath of Dunkirk, considered highly likely. In late February 1941 Allfrey was ordered to form the Devon and Cornwall County Division, comprising the recently created 203rd, 209th and 211th Infantry Brigades (all formerly independent brigades), but with no supporting troops, with himself as its General Officer Commanding (GOC). However, within a week, he relinquished command of the division to Major General Frederick Morgan and ordered to take command of the 43rd (Wessex) Infantry Division, in succession to Major General Robert Pollok who was retiring. The division was a first-line Territorial Army (TA) formation stationed on the other side of the country in Kent on anti-invasion duties. He was promoted to temporary major general on 19 July 1941. The division was serving as part of XII Corps, commanded by Lieutenant General Andrew Thorne (replaced in April by Lieutenant General Bernard Montgomery who