Editing Claude Auchinleck (section)

===India and Iraq January–May 1941===
Promoted to full [[General (United Kingdom)|general]] on 26 December,<ref>{{London Gazette| issue=35023| date=27 December 1940|page=7251|supp=y}}</ref> Auchinleck returned to India in January 1941 to assume his new appointment, in which position he was also appointed to the Executive Council of the [[Viceroy of India]]<ref>{{London Gazette| issue=35037| date=7 January 1941|page=158}}</ref> and appointed [[Aide-de-camp general|ADC General to the King]],<ref>{{London Gazette| issue=35183| date=6 June 1941|page=3243}}</ref> a ceremonial position he was to hold until after the end of the war.<ref>{{London Gazette| issue=37875| date=7 February 1947|page=662}}</ref> In April he succeeded Lieutenant General [Sir [[Travers Clarke]] as colonel of the [[Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers]].<ref>{{London Gazette|issue=35153|date=2 May 1941|page=2571|supp=y}}</ref>

In April 1941, [[RAF Habbaniya]] was threatened by the new pro-Axis regime of [[Rashid Ali]]. This large Royal Air Force station was west of Baghdad in [[Iraq]] and General [[Archibald Wavell, 1st Earl Wavell|Archibald Wavell]], Commander-in-Chief [[Middle East Command]], was reluctant to intervene, despite the urgings of [[Winston Churchill]], because of his pressing commitments in the Western Desert and Greece. Auchinleck, however, acted decisively, sending the 1st Battalion of the [[King's Own Royal Regiment (Lancaster)]] by air to Habbaniya and shipping the [[10th Indian Infantry Division]] by sea to [[Basra]]. Wavell was prevailed upon by London to send ''[[Habforce]]'', a relief column, from the [[Mandatory Palestine|British Mandate of Palestine]] but by the time it arrived in Habbaniya on 18 May the [[Anglo-Iraqi War]] was virtually over.<ref name="Mead53">Mead, p. 53</ref>