 In December 1940 he was appointed General Officer Commanding of the newly created 8th Armoured Division.McCreery was an expert on the use of light armoured vehicles (such vehicles being the mechanised equivalent of the cavalry of which his regiment had been part).His next posting overseas during the Second World War was as Adviser, Armoured Fighting Vehicles, Middle East (March to August 1942), where he was Claude Auchinleck's chief adviser on such matters.