Following the French surrender on 11 July, the division returned to guard duty in Mosul. In August, the division took part in the joint Anglo-Soviet invasion of Iran. At the conclusion of the Iranian operation it returned to Iraq where it underwent additional training and conducted security duties until May 1942.[1] In March 1942 command of the division passed from Major General Slim to Major General Thomas "Pete" Rees when Slim was ordered to India to take command of Burma Corps, the kernel that would eventually become the British Fourteenth Army.[2]