Andries Brink

Andries Jacob Brink CBE DTD DSO (1877 – 1947) was a South African military commander and Lieutenant-General. An Afrikaner veteran of the Anglo-Boer War, he joined the Union Defence Forces as a staff officer in 1912 and served in World War I. He was Chief of the General Staff from 1920 to 1933, initially in command only of Defence HQ but, from 1922, of the whole UDF. He was also Secretary for Defence, i.e. head of the civil service Department of Defence, from 1922 to 1937. From 1937 to 1946 he was Commandant-in-Chief of the Burger Commandos, a home defence organisation.

Awards and Decorations
On 1 January 1944, Lieutenant-General Brink was made a Commander of the Order of the British Empire. The Notice in the London Gazette reads as follows: The KING has been graciously pleased, on the advice of His Majesty's Ministers for the Union of South Africa, to give orders for the following appointments to the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire: To be Additional Commanders of the Military Division of the said Most Excellent Order: Lieutenant-General Andries Jacob Brink, D.T.D., D.S.O., South African Staff Corps (V).