Following this, in June 1942, he returned to India, after handing over the 15th Division to Major-General Charles Bullen-Smith. On 5 July 1942 his rank of major-general was made permanent. After a short appointment as a military district commander, he was promoted to the acting rank of lieutenant-general on 12 November 1942 and became GOC of XXXIII Indian Corps. On 1 January 1943 he was made a Companion of the Order of the Bath. His rank of lieutenant-general was made temporary on 12 November 1943. He handed over XXXIII Corps to Lieutenant-General Montagu Stopford in mid-November 1943 and then assumed command of the XV Indian Corps, part of the newly formed British Fourteenth Army, succeeding Lieutenant-General William Slim, who he knew from years before as a fellow instructor at the Staff College, and had been promoted to command the Fourteenth Army. The XV Corps made up the Southern Front of the Burma Campaign in the coastal region known as the Arakan.