On 4 December 1946, Gale was promoted to the substantive rank of lieutenant-general. In January 1946, shortly after I Airborne Corps was disbanded, Gale became GOC of the 1st Infantry Division, succeeding Major-General Charles Loewen, then stationed in Egypt before, in March, being sent to Palestine, where there were tensions between the Jews and the Arabs, and commanded the division throughout the Palestine Emergency. Gales' division, serving under British Forces in Palestine and Trans-Jordan, commanded by Lieutenant-General Evelyn Barker (later Lieutenant-General Sir Gordon MacMillan), was responsible for northern Palestine, with his old 6th Airborne Division, now commanded by Major-General James Cassels, responsible for southern Palestine. Gale relinquished command of the division to Major-General Horatius Murray in December 1947 and, in January 1948, he was appointed GOC British Troops in Egypt, succeeding Lieutenant-General Charles Walter Allfrey. Then in 1949, after handing over the command to Lieutenant-General George Erskine, he was transferred and became Director-General of Military Training. Gale was promoted to general on 6 June 1952, eight years after he landed in Normandy, and appointed Commander-in-Chief (C-in-C), Northern Army Group, Allied Land Forces Europe and British Army of the Rhine (BAOR), succeeding General Sir John Harding, on 24 September; he held the post until retiring in 1957, in turn handing over BAOR to General Sir Dudley Ward.