by Peter Brune
After a number of staff appointments during the war, Blamey’s abilities and performance came strongly to the fore as General Monash’s chief of staff. The fact that this period saw such stunning Australian successes, and that General Monash rose to such prominence both in and outside his own force, is also in part a reflection of Blamey’s ability and performance as his chief staff officer.
The last of the three prime candidates was Major-General John Lavarack. Born on 19 December 1885 at Kangaroo Point, Brisbane and educated at Brisbane Grammar School, Lavarack later gained high grades for a commission in the Permanent Military Forces. Of an imposing physical appearance—five foot eleven-and-a-half inches, (181 centimetres) in height, well built, and blue-eyed and dark in complexion—his first appointment was as a lieutenant, Royal Australian Artillery.
In early 1913, Lavarack attended the Staff College at Camberley, England until the outbreak of the First World War. After a posting at the War Office, he was assigned as brigade major to the 22nd British Divisional Artillery in 1915. He then saw service in France and Salonica, and became a staff officer in the Royal Artillery at XVI Corps Headquarters.
In July 1916, Lavarack was posted to the AIF 2nd Division for operations at Pozieres. He subsequently commanded two field batteries and was the brigade major of the 5th Divisional Artillery during the fighting on the Somme and the offensive on the Hindenburg Line. He was later promoted to lieutenant-colonel and GSO1 4th Division, in which he fought during 1918 at Dernancourt, Villers-Bretonneux, Hamel and Amiens.
After the First World War, Lavarack’s career continued to advance. In 1919 he was posted to Duntroon as director of military art; in 1924 he became a staff officer on the HQ of the 2nd Militia Division in Sydney; in March 1925 he was posted as director of military training at Army HQ in Melbourne; and in 1927 he went to London and became the first Australian officer to complete the course at the Imperial Defence College. In 1929 Lavarack became the director of military operations and intelligence at Army HQ; in January 1933 the commandant of Duntroon; and, in June of that year, achieved the highest serving defence post of Chief of the General Staff. At the time of deliberations over command of the newly formed 6th Division AIF, he was on a tour of Britain.
The reader could be forgiven for thinking that all three of these officers had impeccable records and were deserving of the position of GOC 6th Division. But other factors had come into play. The circumstances of the selection of Major-General Blamey as the GOC of the first raised 6th Division and then the subsequent choice of Major-General Gordon Bennett as GOC 8th Division AIF—and the ensuing behaviour of a number of other senior officers—are clouded in considerable controversy.
Both during the First World War and between the wars, Bennett was a strong advocate for the command aspirations of the citizen soldiers of the Militia. Based on his experience, he had come to believe that certain senior permanent officers, in contrast to the British, lacked the ability to lead their men, that they lacked the ‘common touch’, and should therefore be confined to staff operations. Bennett would later write that:
The great lesson learnt during the War was that the staff was the servant of the fighting units. There were unfortunately signs that there is a drift to the pre-war idea that the units are the servants of the Staffs.
This can only be overcome by firmly establishing the principle that all commands shall be in the hands of Citizen Force Officers and that even a Citizen Force Commander be appointed over the whole Australian Army.5
But it was in 1937 that Bennett’s criticisms of the Staff Corps reached their peak. In November and December of that year, he wrote three articles for the Sydney Sunday Sun and Guardian. The first was published on 28 November under the headline, ‘No More Monashes: General Hits Staff Corps’ and contained two subheadings, ‘Citizen Army Excluded From High Command’ and ‘Major-General Bennett Charges Jealousy in plans for Militia Leaders’.
The article began by pointing out that recent events in China—the Japanese were, at that time, closing in on Nanking—‘must make every Australian ask what is the true position of Australia’s Army’.6 Bennett then pointed out that in the event of an invasion Britain ‘could not lift a finger to save us. Our air force and our army will be our first line of defence’.7 After pointing out that the Australian Army was ‘inefficient and insufficient’, he once again made his assessment of the Staff Corps brutally clear:
What of our military leaders? Nothing effective is being done to train senior Citizen Force Officers for high command. It would appear, on the other hand, that senior Citizen Officers are not wanted. They are not given the full rank they are entitled to when commanding brigades and divisions.
Only two of the four divisions are commanded by Citizen Officers, and it is well known that attempts have been made to hand the command of all divisions to permanent officers.
Experience has proved that citizen officers can handle our Citizen Army more efficiently than permanent officers.
Our permanent officers are trained as staff officers and not as commanders.
The last great war showed our permanent officers to be efficient staff officers, and our citizen leaders to possess the capacity to lead.
Of late there seems to be an inclination to create a situation so that citizen officers will be excluded from the high command.
Fortunately that policy did not exist in the AIF. If it had we would not have produced General Monash—a world famous leader.
It is well known that he was regarded very jealously by certain Staff Corps officers after the war.
And the present trend makes it appear that they have decided that there will be no more ‘Monashes’ nor any senior commanders from the Citizen Forces.8
The second of Bennett’s articles, published on 5 December, was also controversial, but not towards the Staff Corps—it concentrated more upon criticism of the size and equipment of the army and air force and the need for a munitions manufacturing infrastructure ‘before and not after war breaks out’.9
From the Military Board’s perspective enough was now enough. On 12 December 1937, the Sunday Sun ran the headline, ‘Military Gags General Bennett’ with the subheading, ‘Prohibits Any More Articles in “The Sunday Sun”’. The paper also stated that:
The best English newspapers regularly engage Service men, of the reserve or retired lists, as their experts on Service matters . . .
A man of that character approaches the Australian democracy when Major-General Bennett expounds his views through ‘The Sunday Sun’—and the first and only impulse of the Australian Military Board is to make him shut his mouth!10
After the first article, the Military Board, consisting of the permanent officers Major-Generals Lavarack, Jess and Phillips, and its civilian component, suggested that Bennett be ‘retired under Defence Act 26 in the interests of the Service’.11 The second article they claimed, ‘constitutes an additional reason why, in the interests of the Service, he should not be retained’.12
In the end, Bennett was ‘retained’. There are a number of interesting perspectives regarding Bennett’s stance. He would later comment that:
I sought to arouse public interest in Australia’s citizen forces, so that there would develop a wave of enthusiasm in recruiting or even a call for a more efficient system than the present voluntary enlistment. I foresaw the likelihood of attack by Japan developing within the measurable future and was convinced that Australia could not meet it with her existing system of military organisation or with her industrial organisation still unprepared for war in spite of the pledges given by politicians. I felt I voiced the feelings of citizen force officers concerning certain policies which they felt to be operating against them.
In consequence, the Military Board, which has never forgiven me for my promotion at the instigation of W.M. Hughes some years before, and which could not abide any criticism from a civilian, even though that civilian had a good fighting record, now turned on me the full force of its fury.13
In the e
nd, the selection of the GOC 6th Division AIF came down as much as anything to political influence rather than merit alone. Despite his impeccable professional training for the position, Lavarack did not have the support of the Prime Minister Robert Menzies, nor the Treasurer Richard Casey, nor the influential Defence Secretary, Frederick Shedden. Although the Military Board had nominated Lavarack for the position,14 Menzies’s mind had already been made up. It should also be recognised that Lavarack did not have any real political support—far from it, as he had antagonised his political masters as Chief of the General Staff.
On 28 September 1939, the War Cabinet appointed Blamey as the GOC of the 6th Division, and Lavarack as the GOC Southern Command.
However, from Bennett’s perspective, worse was to follow. On 28 February 1940, the War Cabinet decided to raise a second division for overseas service: the 7th Division AIF. Blamey’s command was now to be expanded to that of a corps, and consequently two divisional commanders were to be appointed under his command. In the process of planning for the raising of the 7th Division, Sir Brudenell White became the new Chief of the General Staff. When the Army Minister recommended that one regular and one citizen soldier should be appointed, Mackay and Lavarack were appointed to the 6th and 7th Divisions respectively. Bennett had not been short listed.
On 2 May 1940, the Military Board was asked to recommend two further divisional appointments, which were to the 1st and 2nd Divisions, Eastern Command (New South Wales)—these were Militia appointments. The board considered seven candidates of which Bennett was most senior, and second youngest. It consulted Major-General Vernon Sturdee—a Staff Corps officer and GOC Eastern Command—concerning these appointments. Sturdee claimed that Bennett was ‘from a purely local military standpoint’ most suitable to command a division and ‘train it for war’. Further, he stated that his relationship with Bennett had been ‘most cordial’, and that his ‘personal enthusiasm, energy and ability’15 were beyond question. The board duly recommended Bennett to command the 2nd Division. The recommendation was signed by General White and Major-General Miles.16
Having made their decision, one or both of these signatories decided that additional scrutiny was called for. Miles rang Sturdee on 9 May 1940 with four questions. Sturdee’s replies are illuminating. Miles’s first query was, ‘Is General Bennett fit in all respects to take command of a Division?’ In his The Fall of General Gordon Bennett, A. B. Lodge quotes the first sentence of Sturdee’s reply: ‘Yes, this officer is probably the most efficient senior Militia Officer in the Commonwealth.’17 But Sturdee’s following two sentences—not cited by Lodge—are surely worthy of mention: ‘He continually tries to keep himself up to date by study, notwithstanding that he has not been actively employed since 1931. When a Div. Comdr. he was most active and is the only Div. Comdr. in 2 M.D. [New South Wales] who has taken effective measures to train his senior Comdrs.’18 These last two sentences fly in the face of criticism Bennett would later receive concerning his training, modern technical knowledge and training of his senior commanders. It was customary for Australian citizen commanders during the interwar period to be placed on the unattached list after a period of service. Sturdee refers to Bennett ‘trying to keep himself up to date by study’ and also identifies Bennett as the only officer in NSW to have ‘taken effective measures to train his senior commanders’—high praise indeed.
The second query was ‘How is he regarded in the Militia Forces?’ Lodge quotes Sturdee’s full reply: ‘He is looked up to as an excellent leader and organiser and one who maintains the dignity of a senior officer. He is a good mixer and popular amongst those who know him personally, largely because everyone realises he does his utmost to get efficiency. He is regarded as fair in judgment and decision.’19
Miles’s third question was ‘How is he regarded in the civil community?’ Lodge does not cite Sturdee’s answer: ‘He is regarded as a man of undoubted integrity, clean living and of temperate habits.’20 Sturdee then mentions Bennett’s civil background which we have identified earlier in this chapter—except for two additional points:
His selection as a City Council Commissioner during the period 1928 to 1930 to clean up the affairs of the Sydney City Council indicates the high esteem in which the then State Government held him. His work on this Commission is reported to have been outstandingly brilliant.
He is President of the N.S.W Golf Club which is indicative of his general popularity. He is generally regarded as a good energetic citizen with plenty of fighting spirit and organising ability. Like all energetic public spirited men, he has some critics, especially amongst the less efficient.21
Again, high praise indeed. The fourth and last question was ‘Do you consider his Press and other criticisms in the past should now be taken into consideration?’ Other than the first word, ‘No’—a significant omission—Lodge quotes most of Sturdee’s first paragraph:
whilst his methods may not have been orthodox, I am convinced that his motives were sincere. His outlook both in civil life as well as in the Army is to obtain maximum efficiency. His strongly worded criticism of the Staff Corps was, I gather, mainly directed against certain senior officers whom the Government subsequently proposed to retire . . .22
But Sturdee, after the word ‘retire’ states that: ‘(this action was partially interrupted by the war, but the majority of them have now been removed to less responsible positions or retired).’23
Sturdee’s comment is surely—in part at least—a vindication of Bennett’s motive for writing his public criticism of certain elements of the Staff Corps. Sturdee is admitting to a significant amount of deadwood in the system, and points out that some of these soldiers have been moved or ‘bowler hatted’.
Following this sentence, Sturdee—quoted by Lodge—goes on to say:
His other personal criticism of Army matters was an effort to obtain greater efficiency in the defence of Australia. The fact that he pressed for a senior appointment in the Army for himself was probably due to his opinion that he was capable of making improvements in the Army’s efficiency. It seems improbable that he was seeking such an appointment merely for financial reasons . . .24
The remainder of Sturdee’s sentence—after the word ‘reasons’, and not cited by Lodge—continues: ‘. . . as I understand his emoluments from directorships and his private practice would exceed any salary that he would be likely to receive in an Army appointment.’25 The balance of Sturdee’s last sentence provides further substance to its beginning.
Sturdee’s frank and detailed assessment of Bennett’s command qualities was admirable. Here we have a Staff Corps senior officer who appears capable of rising above the Staff Corps versus Militia command issue. But three further points should be raised. The first is the fact that in their recommendation of Bennett and Fewtrell for the command appointments of the 2nd and 1st Divisions respectively, Generals White and Miles quoted Sturdee as saying that Bennett was suited ‘from a purely local military standpoint’. In other words, to a militia or local command position. The fact that Bennett had shown—and successfully, according to Sturdee’s personal experience—his ability to work with and for Staff Corps officers in NSW surely should not have precluded him doing so in an AIF command overseas.
The second point is that White and Miles withdrew their recommendation for Bennett on 6 June 1940, and proposed that Cannan be appointed to command the 2nd Division. After first officially recommending Bennett on 2 May, and then placing him under further intense scrutiny by contacting Sturdee with four further questions after that recommendation, White and Miles were obviously going far, far out of their way to look for any means of not appointing Bennett. Third, neither could fairly claim that Bennett’s nine-year absence from an active command disqualified him, since they recommended Cannan as an alternative appointment, who had had a fifteen-year absence from an active command.26
On 22 May 1940, the War Cabinet approved the formation of the 8th Division AIF, the third Second AIF Division to be raised. M
ajor-General Vernon Sturdee was given command. Clearly, Major-General Gordon Bennett had some powerful enemies. The first was White. As Chief of the General Staff, he was determined to use his not inconsiderable power to ensure that regular soldiers were to be given command postings whenever possible. When Bennett went to see White regarding a posting, White told him that he had ‘certain qualities and certain disqualities’ and made it quite clear to him that he could not anticipate a command during his time as CGS. Clearly, Bennett had committed two sins: the first was the fact that he was not a permanent officer; and the second, and it would seem the more grave, was that he dared to question White’s policy of wanting to appoint only permanent officers to high command positions. The second enemy was almost certainly Blamey, who as corps commander of the Second AIF and a passionate enemy of Bennett’s, would have had no small say in such matters; the third were various government ministers who would have most certainly resented Bennett’s newspaper criticisms of defence policy and spending in the media; and the last was the Staff Corps as a group.
On 1 July 1940, Bennett was given command of the Eastern Command Training Depot. During that same month, the newly formed Volunteer Defence Corps—made up of ex-soldiers and run by Army Headquarters and the RSL—was also placed under his command. In effect, Gordon Bennett was now in charge of a training depot and a unit of ‘Dad’s Army’.
On 13 August 1940, the command career of Major-General Gordon Bennett was resurrected by a national tragedy. An aircraft crashed near the Canberra airport, killing a distinguished passenger list: the Chief of the General Staff, Sir Brudenell White; the Minister for the Army, Mr G. A. Street; the Minister for External Affairs, Sir Henry Gullett; and the Minister for Air and Civil Aviation, Mr J. V. Fairbairn. Also killed were White’s Staff Officer, Lieutenant-Colonel Thornthwaite, Mr Fairbairn’s Private Secretary, Mr Elford, and the RAAF crew of four.
For the second time within a year the post of Chief of the General Staff (CGS) required a new appointment. Blamey lost little time in cabling Menzies offering his services back home in any capacity Menzies deemed fit. Northcott, who was at that time Deputy Chief of the General Staff, might have considered himself a chance for the position, and so might Lavarack, who had filled the post before the war. In the end Sturdee was given the job on 30 August 1940.