John Lavarack

John Dudley Lavarack (around 1950)

Sir John Dudley Lavarack KCMG KCVO KBE CB DSO (born December 19, 1885 in Kangaroo Point , Queensland , † December 4, 1957 in Buderim ) was an Australian officer and Governor of Queensland, the first to be born on the Australian continent.

Life

Lavarack was born in the suburbs of Brisbane . He attended Brisbane Grammar School , where he excelled in Army Cadet classes.

First World War

On August 7, 1905, he became a lieutenant in the Royal Australian Artillery . In 1913 he received training at Staff College Camberley in England . After the outbreak of the First World War he worked first in the British War Department and then as Brigade Major (Chief of Staff) of the divisional artillery of the British 22nd Division. In September 1915 he came to France with his division , but this was soon transferred to Saloniki to be used on the Balkan front . Although he had been assigned to the Australian Imperial Force since early 1915 , it was not until 1916 that he received permission to leave the Balkans and join his compatriots in France. Here he was used from July 1916 during the Battle of the Somme in the 2nd and later in the 5th Australian Division. In May 1917 he was transferred to the staff of the 1st Australian Division, where he served under its chief of staff, then Colonel Thomas Blamey . With this a lifelong competition should connect him. Since December 1917 he was lieutenant colonel and chief of the general staff of the 4th Australian division.

Interwar period

After the war he returned to Australia and taught at the Royal Military College Duntroon . In 1926 he received the honorary rank of colonel . From 1927 he attended a one-year course at Imperial Defense College in London, which he completed as the first officer in the Australian Army. Upon his return to Australia, he became Director of Operations and Reconnaissance at Army Headquarters. From 1933 he was in command of the Royal Military College Duntroon . On April 21, 1935 he was major general and chief of the Australian General Staff, where he was preferred to several senior colleagues. As Chief of the General Staff, he vehemently advocated the creation of an army of maneuvers in addition to the militia army, which he considered necessary in the event of war with Japan. Many politicians resented this.

Second World War

At the beginning of the Second World War he was promoted to lieutenant general and took over the Southern Command . In 1940 he was to become the commander of the 6th Division, but this was denied him by the commander of the 1st Corps, his old rival Thomas Blamey, due to a “weakness of character”. Instead, he became commander of the newly established 7th Division, but had to accept the demotion to major general. At the beginning of April 1941 he was appointed in command of the Tobruk Fortress , which was then besieged by the German Africa Corps under Erwin Rommel . According to the will of the British Mayor of the Middle East Archibald Wavell , he should also be the XIII. Corps of the Commonwealth Armed Forces take over, but this was prevented by Blamey, who would have felt neglected. In the middle of the month he returned to his division in Egypt. After success in the Syrian-Lebanese campaign , he was promoted again to lieutenant general and succeeded Blameys as commanding general of the 1st Australian Corps, after he had been appointed deputy Wavell. After the outbreak of war against Japan, his unit was posted to the Pacific in January 1942 . He became Commander in Chief of the 1st Australian Army and was entrusted with the defense of Queensland and New South Wales . This meant two years of service away from the front. In February 1944 he came to the USA and became head of the Australian military mission there. In 1945 he was the chief military advisor to the Australian delegation at the founding conference of the United Nations in San Francisco . In August 1946 he returned to Australia and resigned from the army a month later, frustrated by the lack of an active command post, which was mainly due to his adversary Blamey.

Queensland Governor

He immediately took over the office of Governor of Queensland after Ned Hanlon , the Prime Minister of Queensland , had offered it to Leslie Morshead , who however refused. This made Laverack the first Governor of Queensland to be a native Australian and the second Governor of any Australian state to be born in the country. He took up a total of three terms as governor and died in office on December 4, 1957, after he had handed over his official duties to the deputy governor at the beginning of the same year due to illness.

Honors

He was awarded the Distinguished Service Order in 1918 for his services in the First World War , in 1919 the Croix de guerre , was honored in the same year as Companion of the Order of St. Michael and St. George and mentioned three times in the war report .

For his services in World War II, he was knighted as Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 1942 . As Governor of Queensland, he was also made Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 1954 and Knight Commander of the Royal Victorian Order in 1955 .

The barracks Lavarack Barracks in Townsville , Queensland was named after him.

Web links

Commons : John Lavarack  - Collection of Images, Videos and Audio Files

Individual evidence

1. ^ David Horner: Lavarack, Sir John Dudley (1885-1957) . In: Douglas Pike (Ed.): Australian Dictionary of Biography . Melbourne University Press, Carlton (Victoria) 1966–2012 (English).
2. ^ Australian Honors Database

predecessor	Office	successor
Julius Bruche	Chief of the Australian General Staff 1935–1939	Ernest Squires
Item newly created	Commander in Chief of the First Australian Army 1942–1944	Vernon Sturdee