Vernon Sturdee

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Vernon Sturdee as Lieutenant General, July 13, 1945.

Sir Vernon Ashton Hobart Sturdee KBE , CB , DSO (born April 16, 1890 in Frankston , Victoria , Australia ; † May 25, 1966 in Heidelberg , Victoria, Australia) was a Lieutenant General (Lieutenant General) of the Australian Army (Australian Army), who served twice as Chief of the General Staff . The professional officer of the Royal Australian Engineers came in 1908 in the militia , and fought with the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps (Australian and New Zealand Army Corps, ANZAC) in the First World War . During the Battle of Gallipoli he led the 5th Field Company (5th Field Company). Subsequently, he was in command of the 8th Field Company and the 4th Pioneer Battalion on the Western Front . In 1918 he was transferred to the General Headquarters (General Headquarters, GHQ) of the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) as a staff officer .

Due to the transport jam of shrinking in the interwar period Armed Forces held Sturdee to 1935 his acquired during the war rank of Lieutenant Colonel ( Lt. Col. ). During this time he served on various staff positions and attended the Staff College in Quetta , British India and the Imperial Defense College in London . Like many other professional officers, he doubted the government's Singapore strategy and warned that the land forces must be ready to face a well-equipped and trained Japanese enemy .

With the outbreak of World War II with the rank of Colonel ( colonel ), Sturdee was promoted to Lieutenant General in 1940 and appointed Chief of the General Staff. In this position, he advocated defending the islands north of Australia in the event of war and in 1942 succeeded in diverting the Second Australian Imperial Force , which was on the way from the Middle East to the Dutch East Indies, to Australia. He then became head of the Australian Military Mission in Washington, DC , where he represented the country to the Combined Chiefs of Staff . As commander of the First Army in 1944 and 1945, Sturdee led them in the battles for Aitape , New Britain and Bougainville . His task was to break up enemy formations if possible. Since he only had limited resources and did not send his troops into fights for which he did not keep them strong enough, he could not always fulfill this mission.

At the end of the war he accepted the surrender of the Japanese troops in Rabaul . As one of the most senior Australian officers he followed in December 1945, General Thomas Blamey as Commander-in-Chief ( commander ) of the Australian Military Forces. In the following year he became Chief of the General Staff for a second time and remained so until his retirement in 1950. During his second term in office he oversaw the demobilization of the land forces and coordinated the Australian contribution to the British Commonwealth Occupation Force (BCOF ) in Japan. Sturdee played a leading role in the structural reform of the army, which for the first time had permanent combat units after the war and was given professional soldiers in the form of the Australian Regular Army, which still exists today.

Origin and early life

Vernon Ashton Hobart Sturdee was born on April 16, 1890 in Frankston, Victoria, Australia to Alfred Hobart Sturdee and his wife Laura Isabell, née Merrett. Alfred Sturdee, a medic from England, came from a family with a long naval tradition and was the brother of the British Admiral of the Fleet Frederik Doveton Sturdee . He emigrated to Australia in the 1880s while traveling as a ship's doctor. During the Second Boer War he served with the Commonwealth troops and was commended in the war diary for rushing to the aid of a group of wounded soldiers near the front line under enemy fire. In January 1905 he enrolled in the Australian Army Medical Corps (medical corps of the Australian Army) with the rank of captain ( Hauptmann ) and brought it to December 1912 to lieutenant colonel. He headed a field hospital near Gallipoli and later on the Western Front as Colonel the medical service of the 1st Division . During the war he was mentioned three more times in the war diary and was included in the Order of St. Michael and St. George . His Australian-born wife, Laura, called Lil, was the sister of Charles Merrett, a well-known manager and militia officer. Her half-brother Harry Perrin also served as a Colonel in the militia.

Vernon Sturdee trained at Melbourne Grammar School and then hired as an engineer at Jaques Brothers in Richmond . As Second Lieutenant ( Unterleutnant ) on October 19, 1908 in the Corps of Engineers, the engineer division of the militia, he was on December 1, 1911 to lieutenant ( lieutenant ) of the Royal Australian Engineers, as the regular engineer component of the armed forces was called at that time , promoted. On February 4, 1913, he married Edith Georgina Robins at St. Luke's Church of England in Fitzroy North .

First World War

Gallipoli

Sturdee in front of a shelter near Gallipoli, 1915.

Sturdee joined the First Australian Imperial Force (AIF) on August 25, 1914 with the rank of lieutenant . On October 18, he was promoted to captain and assigned as an adjutant to the 1st Division Engineers. He embarked on October 21 in Melbourne on board the requisitioned P&O liner RMS Orvieto for Egypt. On the morning of April 25, 1915, he took part in the Allied landing near Gallipoli from the transport ship SS Minnewaska . His duties during the fighting included overseeing the pioneers' storage areas on Anzac Cove Beach and assembling improvised grenades. He was withdrawn from the battlefield several times due to illness to be treated. The first time he suffered from typhoid, the other time an excessively high concentration of potassium permanganate , which was added to the drinking water for disinfection, led to severe damage to his gastric mucous membranes. Sturdee then suffered from stomach problems for the rest of his life. In July, he fell seriously ill with the flu and had to go to a hospital again for treatment.

On August 28, 1915, Sturdee was promoted to major and a short time later received command of the 5th Field Company established in Egypt. This served to support the newly formed 2nd Division . With the company, Sturdee was responsible for all pioneering activities and mine warfare in the northernmost area of ​​the Allied lines until the end of the fighting . On December 17th, two days before the last ANZAC soldiers left the Gallipoli peninsula, he was finally withdrawn from there.

Western front

Returning to Egypt after the evacuation, Sturdee was responsible for the construction of temporary accommodation in the AIF camp near Tel-el-Kebir . Since there was a second 5th Field Company in Australia at that time, Sturdees' unit was renumbered as the 8th Field Company and, after its establishment in February 1916, assigned to the 5th Division . Due to the renumbering, the delivery of mail from home was delayed for some time because there was confusion about the location of the previous 5th Field Company and it was often first delivered to Europe.

Relocation of the B Company, 4th Australian Pioneers, by field railroad from Butte de Warlencourt to Fremicourt, April 19, 1917.

In June 1916, the division moved to France and took part in the losing battle of Fromelles in July . During the fighting, Sturdee's company supported the 8th Brigade and made it possible to withdraw from the battle through a newly built trench. For his services at Gallipoli and Fromelles, Sturdee was mentioned in the war report and received the Distinguished Service Order. The heavy losses suffered at Fromelles prevented the 5th Division from participating in the Battle of the Somme . In order to get the division free for the fighting, the II ANZAC Corps organized the so-called "Franks Force", which took over part of the front section of the division at Houplines . Sturdee received the post of Commander Royal Engineers in this force (Commander Royal Engineers, CRE). After the final relocation of the 5th Division in November, Sturgee became CRE for the road between Albert and Montauban .

On February 13, 1917, Sturdee received command of the 4th Pioneer Battalion at the same time as his promotion to Lieutenant Colonel. At that time, engineer battalions were organized as infantry units, but had a large number of special design tasks and for these purposes consisted largely of specialists. For the next nine months, Sturdees battalion was busy maintaining roads, laying cables, and building trenches and shelters. From 1917 onwards, the Australian government increasingly campaigned for the command and staff posts of the Australian units, which at that time were often occupied by officers of the British Army , to be provided with more Australians. As part of this "Australianization", Sturde replaced a British on November 25, 1917 as the CRE of the 5th Division. On March 27, 1918, Sturdee was transferred as a staff officer to the GHQ of the BEF and remained there until October 22, 1918. This detachment represented a rare opportunity for an Australian officer to experience a large headquarters in full combat condition and to gain experience. In May 1918 Sturdee was mentioned again for his services in the war report and was awarded the Order of the British Empire for his staff work.

Interwar period

Sturdee embarked in Europe for Australia on November 16, 1918 and was removed from the AIF on March 14, 1919. He kept the rank of Lieutenant Colonel achieved there as an honorary rank while he was nominally still captain as before the war. On January 1, 1920 he received the brevet rank of Lieutenant Colonel, which was only converted into a full rank on April 1, 1932. Initially, Sturdee served as an officer on the staff of the 3rd Military District in the Victoria Barracks in Melbourne. In 1921 he enrolled at Staff College in Quetta, British India. Between February 16 and December 31, 1924 he was an instructor for engineering and surveying at the Royal Military College Duntroon before he then served until March 26, 1929 on the staff of the 4th Division in Melbourne. This was followed by an assignment abroad in the United Kingdom, where he served in the War Office and in 1931 attended Imperial Defense College. From January 1, 1931 to December 31, 1932 he was a military representative at the High Commission of Australia in London (Australian High Commission in London).

Between February 14, 1933 and March 1, 1938 Sturdee was Director of Military Operations and Intelligence (head of military operations and reconnaissance) at Army Headquarters in Melbourne and then until October 12, 1938 Director of Staff Duties (head of staff services). On July 1, 1935, he had received the brevet rank of colonel, which was raised provisionally exactly one year later and finally a year later to a full rank. That meant that more than twenty years had passed between his promotion to lieutenant colonel of the AIF and promotion to valid colonel. On the New Year of 1939, Sturdee was promoted to Commander of the Order of the British Empire for his service on the staff of the Army Headquarters.

Like his predecessor as Director of Military Operations and Intelligence, Colonel John Lavarack and many other officers, Sturdee also had doubts about the official Singapore strategy, which wanted to counter Japanese aggression through the presence of a strong British fleet in the Singapore naval base . In a conversation in 1933, Sturdee admonished a number of senior officers that the Japanese

“All will be regular soldiers, fully trained and equipped for the operations and fanatics who welcome dying in battle, while our troops are mostly made up of civilians hastily thrown together in mobilization who have received very little training and who need artillery and possibly Cannon ammunition is lacking. "

Second World War

Troop drafts and defense of Australia

The Chief of General Staff Ernest Squires carried out an army reform in 1939, in which he replaced the old military districts with fewer, larger areas of command, each of which should be subordinate to a lieutenant general. After the outbreak of war on September 3, Sturdee was promoted directly from Colonel to Lieutenant General on October 13 and was given command of the new Eastern Command. His duties included the drafting, training and equipping of new units of the Second Australian Imperial Force as well as the now conscripted militia in New South Wales .

On July 1, he accepted the downgrade to Major General in order to command the newly established 8th Division of the AIF. This gave him the new service number NX35000. His time in command was short-lived as he was raised to his old rank after the death of Chief of the General Staff Brudenell White in the Canberra plane crash on August 13 and was appointed as his successor. As such, he was responsible for training and maintaining the AIF, but did not have operational control. In addition, he administered the formation and training of the militias.

As tensions with Japan increased, making war more likely, it became apparent that defensive preparations needed to be made in Australia. As early as 1935, Lavarack had proposed that the Military Board be dissolved in such a case and that military responsibilities be placed in the hands of a Commander-in-Chief. In March 1941, the Secretary of the Army Percy Spender advised to implement this and make Sturdee Commander-in-Chief of the Australian Military Foces. In contrast, the government decided to follow the British model and leave command to the Military Board with a separate General Officer Commanding (GOC) Home Forces. On August 5, 1941, Major General Iven Mackay was appointed to this GOC post. The position of commander-in-chief was still discussed publicly, with newspapers such as the Sunday Telegraph and the Sydney Morning Herald advocating the proposal.

Defensive battles in the Malay Archipelago

After the outbreak of the Pacific War, Sturdee tried to defend the Malay Archipelago north of Australia as well as possible with the troops at his disposal. Since he had only one AIF infantry brigade with the 23rd , he had to limit these defense efforts to a few strategically important places and islands. He therefore distributed the available battalions and companies to Ambon , Rabaul and Timor . Their mission was to hold up the enemy, despite their own inferiority, until reinforcements could arrive in Australia and be sent to the front. He replaced a unit commander at short notice with a staff officer who volunteered because he had doubts about the former's morale and will to win. With the exception of one command company, which went into guerrilla warfare in the eastern part of Timor, all of the deployed units were overrun comparatively quickly by the advancing Japanese.

In February 1942, Lavarack convinced Sturdee that the Dutch East Indies could not be held, from which he concluded that the relocation of the AIF from the Mediterranean to Java was tactically nonsensical. He then argued to the political decision-makers that the island could not be held even with the AIF and that the allied resources should be bundled in one place from which a counter-offensive could be launched after sufficient preparation. He named mainland Australia as the best such place. The Australian Prime Minister John Curtin was convinced by the arguments and stood behind his chief of staff, while the British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and US President Franklin D. Roosevelt her dismissive survived. After intensive consultations, Curtin was finally able to prevail and divert the AIF to Australia. Historian Lionel Wigmore, who was involved in the official Australian historiography of the war, concluded:

“The 7th Division would have arrived just in time to help Pegus with the task and to take part in the long retreat to India. In that case, she could not have returned to Australia, freshened up and sent to New Guinea in time to play the crucial role in defending against the Japanese offensive in July 1942. The Allied cause was served by the shrewd judgment and perseverance of General Sturdee, who enforced his advice against that of the Chiefs of Staff in London and Washington. "

Offensive operations

Sturdee (left) with officers of the 15th Brigade on a visit to their headquarters in Bougainville, May 12, 1945.

In March 1942, the Military Board was finally dissolved and Thomas Blamey was appointed Commander-in-Chief. Blamey decided to withdraw Sturdee after the hectic first months of the war on the grounds of a break from active service and to send him to Washington, DC, as head of the Australian military mission, where he should help develop further war strategy. Sturdee only consented to this posting on condition that he would return after a year and be given an important command. In Washington, Sturdee represented Australia with the Combined Chiefs of Staff and after some work received the right to direct access to the American Chief of Staff of the Army ( Chief of Staff of the Army ) George C. Marshall . For his services as Chief of the General Staff, Sturdee was appointed Companion of the Order of the Bath on January 1, 1943.

On March 1, 1944, Sturdee returned to Australia and was given command of the First Army. Their headquarters were initially in Queensland and moved to the recaptured Lae on October 2, 1944, from where Sturdee commanded the troops in New Guinea and the surrounding islands. Subordinate to him were the II Corps of Lieutenant General Stanley Savige on Bougainville , the 5th Division Major General Alan Ramsay in New Britain , Major General Jack Stevens 6th Division near Aitape and the 8th Brigade west of Madang . On October 18, the First Army received from Blamey the order to break enemy resistance if possible without involving larger forces.

Sturdee, who found this order imprecise, asked Blamey for more precise information. The latter responded with the statement that his concept provided for a graduated conduct of operations, in which the enemy strength and positions should be clarified by smaller patrols before larger offensive actions would be carried out. In New Britain, where the Australian Enlightenment knew the quantitative superiority of the Japanese in principle, but not in detail, this order meant the isolation and elimination of smaller enemy units through aggressive armed patrols and minor advances. At Aitape, Stevens had the task of pushing the enemy back so far that the airfields there were in no danger, on the other hand he should spare his division as much as possible, since it was intended for possible other operations. Savige thought his troops on Bougainville were strong enough to crush the enemy in a great battle, but Blamey warned him to operate carefully.

Sturdee (right, with his back to the camera, hat with a red ribbon) on the deck of the aircraft carrier HMS Glory at the signing of the surrender of the Japanese troops on New Britain, September 6, 1945.

Overall, Sturdees headquarters had to coordinate three separately running battles in the area of ​​Aitape-Wewak, New Britain and Bougainville with comparatively few resources. Transportation, under the direct command of Douglas MacArthur's Southwest Pacific Area GHQ , was a constant concern of Sturdee. On July 18, 1945, Sturdee wrote to Savige:

“We are quite moody with our operations on Bougainville and in the 6th Division area when it comes to the politically hostile opposition and the press criticizes the way in which the operations in these areas are carried out. The general guidelines are not in our hands, but we must carry them out as the C. in C. [Blamey] intended for us, which means that we should achieve our goal with a minimum of Australian losses. As far as the duration is concerned, we have not been put under pressure so far and have beaten the Japs with comparatively few losses if you consider the number of Japs eliminated. "

Sturdees operations are considered efficient. On Bougainville, his troops were able to occupy most of the island with 516 dead and 1,572 wounded and about 8,500 Japanese killed. Another 9,800 died from disease and malnutrition. In New Britain the numerically inferior 5th Division was able to conquer the center of the island with 74 dead and 140 wounded. At Aitape Wewak, the losses after the Japanese were pushed back from the coast with 442 dead and 1,141 wounded on the Australian side and around 9,000 dead and 269 prisoners on the Japanese side.

On September 6, 1945, Sturdee accepted the surrender of Japanese troops in his area of ​​command. General Imamura Hitoshi for the 18th Regional Army and Admiral Kusaka Jinichi for the Japanese Naval Forces of the Southwest Regional Fleet signed the deed of surrender on board the British aircraft carrier HMS Glory off Rabaul. Both presented him with their ceremonial military swords. These are exhibited today at the Australian War Memorial along with the sword that Sturdee wore that he received from his father . They were donated to him in 1982 by Sturdees widow. Blamey suggested that Sturdee be knighted for his achievements, which was rejected. Instead, it was featured again in the war report.

Late life

In November 1945, Army Minister Frank Forde Blamey informed that the government had decided to re-establish the Military Board, which is why he should make his office available. On December 1, Sturdee took over the post of Commander-in-Chief interim and held this until his abolition on March 1, 1946. Following this, he was again appointed Chief of General Staff. The ongoing demobilization was a major challenge for Sturdee. At the end of the war, the Australian Army was 383,000 strong, of which around 177,000 were outside Australia.

Field Marshall Montgomery (seated, second from left) meeting the Military Board, 1947. Seated Sturdee, third from left.

These troops were to be demobilized in any case, although it was not yet clear how the Australian post-war military would look in detail. Sturdee and his deputy Sydney Rowell were faced with the task of giving the army a structure suitable for foreseeable future challenges. The cabinet proposed conscription, a standing force of 33,000 and a reserve of 42,000 soldiers, which the government rejected because of the estimated annual cost of Australian pounds 20 million. In 1947, a structure that was cheaper at around £ 12.5 million per year was adopted, in which the standing army was only 19,000 strong and 50,000 were kept in reserve. The nature of military service has also been reviewed and reformed.

In parallel to this structural reform, the army had to manage and reduce its now oversized stocks of supplies and support facilities. As a rule, hospitals continued to operate, but some of them came under the responsibility of the Ministry of Repatriation . Technical schools and other training institutions had to be maintained. Furthermore, the army was burdened by its contribution to the BCOF. In the next fifty years missions outside Australia were carried out by the Australian Regular Army created by Sturdee and no longer by militia forces or specially set up volunteer organizations as before.

Sturdee retired on April 17, 1950. In recognition of his services, he was promoted to Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire on January 1, 1951. During his retirement he continued to live in Kooyong , a suburb of Melbourne. He became director of the Australian section of Standard Telephones and Cables and was Honorary Colonel of the Royal Australian Electrical and Mechanical Engineers between 1951 and 1956 . The landing ship Vernon Sturdee , acquired by the United States in 1960 , is named after him. He died on May 25th in the Repatriation General Hospital in Heidelberg, Victoria. He was then passed with military honors and burned. Lieutenant General Edmund Herring , who knew Sturdee from school, was the first pallbearer. His wife, daughter, and one of their two sons survived him. Shortly before his death, he burned all personal notes and is said to have said, “I have done the job. It is over. ”(“ I've done the job. It's over. ”)

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Australian Military Forces was the officially used name for the Australian Army at the time .
  2. ↑ a b c d e f g h i j James Wood: Sturdee, Sir Vernon Ashton Hobart (1890–1966). 2002, pp. 340-342.
  3. ↑ a b c J. P. Buckley: Father and Son of Gallipoli. 1990, p. 32.
  4. ↑ London Gazette . No. 27331, HMSO, London, July 9, 1901, p. 4554 ( PDF , accessed August 22, 2013, English).
  5. ^ AG Butler, RM Downes, FA Maguire and RW Cilento: Gallipoli, Palestine and New Guinea. 1930, p. 826.
  6. ^ AG Butler: The Western Front. 1940, p. 29.
  7. ^ Honors and Awards - Sturdee, Alfred Hobart. Australian War Memorial. Retrieved August 22, 2013.
  8. ↑ a b c d e f g h The Army List of Officers of the Australian Military Forces. 1950.
  9. ^ Ronald McNicoll: Making and Breaking. The Royal Australian Engineers 1902 to 1919. 1979, pp. 8-11.
  10. ↑ Due to the similar tasks but clear temporal differences, both the First and the Second Australian Imperial Force are abbreviated to AIF in this article.
  11. ^ Ronald McNicoll: Making and Breaking. The Royal Australian Engineers 1902 to 1919. 1979, p. 19.
  12. ^ First World War Embarkation Roll - Vernon Ashton Hobart Sturdee. Australian War Memorial. Retrieved August 22, 2013.
  13. ^ A b J. P. Buckley: Father and Son of Gallipoli. 1990, p. 44.
  14. ↑ a b c d Honors and Awards - Vernon Ashton Hobart Sturdee - Distinguished Service Order. Australian War Memorial. Retrieved August 22, 2013.
  15. ^ JP Buckley: Father and Son of Gallipoli. 1990, p. 45.
  16. ^ Ronald McNicoll: Making and Breaking. The Royal Australian Engineers 1902 to 1919. 1979, p. 43.
  17. ^ Charles Bean: The Story of ANZAC from May 4, 1915, to the Evacuation of the Gallipoli Peninsula. 1924, pp. 46-47.
  18. ^ JP Buckley: Father and Son of Gallipoli. 1990, p. 47.
  19. ^ Ronald McNicoll: Making and Breaking. The Royal Australian Engineers 1902 to 1919. 1979, p. 60.
  20. ^ London Gazette  (Supplement). No. 29890, HMSO, London, January 4, 1917, p. 254 ( PDF , accessed August 22, 2013, English).
  21. ^ London Gazette  (Supplement). No. 29886, HMSO, London, January 1, 1901, p. 28 ( PDF , accessed August 22, 2013, English).
  22. ^ Ronald McNicoll: Making and Breaking. The Royal Australian Engineers 1902 to 1919. 1979, p. 74.
  23. ^ Ronald McNicoll: Making and Breaking. The Royal Australian Engineers 1902 to 1919. 1979, p. 76.
  24. ^ Charles Bean: The Australian Imperial Force in France 1918 during the Main German Offensive 1918. 1937, pp. 14-16.
  25. ^ London Gazette  (Supplement). No. 31092, HMSO, London, May 28, 1918, p. 13 ( PDF , accessed on August 22, 2013, English).
  26. ^ First World War Nominal Roll Page - AWM133, 50-093. Australian War Memorial. Retrieved August 22, 2013.
  27. ^ First World War Nominal Roll Page - AWM133, 50-093. Australian War Memorial. Retrieved August 22, 2013.
  28. ^ Sydney Rowell: Full Circle. 1974, p. 30.
  29. ^ London Gazette  (Supplement). No. 34585, HMSO, London, February 1, 1939, p. 8 ( PDF , accessed August 22, 2013, English).
  30. ^ JP Buckley: Lieutenant General Sir Vernon Sturdee, KBE, CB, DSO. 1983, p. 30.
  31. ↑ would all be regulars, fully trained and equipped for the operations, and fanatics who like dying in battle, whilst our troops would consist mainly of civilians hastily thrown together on mobilization with very little training, short of artillery and possibly of gun ammunition. David Horner: Crisis of Command. Australian Generalship and the Japanese Threat 1941-1943. 1978, p. 16.
  32. ^ Sydney Rowell: Full Circle. 1974, p. 40.
  33. ↑ David Horner: Lieutenant-General Sir Vernon Sturdee. The Chief of the General Staff as Commander. 1984, p. 145.
  34. ^ Lionel Wigmore: The Japanese Thrust. 1957, p. 28.
  35. ^ Lionel Wigmore: The Japanese Thrust. 1957, p. 32.
  36. ^ David Horner: Crisis of Command. Australian Generalship and the Japanese Threat 1941-1943. 1978, p. 24.
  37. ^ David Horner: Crisis of Command. Australian Generalship and the Japanese Threat 1941-1943. 1978, pp. 24-25.
  38. ^ David Horner: Crisis of Command. Australian Generalship and the Japanese Threat 1941-1943. 1978, pp. 54-55.
  39. ^ Lionel Wigmore: The Japanese Thrust. 1957, pp. 418-419.
  40. ^ Lionel Wigmore: The Japanese Thrust. 1957, pp. 394-395.
  41. ^ Lionel Wigmore: The Japanese Thrust. 1957, pp. 467-468.
  42. ↑ David Horner: Lieutenant-General Sir Vernon Sturdee. The Chief of the General Staff as Commander. 1984, pp. 152-153.
  43. ^ Lionel Wigmore: The Japanese Thrust. 1957, pp. 493-494.
  44. ^ Lionel Wigmore: The Japanese Thrust. 1957, pp. 444-452.
  45. ↑ It is now evident that the 7th Division would have arrived only in time to help in the extraction from Pegu and to take part in the long retreat to India. In that event it could not have been returned to Australia, rested and sent to New Guinea in time to perform the crucial role it was to carry out in the defeat of the Japanese offensive which would open there in July, 1942. The Allied cause therefore was well served in sound judgment and solid persistence of General Sturdee who maintained his advice against that of the Chiefs of Staff in London and Washington. Lionel Wigmore: The Japanese Thrust. 1957, p. 45.
  46. ^ David Horner: Crisis of Command. Australian Generalship and the Japanese Threat 1941-1943. 1978, pp. 55-57.
  47. ^ David Horner: Crisis of Command. Australian Generalship and the Japanese Threat 1941-1943. 1978, p. 99.
  48. ↑ London Gazette . No. 35841, HMSO, London, January 1, 1943, p. 3 ( PDF , accessed August 23, 2013, English).
  49. ^ A b Gavin Long: The Final Campaigns. 1963, p. 25.
  50. ^ Peter Charlton: The Unnecessary War. Island Campaigns of the South-West Pacific 1944–45. 1983, pp. 42-43.
  51. ^ Gavin Long: The Final Campaigns. 1963, 240-241.
  52. ^ Gavin Long: The Final Campaigns. 1963, pp. 271-272.
  53. ^ Gavin Long: The Final Campaigns. 1963, p. 89.
  54. ↑ We are on rather a hair trigger with operations in Bougainville and in 6 Division area in view of the political hostility of the Opposition and the Press criticism of the policy of operations being followed in these areas. The general policy is out of our hands, but we must conduct our operations in the spirit of the role given us by C. in C. [Blamey], the main essence of which is that we should attain our object with a minimum of Australian casualties. We have been pressed in no way on the time factor and to date have managed to defeat the Japs with very reasonable casualties considering the number of the Japs that have been eliminated. Gavin Long: The Final Campaigns. 1963, p. 218.
  55. ^ Gavin Long: The Final Campaigns. 1963, pp. 237-238.
  56. ^ Gavin Long: The Final Campaigns. 1963, pp. 269-270.
  57. ^ Gavin Long: The Final Campaigns. 1963, pp. 385-386.
  58. ^ JP Buckley: Lieutenant General Sir Vernon Sturdee, KBE, CB, DSO. 1983, p. 37.
  59. ↑ David Horner: Blamey. The Commander-in-Chief. 1998, p. 559.
  60. ^ London Gazette  (Supplement). No. 37898, HMSO, London, March 6, 1947, p. 1091 ( PDF , accessed on August 23, 2013, English).
  61. ^ Gavin Long: The Final Campaigns. 1963, p. 579.
  62. ^ David Sligo: The Development of the Australian Regular Army 1947-1952. 1997, pp. 29-30.
  63. ^ David Sligo: The Development of the Australian Regular Army 1947-1952. 1997, pp. 34-35.
  64. ^ David Sligo: The Development of the Australian Regular Army 1947-1952. 1997, pp. 40-42.
  65. ^ Sydney Rowell: Full Circle. 1974, pp. 160-164.
  66. ^ David Sligo: The Development of the Australian Regular Army 1947-1952. 1997, p. 47.
  67. ^ London Gazette  (Supplement). No. 39105, HMSO, London, January 1, 1951, p. 36 ( PDF , accessed on August 23, 2013, English).
  68. ^ JP Buckley: Father and Son of Gallipoli. 1990, p. 50.
predecessor Office successor

Brudenell White
John Northcott 		Chief of the Australian General Staff
1940–1942
1946–1950
John Northcott
Sydney Rowell
John Lavarack Commander in Chief of the First Australian Army
1944–1945 		Horace Robertson
Thomas Blamey Commander in Chief of the Australian Military Forces
1945–1946 		Item abolished
personal data
SURNAME Sturdee, Vernon
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Sturdee, Vernon Ashton Hobart (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Australian Lieutenant General
DATE OF BIRTH April 16, 1890
PLACE OF BIRTH Frankston , Victoria , Australia
DATE OF DEATH May 25, 1966
Place of death Heidelberg , Victoria, Australia