Vernon Sturdee

Sturdee outside a dugout at Anzac.

Sturdee joined the Australian Imperial Force (AIF) on 25 August 1914 with the rank of lieutenant. He was promoted to captain on 18 October,[7] and appointed adjutant of the 1st Division Engineers.[9] He embarked from Melbourne for Egypt on the former P&O ocean liner RMS Orvieto on 21 October 1914.[10] He participated in the landing at Anzac Cove on 25 April 1915,[11] disembarking from the transport SS Minnewaska before 9:00.[12] His duties included supervising the engineer stores park on the beach at Anzac Cove,[11] as well as the construction of jam tin grenades.[12] He was evacuated twice for hospital treatment for enteric fever and for serious damage to his stomach lining from internal burns as a result of too much "Condy's crystals" disinfectant being put into drinking water. As a result, he was to suffer stomach problems for the rest of his life.[13] In July, Sturdee contracted influenza and was evacuated from Anzac Cove.[1]

Sturdee was promoted to major on 28 August 1915,[7] and in September assumed command of the 5th Field Company, a unit raised in Egypt to support the newly formed 2nd Division.[14] From then until the end of the campaign, he was responsible for all engineering and mining work at Steele's, Quinn's and Courtney's Posts,[11] three of the northernmost and most dangerous and exposed parts of the line.[15] He departed Anzac Cove for the last time on 17 December 1915, two days before the final evacuation.[16]

On returning to Egypt after the evacuation of Anzac, Sturdee assumed responsibility for the provision of hutting at the AIF reinforcement camp at Tel el Kebir.[11] There was already another 5th Field Company in Egypt, which had been raised in Australia. Accordingly, Sturdee's 5th Field Company was renumbered 8th, and assigned to the 5th Division when it was formed in February 1916. This move gave the new division an experienced field company, but at the expense of items of the company's mail going to France for a time and arriving back in Egypt marked "Not Fifth, try Eighth."[17]

B Company, 4th Pioneer Battalion shifts camp from the Butte de Warlencourt to Fremicourt by light railway.

The 5th Division moved to France in June 1916, where it participated in the disastrous Battle of Fromelles in July. During the action, Sturdee's 8th Field Company supported the 8th Infantry Brigade. A trench dug by the former facilitated the latter's withdrawal across no man's land.[11] For his service at Gallipoli and Fromelles, he was mentioned in despatches,[18] and awarded the Distinguished Service Order.[19] Heavy losses in the fighting at Fromelles prevented the 5th Division from participating in the Battle of the Somme. To free up another division to participate, II ANZAC Corps organised "Franks Force" to take over a divisional frontage in the Houplines sector, and Sturdee became its Commander Royal Engineers (CRE).[20] When the 5th Division finally moved to the Somme sector in November, he became CRE in charge of the road from Albert to Montauban.[21]

On 13 February 1917, Sturdee was appointed to command the 4th Pioneer Battalion, with the rank of lieutenant colonel.[7] Pioneer battalions were organised as infantry but contained a high percentage of tradesmen and were employed on construction tasks under engineer supervision. Over the next nine months the 4th Pioneer Battalion maintained roads, built camps, laid cables and dug trenches and dugouts.[1] By 1917, the Australian government was pushing strongly for British Army officers holding Australian commands and staff posts to be replaced by Australians. As part of this "Australianisation" of the Australian Corps, Sturdee became CRE of the 5th Division on 25 November 1917, replacing a British Army officer.[22] On 27 March 1918, Sturdee was seconded to General Headquarters (GHQ) British Expeditionary Force as a staff officer, remaining there until 22 October 1918.[7] This provided a rare opportunity, for an Australian officer, of observing the workings of a major headquarters engaged in active operations.[1] For his service on the Western Front, Sturdee was mentioned in despatches a second time,[23] and appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire for his work at GHQ.[24]

In 1939, the Chief of the General Staff, Lieutenant General Ernest Squires, implemented a reorganisation of the Army in which the old military districts were replaced by larger commands led by lieutenant generals.[30] On 13 October 1939, Sturdee was promoted from colonel to lieutenant general and assumed control of the new Eastern Command.[31] He had to supervise the raising, training and equipping of the new Second Australian Imperial Force units being formed in New South Wales, as well as the now-conscript Militia.[1]

On 1 July 1940, Sturdee accepted a demotion to major general in order to become the commander of Second AIF's newly raised 8th Division, receiving the Second AIF serial number NX35000.[32] His period in this command was brief. On 13 August 1940, the Chief of the General Staff, General Sir Brudenell White, was killed in the Canberra air disaster. Sturdee was restored to his rank of lieutenant general and appointed Chief of the General Staff.[33] As such, he was responsible for the training and maintenance of the AIF in the Middle East and the Far East—although not their operational control—and for the administration and training of the Militia.[34]

As the prospect of war with Japan became more likely, so also did the need to make appropriate arrangements for leading the defence of Australia. In 1935, Lavarack had recommended that in the event of war, the Military Board be abolished and its powers vested in a Commander-in-chief. In April 1941, the Minister for the Army, Percy Spender, recommended that this now be done, with Sturdee becoming Commander in Chief of the Australian Military Forces. Instead, the government elected to adopt the British system, in which the Military Board (or Army Council as it was called there) continued to operate, with a separate GOC Home Forces. On 5 August 1941, Major General Sir Iven Mackay was appointed to this newly created post.[35] However, the idea of a Commander in Chief did not go away and editorials in the Sunday Telegraph and The Sydney Morning Herald advocated the appointment.[36]

Sturdee attempted to defend the islands to the north of Australia to satisfy an allied agreement made during the second Four-Power Staff Conference at Singapore on 22 February 1941.[37] With only one AIF infantry brigade available, the 23rd, he could only afford to protect the islands most strategically important to the defence of Australia. He sent Gull Force centred on the 2/21st Infantry Battalion to Ambon,[38] Lark Force centred on the 2/22nd to Rabaul,[39] and Sparrow Force centred on the 2/40th Infantry Battalion with 2/2nd Independent Company to Timor.[40]

Sturdee knew that their prospects were slim at best but the was required to secure Dutch support for the defence of the region. He expected them "to put up the best possible defence" with what resources they had, and hopefully slow the Japanese advance to allow time for reinforcements to arrive. When there were doubts about the morale of one commander, Sturdee replaced him with a staff officer from Army Headquarters who volunteered for the position despite being well aware of the odds.[41] All the garrisons were overrun after a spirited defence, except for the 2/2nd Independent Company, which managed to hold on in East Timor.[42]

After the war Sturdee described the situation thus:

I realised at the time [in 1941–42] that these forces [on Rabaul,Timor and Ambon] would be swallowed up ... but these garrisons were the smallest self-contained units then in existence. My only regret now looking back was that we didn't have more knowledge of the value of Independent Companies, at that time they were only in the hatching stage and their value unknown. I am now certain that they would have been the answer, and at no time did I consider that additional troops and arms should be sent to these potentially beleaguered garrisons, as it would only put more [men] in the [prisoner-of-war] bag.[43]

Commenting on Sturdee's forward defence strategy after the war, Colonel Eustace Graham Keogh wrote:

Taking the prevailing circumstances into full account, it is hard to justify the detachments at Ambon and Rabaul. Neither place was a vital link in the defences or communications. Certainly it was highly desirable to deny the enemy access to them, but once command of the sea had been lost any forces stationed at those places could not be supported until the navy situation had been restored. In neither case was the force anything like strong enough to survive for the required length of time, or even to impose delay on the powerful forces the enemy was employing. It is true that the arrangements for the despatch of these forces were made before Japan struck, before the strength of the blows she would deliver had been appreciated. But after her probable course of action and her methods had been amply demonstrated there was still time to reconsider the situation. Despite this demonstration, it would appear that Army Headquarters persisted in believing that these lone battalions could impose delay on the enemy. Consequently the maxim, enunciated it is believed by one of the early Pharaohs, operated in full– "Detachments beyond effective supporting distance usually get their heads cut off." There are, of course, occasions when something worthwhile can be gained by the sacrifice of a detachment. This was not one of them.[44]

In a 2010 PhD thesis on Ambon, David Evans attacked Sturdee as incompetent.[45] A more balanced appraisal was written by Michael Evans in 2000:

At this time, Sturdee and his colleagues were faced with critical decisions in the face of a swift and unrelenting tide of Japanese success—a success that seemed to herald an imminent invasion of Australia. Under these circumstances, that the Chiefs of Staff sought, at high cost, to keep the Japanese military juggernaut as far as possible from Australian soil should be no great surprise. The Chiefs of Staff recommended a change of strategy only when there was irrefutable evidence of military failure to place before the War Cabinet. Such a stance was consistent with both the turbulent political climate in Australia and the realities of coalition warfare that prevailed in early 1942... If there is a villain in the tragedy of Ambon in 1942, it is a "ghost in the machine' that can be found in the systemic crisis of Australian defence in 1941–42—a crisis caused by twenty years of neglect of defence by a succession of governments and by the electorate they served."[46]

In February 1942, on advice from Lavarack that the Dutch East Indies would soon fall, Sturdee urged the Australian government that the 17,800 troops returning from the Middle East, originally bound for Java, be diverted to Australia. Sturdee contended that Java could not be held, and that Allied resources should instead be concentrated in an area from which an offensive could be launched. The best place for this, he argued, was Australia. When Prime Minister John Curtin backed his Chief of the General Staff, it brought him into conflict with British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and United States President Franklin D. Roosevelt, who suggested that the AIF be diverted to Burma. In the end, Curtin won his point, and subsequent events vindicated Sturdee's appreciation of the situation.[47] Official historian Lionel Wigmore concluded:

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 judgement and solid persistence of General Sturdee who maintained his advice against that of the Chiefs of Staff in London and Washington.[48]

Senior commanders on Bougainville. Sturdee is on the left.

In March 1942, the Military Board was abolished and General Sir Thomas Blamey was appointed Commander in Chief.[49] Blamey decided that after the hectic events of the previous months, Sturdee needed a rest and appointed him as Head of the Australian Military Mission to Washington, D.C., where the war's strategy was now being decided. Sturdee accepted on condition that after a year's duty in Washington he would be appointed to an important command.[50] In Washington, Sturdee represented Australia before the Combined Chiefs of Staff and managed to obtain the right of direct access to the Chief of Staff of the United States Army, General George Marshall.[1] For his services as Chief of the General Staff, Sturdee was made a Companion of the Order of the Bath on 1 January 1943.[51]

Sturdee returned to Australia and assumed command of the First Army on 1 March 1944.[7] His headquarters was initially located in Queensland, but on 2 October 1944 it commenced operations in Lae, and Sturdee assumed command of the troops in New Guinea. These included Lieutenant General Stanley Savige's II Corps, with its headquarters at Torokina on Bougainville; Major General Alan Ramsay's 5th Division on New Britain; Major General Jack Stevens' 6th Division at Aitape; and the 8th Infantry Brigade west of Madang. On 18 October, Blamey issued an operational instruction that defined the role of the First Army: "by offensive action to destroy enemy resistance as opportunity offers without committing major forces."[52]

Sturdee was concerned by this order's ambiguity and sought clarification from Blamey. The Commander in Chief responded by stating that "my conception is that action must be of a gradual nature" involving the use of patrols to determine Japanese strengths and positions before large offensives were undertaken.[53] The situation on New Britain was straightforward enough; the enemy was known to be stronger than the Australian forces there—although it was not realised just how much stronger—and so the best that could be done was to eliminate small numbers of Japanese troops by aggressive patrolling.[54] At Aitape, Stevens was tasked on the one hand with pushing the Japanese back far enough to protect the airfields;[55] but on the other, with not allowing the 6th Division to become heavily engaged since it might be required for use elsewhere. On Bougainville, Savige had the strength and ability to conduct a major campaign, but Blamey counselled caution.[52]

Sturdee accepts the Japanese surrender on the deck of the British aircraft carrier HMS Glory at Rabaul. Sturdee is wearing the peaked cap with the scarlet band.

Juggling a number of contradictory requirements, Sturdee had to conduct three widely separated campaigns, the Aitape–Wewak campaign, the New Britain campaign and the Bougainville Campaign, and do so with limited resources. Shipping, which was controlled by General Douglas MacArthur's GHQ South West Pacific Area, was a source of "continual anxiety".[56] On 18 July 1945, Sturdee wrote to Savige:

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 in no way been pressed 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.[57]

Sturdee's operations were effective. On Bougainville, at a cost of 516 Australian dead and 1,572 wounded, Savige's troops had occupied much of the island and killed 8,500 Japanese; another 9,800 died from malnutrition and disease.[58] On New Britain, where 74 Australians died and 140 were wounded, the heavily outnumbered 5th Division had overrun central New Britain.[59] Meanwhile, the 6th Division at Aitape and Wewak had lost 442 dead and 1,141 wounded while clearing the Japanese from the coast and driving them into the mountains, killing 9,000 and taking 269 prisoners.[60]

On 6 September 1945, Sturdee received the surrender of Japanese forces in the First Army area from General Hitoshi Imamura, the commander of the Japanese Eighth Area Army, and Admiral Jinichi Kusaka, the commander of the South East Area Fleet, in a ceremony held on the deck of the British aircraft carrier HMS Glory at Rabaul. The two Japanese swords handed over in the surrender ceremony, together with the sword worn by Sturdee, which was his father's, were presented to the Australian War Memorial by Lady Sturdee in 1982.[61] For his service in the final campaigns, Blamey recommended Sturdee for a knighthood,[62] but this was reduced to a third mention in despatches.[63]