Thomas Blamey
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See also Field Marshal (Australia)
Field Marshal Sir Thomas Albert Blamey, GBE, KCB, CMG, DSO, ED (24 January 1884 – 27 May 1951) was an Australian General of World War II, and Australia's first (and only) Field Marshal.
He commenced his soldiering as a 'citizen soldier', and served as a commander at Gallipoli. The pinnacle of his career was during World War II, as Commander-in-Chief, Australian Military Forces, serving simultaneously in international command as Commander-in-Chief Allied Land Forces in the South West Pacific Area (SWPA) under American General Douglas MacArthur. On 2 September 1945, Blamey was with MacArthur on USS Missouri (BB-63) and signed the Japanese surrender document on behalf of Australia. He then flew to Morotai and personally accepted the surrender of the remaining Japanese in the South West Pacific.
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[edit] Pre-First World War
The seventh of ten children, Blamey grew up near Wagga Wagga, New South Wales. After some earlier farming failures, his father ran a small farm and worked as a drover and shearing overseer. Blamey acquired the bush skills associated with his father’s enterprises and became a sound horseman. He was a keen and efficient member of the army cadets at his school.He passed a test and became a police officer, the test included shooting targets etc.
Blamey began his working life in 1899 as a trainee school teacher in the Wagga Wagga area before moving to Western Australia in 1903 to continue his teaching career. He was involved in school cadets as a teacher at Wagga Wagga and in Western Australia.
Somewhat surprisingly in view of his later reputation as a womaniser and heavy drinker, he was then a teetotaller heavily involved in the Methodist Church and had been since childhood. By early 1906 he was being encouraged by the Church leaders in Western Australia to enter training as a minister, which he was disposed to do.
However, upon the creation of the Cadet Instructional Staff of the Australian Military Forces he saw a new opportunity. He sat the entrance exam and came third in Australia, but failed to secure an appointment as there were no vacancies in Western Australia. After persuasive correspondence with the military authorities he was appointed to a position in Victoria with the rank of lieutenant, commencing duty in November 1906 with responsibility for school cadets in Victoria.
Blamey married Minnie Millard on 8 September 1909. His first child, a boy named Dolf, was born on 29 June 1910. His second child, a boy named Thomas, was born four years later.
Blamey was promoted to captain in 1910. In 1911, after previous candidates had failed it, he was the first Australian officer to pass the demanding entrance test for the British Staff College, which trained officers for higher command. He began his studies at the Staff College at Quetta in India in 1912, accompanied by his wife and first child. He performed very well, completing the course in 1913.
[edit] First World War
Blamey served in the 1st AIF in the First World War. In mid-1914 Blamey had been in Britain on the staff of the Wessex Division. In November he sailed for Egypt, along with Harry Chauvel, to join the Australian contingent and became intelligence officer on the staff of the Australian 1st Division for the Battle of Gallipoli. During the landing at Anzac Cove, Blamey was sent to evaluate the need for reinforcements by Colonel M'Cay's 2nd Brigade on 400 Plateau.
In July 1915 Blamey was promoted to lieutenant colonel and joined the staff of the newly forming Australian 2nd Division in Egypt. When the Australian forces moved to France in 1916, Blamey returned to the 1st Division staff and was involved in the Battle of Pozières.
Blamey briefly held battalion and brigade command posts in late 1916 and early 1917 but as an experienced staff officer was considered too valuable for a combat post. He was promoted to brigadier general on 1 June 1918 and became chief of corps staff of Lieutenant General Sir John Monash's Australian Corps. He played a significant role in the success of Monash's corps in the final months of the war. Indeed, Monash rated him as one of the key factors in his Corps' success.
[edit] Inter War Years
Blamey returned to Australia in late 1919. Blamey then became director of Military Operations at Army Hedquarters. In May 1920 became Deputy Chief of General Staff. Blameys first major task was the creation of the Royal Australian Air Force. In August Blamey was sent to London to be Australia's representative on the Imperal General Staff.
In 1923 the Chief of General Staff (CGS) Major General Sir Cyril Brudenell White retired. Blamey was expected to become CGS. However the Inspector General Lieutenant General Harry Chauvel was made CGS, Blamey was made second CGS.
On the 1st of September 1925 Blamey resigned from the regular forces and was appointed as Commissioner of the Victoria Police, where scandal first found him. During a raid on a brothel, a friend of his was found to be in possession of Blamey's police identity card.
As Police Commissioner he directed the 'political police squad' to break up Unemployed Workers Movement meetings at Sydney Road in working class Brunswick.
Blamey's treatment of the unionists was typical of his hardline anti-communist beliefs and as such his relations with left-wing governments were tense. Along with many senior army and ex-army officers, he was a leading member of the clandestine far-right wing organisation League of National Security. The LNS was reportedly a response to the rise of communism in Australia, its members ready to seize arms from army depots to stop a communist revolution.
[edit] Second World War
Blamey travelled to the Middle-East with the Second AIF as its commander in chief. He notably insisted to the British commander in Egypt General Archibald Wavell that Australian forces remain together as cohesive units, no Australian forces were to be deployed or engaged without the prior consent of the Australian government, and that he (General Blamey) be the sole commander-in-chief of all Australian forces. Australian forces did indeed remain together for the Siege of Tobruk, the Balkans Campaign and the Syrian campaign (against the Vichy French) until the Second AIF was withdrawn in 1942.
Some of Blamey's most controversial actions concern the period after the Japanese declared war, and United States General Douglas MacArthur retreated to Australia. MacArthur had a low opinion of Australian fighting men, and was highly criticial of their performance during the early battles in New Guinea. Blamey appeared to be keen not to antagonise MacArthur or publicly hold a dissenting view. For example, during a speech to 21st Brigade, 2nd AIF in 1942, he accused the men in it of being "rabbits who run". This accusation of cowardice against the men who had turned back the Japanese on the Kokoda Trail was received by them with intense bitterness, and was widely seen as reflecting his own inability to stand up to MacArthur.
His treatment of senior officers was also controversial. Biographers of many of Blamey's World War II contemporaries, including Generals Lavarack, Rowell, Allen and Morshead, as well as Brigadier Potts, have all claimed that their subjects were dealt with unfairly, and in some cases atrociously, by Blamey — in ways ranging from holding rivals back from promotion, through to their dismissal from command appointments in order to cover up Blamey's own shortcomings.
Blamey left the Army in 1946, and was promoted to Field Marshal on his death-bed.
[edit] Posthumous reputation
Blamey is honoured in Australia in various ways, not least by the square named in his honour around which is situated the Russell Offices headquarters of the Australian Defence Force and Department of Defence in the national capital, Canberra. A larger statue is in Kings Domain, Melbourne.
Nevertheless, Blamey's posthumous reputation is not high, and he has been eclipsed in the public memory by figures such as Sir John Monash, who is usually described as Australia's greatest soldier, and Sir Edward Dunlop, the wartime surgeon. Opinions about Blamey are polarised. While some historians and contemporaries view him as an inspired general, whose energy, skill and political acumen built the Australian Army into the highly professional organisation it became, others have judged him as a spiteful, immoral and ultimately cowardly man who was ready to sacrifice anyone in order to preserve or advance his own position.
The Australian Army Recruit Training Centre at Kapooka, "Blamey Barracks", and some streets within many Australian Army Barracks establishments (eg. "Blamey Road") are named in his honour.
[edit] Dates and age of rank
- Lieutenant - November 1906 - 22
- Captain - 1 December 1910 - 26
- Major - 1 July 1914 - 30
- Lieutenant Colonel - 26 July 1915 - 31
- Colonel - 1 December 1916 - 32
- Brigadier General - 1 June 1918 - 34
- Major General - 23 March 1931 - 47
- Lieutenant General - 13 October 1939 - 55
- General - 24 September 1941 - 57
- Field Marshal - 8 June 1950 - 66
[edit] List of Honours
- DSO, Distinguished Service Order; 1917
- CMG, Companion of the Order of St Michael and St George; 1918
- CB, Companion of the Most Honourable Order of the Bath; 1919 Military division
- Knight Bachelor, Kt; 1935 as Commissioner of Police in Victoria
- KCB, Knight Commander of the Most Honourable Order of the Bath; 1942 Military division
- GCBE, Knight Grand Cross of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire; 1943 Military division
- Mention In Dispatches; seven times in WWI; 1915,1917 (2), 1918 (2), 1919 (2), and once in WWII; 1941
- France Croix de Guerre; 1919
- Greek War Cross-First Class (1940); 1944
- US Distinguished Service Cross; 1944
- Netherlands Order Of Orange-Nassau-Grand Cross; 1947
[edit] References
- Blamey : Controversial soldier : A biogr. of Field Marshal Sir Thomas Blamey / Hetherington, John. - Repr. [of the ed.] Canberra 1973. - Melbourne : Field Marshal Sir Thomas Blamey Fund, 1983
[edit] External links
Categories: 1884 births | 1951 deaths | Australian World War I people | Australian World War II people | Field Marshals of Australia | Knights Commander of the Order of the Bath | Companions of the Order of St Michael and St George | Knights Grand Cross of the Order of the British Empire | Companions of the Distinguished Service Order
