Australian Prime Ministers with military service
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Australian Prime Ministers do not command their country's armed forces (the Governor-General does). Some Australian Prime Ministers have had military service, however. They are:
- William Morris Hughes - Joined a volunteer battalion of the Royal Fusiliers while a teenager in London.
- Stanley Melbourne Bruce - Served as a captain in the British Army in World War I; was severely wounded at Gallipoli; awarded the Military Cross and the Croix de Guerre avec Palme.
- Earle Page - Officer in the Australian Army medical corps, stationed in Egypt and France during World War I.
- Harold Holt - Enlisted in Australian Army in 1940 while still a Member of Parliament and served as a gunner for 5 months before being recalled after the death of three senior ministers in a Canberra air crash.
- John McEwen - Enlisted in army in 1918, and was in camp awaiting embarkation for France when the armistace was declared.
- John Grey Gorton - Enlisted in Royal Australian Air Force in 1940. A fighter pilot in World War II flying Hurricanes out of Singapore and later Kittyhawks out of Milne Bay, Flight Lieutenant Gorton had three serious crashes, one of which gave him serious facial injuries. He also survived being torpedoed by a Japanese submarine while evacuating from Singapore aboard an ammunition ship, spending 24 hours in the water before rescue.
- William McMahon - Joined the Army in 1940, but due to deafness was confined to staff work in Australia until the end of the war.
- Gough Whitlam - Served in World War II in the RAAF as a navigator, reached rank of Flight Lieutenant. Stationed in northern Australia, protecting convoys and conducting bombing raids on islands to the north.
