Thomas Blamey

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Thomas Albert Blamey
24 January 1884 – 27 May 1951
Lieutenant General Sir Thomas Blamey in 1939
Place of birth	Wagga Wagga, New South Wales
Place of death	Heidelberg, Victoria
Allegiance	Australian Army
Years of service	1906-1951
Rank	Field Marshal
Commands	Allied Land Forces
Battles/wars	World War I Gallipoli Battle of Hamel Battle of Amiens Hindenburg Line World War II Battle of Greece Battle of Crete Syria-Lebanon campaign Kokoda Track campaign Battle of Milne Bay Salamaua-Lae campaign Finisterre Range campaign Bougainville campaign New Britain Campaign Borneo Campaign (1945)
Awards	GBE, KCB, Knight Bachelor, DSO, Croix de Guerre (France), Distinguished Service Cross (United States)

Memorial statue of Field Marshal Sir Thomas Blamey in Kings Domain, Melbourne.

[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.

Blamey was sent to Britain for more training in May 1914, visiting Turkey (including the Dardanelles), Germany and Belgium en route. He spent a brief time on attachment to the 4th Dragoon Guards and then took up duties on the staff of the Wessex Division, at that time entering its annual camp. On 1 July 1914, he was promoted to major.

[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. He confirmed that they were, and the reinforcements were sent.

On the night of 13 May 1915, Blamey, in his capacity as intelligence officer, led a patrol consisting of himself, Sergeant J. H. Will and Bombardier A. A. Orchard, behind the Turkish lines in an effort to locate the Olive Grove guns that had been harassing the beach. Near Pine Ridge, an enemy party of eight Turks approached and one of them went to bayonet Orchard, so Blamey shot him with his revolver. In the fire fight that followed, six Turks were killed. Blamey withdrew his patrol back to the Australian lines without locating the guns. Later, examination of the fuse setting on a dud round revealed that the guns were much further to the south than had been realised.

Blamey was always interested in technical innovation. He was instrumental in the adoption of the periscope rifle at Gallipoli, an instrument which he saw during an inspection of the front line. He arranged for the inventor, Lance Corporal W. C. B. Beech, to be seconded to division headquarters to develop the idea. Within a few days, the design was perfected and periscope rifles began to be used throughout the Australian trenches.

In July 1915 Blamey was promoted to lieutenant colonel and joined the staff of the newly forming Australian 2nd Division in Egypt as its Assistant Adjutant and Quartermaster General (AA&QMG) - the senior administrative officer of the division. Its commander, Major General James Gordon Legge preferred to have an Australian colonel in this post as he felt that a British officer might not take such care of the troops. However, after the Australian forces moved to France in 1916, a conflict between GSO1 of the Australian 2nd Division and his British commander saw Blamey return to the 1st Division as GSO1, in which capacity he was involved in the Battle of Pozières, gaining credit for the attack which captured the town.

Blamey briefly held battalion and brigade command posts in late 1916 and early 1917, but British Expeditionary Force orders forbid the use of staff college graduates in command positions. 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 in the Battle of Amiens in August and the attack on the Hindenburg Line in September.

Blamey remained interested in technological innovation. He was impressed the capabilities of the new models of tanks and pressed for their use at Battle of Hamel, where they played an important part in the success of that battle. He noted the wide use that the Germans had made of their Mustard gas and took extraordinary steps to arrange for a supply of mustard gas shells for the assault on the Hindenburg Line in September. For his services as Corps Chief of Staff, Blamey was made a Companion of the Bath (CB). In all, he was mentioned in dispatches seven times.

[edit] Inter War Years

Blamey returned to Australia in late 1919. Blamey then became director of Military Operations at Army Headquarters. In May 1920 he became Deputy Chief of General Staff. His first major task was the creation of the Royal Australian Air Force. In August he was sent to London to be Australia's representative on the Imperial General Staff.

When the Chief of General Staff (CGS), Major General Sir Cyril Brudenell White, retired in 1923, Blamey was expected to succeed him as CGS as he had as chief of staff of the Australian Corps in France. However there were objections from more senior officers, so the Inspector General, Lieutenant General Harry Chauvel, was made CGS as well, and Blamey was given the new post of Second CGS, in which he performed most of the duties of CGS.

On 1 September 1925 Blamey transferred from the PMF to the Militia. 1 May 1926 he took command of the 10th Infantry Brigade, part of the 3rd Division. On 23 March 1931, Blamey took command of the division and was promoted to major general, one of only four militia officers promoted to this rank between 1929 and 1939. In 1937 he was transferred to the unattached list.

He was appointed as Chief 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 badge. A second scandal occurred in 1936 when Blamey attempted to cover up details of the shooting of a police officer. This ultimately led to his dismissal as Chief Commissioner.

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.

From early 1938 Blamey supplemented his income by making radio broadcasts on international affairs. Blamey was appalled at Nazi Germany's persecution of Jews.

Later that year, Blamey was appointed chairman of the Commonwealth government's Manpower Committee and controller-general of recruiting. As such, he laid the foundation for the expansion of the Army in the event of war with Germany or Japan, which he now regarded as inevitable.

His first wife died in 1935. On 5 April 1939 Blamey married a 35-year-old fashion artist, Olga Ora Farnsworth at St John's Anglican Church, Toorak.

[edit] Second World War

Field Marshal Sir Thomas Blamey - Relief from Blamey Square, Canberra.

On 13 October 1939, Blamey was promoted lieutenant general and appointed to command the 6th Division, the first formation of the new Second Australian Imperial Force. Generals John Lavarack and Gordon Bennett also were considered for the post, and had their supporters, but Blamey was the preferred choice of Prime Minister Robert Menzies. Menzies limited Blamey's choice of commanders, by insisting that they be selected from the Militia rather than the PMF.

Blamey travelled to the Middle-East with the Second AIF as its commander. He occasionally clashed with the British Commanders-in-Chief Middle East, General Archibald Wavell and his successor, General Claude Auchinleck, over the employment of Australian troops. He refused to allow his troops to perform police duties in Palestine, and insisted that Australian forces remain together as cohesive units, and no Australian forces were to be deployed or engaged without the prior consent of the Australian government. The government strengthened his hand by promoting him to full general, and Blamey was appointed Deputy Commander-in-Chief Middle East.

However, Blamey was not inflexible and permitted Australian units to be detached when there was a genuine military need. Because the situation in the Middle East tended to lurch from crisis to crisis, this resulted in his troops becoming widely scattered at times. Blamey has been criticised for allowing Australian troops to be sent on a dangerous mission to Greece after he had been told that Menzies had approved and Menzies had been informed that Blamey had approved. Blamey was under no illusions about the odds of success and immediately prepared plans for an evacuation. Blamey's foresight and determination saved many of his men but he lost credibility when he chose his son to fill the one remaining seat on the aircraft carrying him out of Greece.

In the Syrian campaign (against the Vichy French), Blamey took decisive action to resolve the command difficulties caused by General Henry Maitland Wilson's attempt to direct the fighting from the King David Hotel in Jerusalem by interposing Lieutenant General John Lavarack's I Corps headquarters.

Later Blamey forced another showdown with the Auchinleck over his insistence that the 9th Division be withdrawn from the Tobruk, allowing his command to be concentrated in Syria. Blamey was supported by Prime Minister John Curtin and Auchinleck was forced to back down.

For his campaigns in the Middle East, he was created a Knight Commander of the Order of the Bath on 1 January 1942.

In 1942, Blamey was recalled to Australia to become the Commander-in-Chief AMF, and then Commander of Allied Land Forces as well. 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 interpretation^[1] of cowardice against the men who had turned back the Japanese on the Kokoda Trail Campaign was received by them with intense bitterness, and was widely seen as reflecting his own inability to stand up to MacArthur. However, when American troops were checked at Buna, Blamey turned the tables on MacArthur and told him that he would rather send in more Australians, because "at least they would fight". Later, Blamey thwarted MacArthur's plan to use the Australian Army primarily for logistic support, using American troops for combat roles.

The relationship between MacArthur and Blamey was generally good, and they had great respect for each other's abilities. MacArthur's main problem was that as Commander-in-Chief AMF, Blamey was not entirely under his command. MacArthur accepted a number of changes that Blamey made to his strategy, the most notable of which was probably moving the landing on New Britain to before the attack on Madang. The only major conflict with MacArthur that Blamey lost was his attempt to prevent the 7th Division from being sent to Balikpapan in 1945, an operation that Blamey thought was unnecessary. On this occasion, Blamey was not supported by the government, and the operation went ahead as planned.

Blamey's conduct of the New Guinea campaign of 1942 attracted scathing criticism at time from armchair strategists, who felt that he was packing New Guinea with troops that would be forced to surrender like the troops in Singapore and Bataan if they were cut off by the Japanese Navy. However, after the Battle of Midway, they no longer had the strength to do this. At the Battle of Wau in 1943, Blamey won the battle by acting decisively on intelligence, shifting the 17th Infantry Brigade from Milne Bay in time to defeat the Japanese attack. For this campaign, he was made a Knight Grand Cross (Military) of the Order of the British Empire on 28 May 1943.

In 1943, he captured Lae with a classic double envelopment, with the 7th Division attacking from the west by air and the 9th Division from the east by sea. There was criticism from Earle Page of the way that Blamey conducted operations in malarious areas. Administrative arrangements for the final campaigns were criticised by the government, although matters were not entirely in Blamey's hands, and the critical shortage of logistical troops was caused by the government's own actions.

Blamey remained a devotee of new technology, obtaining DUKWs and LVTs for the Lae operation. Later he attempted to acquire helicopters, but met resistance from the RAAF.

Blamey's treatment of senior officers was also controversial. Biographers of many of Blamey's World War II contemporaries, including Generals John Lavarack and Gordon Bennett and Brigadier Potts, have 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. At Finschhafen, Blamey responded to a request from Lieutenant General Sir Iven Mackay to relieve Lieutenant General Sir Edmund Herring by immediately sending Lieutenant General Sir Leslie Morshead, even though Herring was a friend and Blamey retained confidence in him. Later in the war there was political criticism of the way that Blamey had "side tracked" various generals, something that was probably inevitable in an Army that was rapidly shrinking in size.

Blamey was abruptly retired in 1946. He returned to Melbourne, where he devoted himself to business affairs, to writing and to promoting the welfare of ex-service personnel. In the late 1940s he became involved in 'The Association', an organisation similar to the earlier 'White Army', which was established to counter a possible communist coup. Blamey was promoted to field marshal on 8 June 1950, after Menzies became Prime Minister again. Shortly afterwards, he became seriously ill and was forced to receive his field marshal's baton from the Governor-General in his hospital bed. He died of hypertensive cerebral haemorrhage on 27 May 1951 at the Repatriation General Hospital, Heidelberg, and was cremated. Crowds estimated at 250,000 lined the streets of Melbourne at his state funeral. For pallbearers, he had ten of his lieutenant generals: Frank Berryman, William Bridgeford, Edmund Herring, Iven Mackay, Leslie Morshead, John Northcott, Sydney Rowell, Stanley Savige, Vernon Sturdee, and Henry Wells .

[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. 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. His papers are held in the Australian War Memorial, where his portrait hangs and his field marshal's baton is on display.

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 (a sentiment which Blamey himself would have endorsed), 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.

[edit] Dates and age of rank

Lieutenant - November 1906 - 22 years
Captain - 1 December 1910 - 26 years
Major - 1 July 1914 - 30 years
Lieutenant Colonel - 26 July 1915 - 31 years
Colonel - 1 December 1916 - 32 years
Brigadier General - 1 June 1918 - 34 years
Major General - 23 March 1931 - 47 years
Lieutenant General - 13 October 1939 - 55 years
General - 24 September 1941 - 57 years
Field Marshal - 8 June 1950 - 66 years

[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
GBE, Knight Grand Cross of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire; 1943 Military division
Mentioned in Despatches; 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
Distinguished Service Cross (United States); 1944
Netherlands Order of Orange-Nassau Grand Cross; 1947

[edit] References

^ Dudley McCarthy, South-West Pacific Area: First Year, pp. 334-335 [1]

[edit] Books

Hetherington, John, Blamey, Controversial Soldier : a biography of Field Marshal Sir Thomas Blamey ISBN 095920430X
Horner, David, Blamey : The Commander-in-Chief ISBN 1864487348
Carlyon, Norman D., I Remember Blamey ISBN 0725103833

[edit] Links

Blamey Biography on Australian Dictionary of Biography

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