61 Facts About Sydney Rowell

Sydney Rowell spent five years with the British Army or at British staff colleges, establishing valuable contacts with his British counterparts.

Sydney Rowell's subsequent rise to become Chief of the General Staff demonstrated that the circumstances of his dismissal in 1942 were indeed extraordinary.

Sydney Fairbairn Rowell was born on 15 December 1894 at Lockleys, South Australia, the fourth son of James Rowell, an English-born soldier and orchardist who served as a senator from 1916 to 1922, and his Australian-born second wife Zella Jane nee Williams.

Sydney Rowell acted as an 'unofficial batman' to his father, who was colonel commanding the South Australian Brigade from 1907 to 1911.

Sydney Rowell was educated at Adelaide High School and was one of the first cadets to enter the Royal Military College, Duntroon when it opened in 1911.

At the time, Sydney Rowell's class had not yet completed its military training.

Cadets were posted to units being formed in their home states, so Sydney Rowell was posted to the 10th Infantry Battalion.

Rowell, Sydney obtained permission to swap places with another member of his Duntroon class Lieutenant Eric Wilkes Talbot Smith.

Sydney Rowell contracted pneumonia and did not embark with the main body of the 3rd Light Horse Regiment.

Sydney Rowell was posted, along with several other Duntroon graduates who had been invalided home, to Duntroon, as an instructor at the Officers' Training School.

On 20 August 1919 at the Chalmers Church, North Terrace, Adelaide, Sydney Rowell married Blanche May Murison, the daughter of a Scottish engineer.

Sydney Rowell was promoted to captain on 1 January 1920, major on 1 January 1926, and the brevet rank lieutenant colonel on 1 July 1935, with substantive rank on 1 January 1936.

In 1924, Sydney Rowell passed the staff college examination for one of the two Australian spots.

Qualifying in first place gave him a choice between the Staff College, Camberley and its counterpart at Quetta, and Sydney Rowell chose the former, attending from 1925 to 1926.

From 1935 to 1937, Sydney Rowell was on exchange to the British Army as a staff officer with the 44th Infantry Division.

Sydney Rowell returned to Australia to become Director of Military Operations and Intelligence at Army Headquarters in Melbourne but in August 1938 he became staff officer to the Inspector General, Lieutenant General Ernest Squires, partly because Sydney Rowell was recognised as "one of the ablest of the early Duntroon graduates" but because he had spent five of the previous thirteen years with the British Army or at British staff colleges.

Sydney Rowell joined the Second Australian Imperial Force and was given the AIF service number VX3.

Sydney Rowell was promoted to colonel on 13 October 1939, and when the government decided to form I Corps in April 1940, Blamey was given the command and Sydney Rowell became brigadier, general staff, with the rank of brigadier.

Blamey and Sydney Rowell prepared I Corps for operations as best they could, completing the force's structure and integrating new units as they arrived in the Middle East.

Sydney Rowell strove to establish good relations with the British Army, while occasionally having to remind them that the AIF was answerable to its own commander in chief and its own government.

Nonetheless, for his part, Sydney Rowell was mentioned in despatches, and appointed a Commander of the Order of the British Empire.

When Sydney Rowell was told that he was to leave almost immediately to fly to Egypt with Blamey, his first reaction was to declare that he had no intention of leaving.

Sydney Rowell had always been completely frank in putting his views to Blamey, but not defiant.

On this occasion it took a sharp and direct order to remind Sydney Rowell who was in command.

Sydney Rowell wrote to the Chief of the General Staff, Lieutenant General Vernon Sturdee:.

Sydney Rowell has very great ability; is quick in decision and sound in judgement.

Sydney Rowell expected that his main task would be to support the AIF; but it turned out the primary concern was the looming war with Japan, which broke out soon after.

Sydney Rowell immediately went to Sturdee, who had Lavarack with him, and told him what had transpired.

In Blamey's subsequent shake-up of higher command arrangements, Sydney Rowell was appointed to command I Corps.

Sydney Rowell became the first Duntroon graduate to command a corps, and the first to be promoted to the rank of lieutenant general.

Sydney Rowell arrived in Port Moresby on 13 August 1942 and assumed command of New Guinea Force from Major General Basil Morris.

The only warning that Morris had of Sydney Rowell's arrival was a message from the DCGS, Vasey, which simply said: "Syd is coming".

Sydney Rowell turned down a suggestion from Blamey that he needed additional base staff to cope with his administrative problems, given that a corps headquarters was a tactical headquarters, intended to operate as part of an army, with the latter handling most of the administrative work.

Sydney Rowell refused to give General Douglas MacArthur's General Headquarters in Brisbane a "ball to ball" description of the action, sending only factual information at stated times.

Sydney Rowell pointed out that while the Japanese faced all the same difficulties as the Australian troops fighting on the Kokoda Track, the Japanese were advancing and the Australians were retreating, and the whole situation seemed to MacArthur to be a lot like the Malaya.

Sydney Rowell recommended that General Blamey be sent up to New Guinea to take personal command of the situation.

Sydney Rowell wrote to Major General Cyril Clowes at Milne Bay:.

Sydney Rowell comes here when the tide is on the turn and all is likely to be well.

Sydney Rowell proved most difficult and recalcitrant considering himself very unjustly used.

Sydney Rowell charged me with having failed to safeguard his interests and he felt he was being made to eat dirt.

Sydney Rowell competent to fill Darwin which is a major general's command.

Sydney Rowell paid a visit to MacArthur in Brisbane on his way south.

Sydney Rowell told the Prime Minister that "Rowell's attitude to a superior officer in a theatre of active operations was quite unpardonable" and hoped for Rowell's sake that there would be no enquiry into the matter.

MacArthur was dissatisfied with the way that Sydney Rowell had prosecuted the campaign in Papua, and was opposed to Sydney Rowell returning to New Guinea.

MacArthur later told Curtin that he would never agree to Sydney Rowell being given a command again.

Sydney Rowell explained to Rowell that Blamey had gone to New Guinea on his orders and had expressed the fullest confidence in his commanders in New Guinea.

Sydney Rowell filed regular reports on the progress of the war in the Mediterranean, and processed Australian prisoners of war who had been liberated from the Italians.

In December 1943, Sydney Rowell took up the appointment as Director of Tactical Investigation at the War Office in London vice Lieutenant General Alfred Reade Godwin-Austen at the instigation of Richard Casey.

When Blamey and Curtin visited London in May 1944, Sydney Rowell was on his "best behaviour".

Sydney Rowell was recalled from Europe to assume the new post of Vice Chief of the General Staff.

Sydney Rowell dropped in on Chifley in Canberra at the Prime Minister's invitation.

In June 1949, while Sydney Rowell was acting Chief of the General Staff, the country was rocked by the 1949 Australian coal strike.

Rowell delegated responsibility for planning and organising the effort to Lieutenant General Berryman, while Rowell flew "top cover", liaising with the government ministers in Sydney.

Sydney Rowell managed to get the government to pay a bonus to soldiers mining coal, and persuaded the government to allow soldiers to have beer in their canteens, although the local civilians had none.

Sturdee retired in April 1950 and Sydney Rowell became the first Duntroon graduate to become Chief of the General Staff, the post of Vice Chief disappearing for a generation.

Sydney Rowell presided over the Korean War expansion of the Regular Army, the National Service Scheme, and the re-establishment of the women's services.

Sydney Rowell retired from the Army on 15 December 1954, following a ceremony at Duntroon, where his career had begun over 43 years before.

Sydney Rowell turned to gardening, cricket, horse-racing, reading, and crossword puzzles.

Sydney Rowell was offered but declined the post of Australian consul general in New York.

Sydney Rowell died at his South Yarra home, twelve days before Lady Sydney Rowell, and was cremated.

Sir Ivor Hele's portrait of Sydney Rowell is held by the Australian War Memorial, as are his papers.