Lieutenant General Sir Sydney Fairbairn Rowell, (15 December 1894 – 12 April 1975) was an Australian soldier who served as Chief of the General Staff from 17 April 1950 to 15 December 1954. As Vice Chief of the General Staff from 8 January 1946 to 16 April 1950, he played a key role in the post-Second World War reorganisation of the Army, and in the 1949 Australian coal strike. However, he is best known as the commander who was dismissed in the Kokoda Track campaign.
As a young officer, Rowell served at Gallipoli but was invalided back to Australia with typhoid fever in January 1916. The end of the war found Rowell junior in rank to his contemporaries with more distinguished war records, but he managed to catch up in the post-war period. Rowell spent five years with the British Army or at British staff colleges, establishing valuable contacts with his British counterparts. In 1939 he was appointed chief of staff of the 6th Division and later I Corps, serving in that capacity in the Battle of Greece and the Syria-Lebanon campaign. In 1942 he commanded I Corps in the Kokoda Track campaign but was sacked. His subsequent rise to become Chief of the General Staff demonstrated that the circumstances of his dismissal in 1942 were indeed extraordinary.
Early life 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 née Williams. He acted as an 'unofficial batman' to his father, who was colonel commanding the South Australian Brigade from 1907 to 1911. 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.
First World War On 15 September 1914 Rowell and his classmates were commissioned as first lieutenants in the Australian Imperial Force (AIF). At the time, Rowell's class had not yet completed its military training. The AIF's commander, Major General William Throsby Bridges, decided that regimental duty would rectify that deficiency, so he allotted the Duntroon cadets as regimental officers of the AIF, rather than as staff officers. The cost of this decision was high; of the 134 commissioned in time to serve at the front, 42 were killed and 38 wounded. Cadets were posted to units being formed in their home states, so Rowell was posted to the 10th Infantry Battalion. When he discovered that the 3rd Light Horse Regiment was to be commanded by his cousin, Lieutenant Colonel F. M. Rowell, Sydney obtained permission to swap places with another member of his Duntroon class Lieutenant Eric Wilkes Talbot Smith. It was a fateful decision; Smith was fatally wounded on Anzac Day.
Rowell contracted pneumonia and did not embark with the main body of the 3rd Light Horse Regiment. Instead, he left with its First Reinforcements on HMAT Thirty-Six on 21 December 1914. Rowell joined the regiment in Heliopolis in January. The next month he broke his left leg in a riding accident. For a time it looked like Rowell would again miss the embarkation of his regiment, but the intervention of his father ensured that he reached Anzac Cove with the 3rd Light Horse on 12 May 1915.Rowell, Sydney Fairbairn, NAA (ACT): B2455 ROWELL SYDNEY FAIRBAIRN He was evacuated sick to Egypt and then Malta in July, and returned to his regiment at Quinn's Post in August. Rowell was promoted to the temporary rank of captain on 9 September, briefly assuming command of a squadron before becoming the regimental adjutant three days later. In November Rowell was again evacuated to Egypt, this time with typhoid fever, the disease that had killed his cousin. On 20 January 1916, Rowell was returned to Australia. Because of a policy that a regular officer, once invalided to Australia, could not again be posted overseas, Rowell's period of active service was over. He was posted, along with several other Duntroon graduates who had been invalided home, to Duntroon, as an instructor at the Officers' Training School. This was closed in June 1917 and Rowell was posted to the staff of the 4th Military District in Adelaide.
Between the wars On 20 August 1919 at the Chalmers Church, North Terrace, Adelaide, Rowell married Blanche May Murison, the daughter of a Scottish engineer. Blanche had served in the Royal Australian Army Nursing Corps in Australia during the war. Due to his brief overseas service, the end of the war found Rowell still a lieutenant and thus junior in rank to his contemporaries but the snail-like pace of promotions between the wars allowed him to gradually catch up. He 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. His inter-war career consisted of a long series of staff postings, interspersed with training courses.
In 1924, 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 Rowell chose the former, attending from 1925 to 1926. At this time, the commandant was Major General Edmund Ironside; the staff included Colonel J. F. C. Fuller and Lieutenant Colonels Alan Brooke and Bernard Montgomery. Fellow students included Captains Frank Messervy and Francis Tuker. From 1935 to 1937, Rowell was on exchange to the British Army as a staff officer with the 44th (Home Counties) Infantry Division. He then attended the Imperial Defence College. The class was a distinguished one, including two Victoria Cross winners, Group Captain Frank McNamara from Australia and Lieutenant Colonel George Pearkes from Canada; other students included Lieutenant Colonel William Slim and Wing Commander Keith Park. For his staff work, Rowell was made an Officer of the Order of the British Empire in the King's Birthday Honours in 1938.
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 Rowell was recognised as "one of the ablest of the early Duntroon graduates" but also because he had spent five of the previous thirteen years with the British Army or at British staff colleges. The government's decision to appoint a British officer to produce an authoritative report into the Army was widely seen as demonstrating the government's lack of confidence in its own officer corps. Squires' first recommendation was to restructure the military districts into four "commands". This required legislation amending the Defence Act and was not implemented until October 1939. The second recommendation was the formation of a regular brigade. The death of Prime Minister Joseph Lyons in April 1939 and his subsequent replacement by Robert Menzies caused this to be shelved.
Second World War Libya
When the 6th Division was formed in October 1939, Sir Thomas Blamey appointed Rowell as its GSO1 (chief of staff). Rowell joined the Second Australian Imperial Force (AIF) and was given the AIF service number VX3. Gavin Long described Rowell as "clear and incisive in thought, sensitive in feeling, frank and outspoken in approach to men and to problems. Five recent years of service either at English staff colleges or on exchange duty made it probable that wherever he went his opposite numbers in British formations would be men with whom he had previously worked and played." Comparing him to the AA&QMG, Colonel George Alan Vasey, Long noted that both "were not only efficient soldiers but men of commanding temperament and talent".
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 Rowell became brigadier, general staff (BGS), with the rank of brigadier. Blamey and 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. 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. Rowell's efforts to create an administrative headquarters to free the I Corps staff for operational duties foundered on Blamey's reluctance to delegate authority. The best that he could achieve was the creation of a Base and Line of Communications Units command under Brigadier Allan Boase but I Corps remained responsible for organisation and training.
I Corps' part in the Western Desert Campaign was brief. Its headquarters opened near Benghazi on 15 February 1941, replacing British XIII Corps. Rowell studied the prospects of an advance on Tripoli, but the headquarters was recalled to Egypt on 24 February to participate in the Battle of Greece. Nonetheless, for his part, Rowell was mentioned in despatches, and appointed a Commander of the Order of the British Empire.
Greece In Greece, I Corps was employed as such for the first time. The campaign was another short one, but very trying on the participants. Just three days after headquarters opened on 5 April 1941, the Germans broke through and the corps was thrown into a retreat that eventually led to its re-embarkation. Blamey and his staff worked under tremendous pressure; the operational situation was precarious; and German air attacks were frequent. Rowell later wrote:
Tempers flared when I Corps headquarters was ordered to evacuate to Egypt. Blamey's aide recalled:
If Rowell felt that Blamey had shown a lack of moral courage in failing to stand up to the political and military superiors who had directed the ill-fated campaign, Blamey felt that the campaign had revealed flaws in Rowell's character. He wrote to the Chief of the General Staff, Lieutenant General Vernon Sturdee:
For his part in the campaign in Greece, Rowell was mentioned in despatches a second time.
Syria I Corps was alerted to take part in the Syria-Lebanon Campaign although, Blamey having been promoted to Deputy Commander in Chief Middle East Command, it lacked a commanding officer. Apparently, General Sir Henry Maitland Wilson believed that I Corps' loss of transport and signal equipment precluded it from participating in the campaign from the outset. Instead, Wilson attempted to exercise command from the King David Hotel. This proved to be a serious error, as his staff were preoccupied with political and administrative issues, and were too remote from the battlefields to exercise the close command required—something that Rowell foresaw. Following a series of reverses, Rowell predicted on 16 June that "it won't be long now." I Corps headquarters was sent for on 18 June, and Lieutenant General John Lavarack assumed command that day.
Defence of Australia In August 1941, Rowell returned to Australia to take up the post of Deputy Chief of the General Staff (DCGS), with the rank of major general. He 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. It was at this juncture that Rowell was approached by Major General George Vasey, who had a scheme to retire all officers over the age of fifty, and making Major General Horace Robertson Commander in Chief. Presumably Vasey expected Rowell, as a fellow Duntroon graduate, to be sympathetic. A heated argument ensued, ending with Rowell telling Vasey that "if he weren't so bloody big, I'd toss him out of the room". Rowell immediately went to Sturdee, who had Lavarack with him, and told him what had transpired.