Lieutenant General Sir Vernon Ashton Hobart Sturdee, (16 April 1890 – 25 May 1966) was an Australian Army commander who served two terms as Chief of the General Staff. A regular officer of the Royal Australian Engineers who joined the Militia in 1908, he was one of the original Anzacs during the First World War, participating in the landing at Gallipoli on 25 April 1915. In the campaign that followed, he commanded the 5th Field Company, before going on to lead the 8th Field Company and the 4th Pioneer Battalion on the Western Front. In 1918 he was seconded to General Headquarters (GHQ) British Expeditionary Force as a staff officer.
Promotion was stagnant between the wars, and Sturdee remained at his wartime rank of lieutenant colonel until 1935. He served in a series of staff posts, and attended the Staff College at Quetta in British India and the Imperial Defence College in Britain. Like other regular officers, he had little faith in the government's "Singapore strategy", and warned that the Army would have to face an effective and well-equipped Japanese opponent.
Ranked colonel at the outbreak of the Second World War in 1939, Sturdee was raised to lieutenant general in 1940 and became Chief of the General Staff. He proceeded to conduct a doomed defence of the islands to the north of Australia against the advancing Japanese forces. In 1942, he successfully advised the government to divert the Second Australian Imperial Force troops returning from the Middle East to Australia. He then became head of the Australian Military Mission to Washington, D.C., where he represented Australia before the Combined Chiefs of Staff. As commander of the First Army in New Guinea in 1944–45, Sturdee directed the fighting at Aitape, and on New Britain and Bougainville. He was charged with destroying the enemy when opportunity presented itself, but had to do so with limited resources, and without committing his troops to battles that were beyond their strength.
When the war ended, Sturdee took the surrender of Japanese forces in the Rabaul area. As one of the Army's most senior officers, he succeeded General Sir Thomas Blamey as Commander in Chief of the Australian Military Forces in December 1945. He became the Chief of the General Staff a second time in 1946, serving in the post until his retirement in 1950. During this term, he had to demobilise the wartime Army while fielding and supporting the Australian contingent of the British Commonwealth Occupation Force in Japan. He developed a structure for the post-war Army that included regular combat formations. As a result, the Australian Regular Army was formed, laying the foundations for the service as it exists today.
Education and early life Vernon Ashton Hobart Sturdee was born in Frankston, Victoria, on 16 April 1890, the son of Alfred Hobart Sturdee and his wife Laura Isabell, née Merrett. Alfred Sturdee, a medical practitioner from England, came from a prominent naval family and was the brother of Doveton Sturdee, who later became an admiral of the fleet. Alfred emigrated to Australia in the 1880s, travelling as a ship's doctor. He served in the Boer War, where he was mentioned in despatches after he rode under fire to a donga near the enemy's position to aid wounded men. (Alfred Sturdee – MID) Re-enlisting in the Australian Army Medical Corps as a captain in January 1905, he was promoted to major in August 1908 and lieutenant colonel in December 1912. He later commanded the 2nd Field Ambulance at Gallipoli and, with the rank of colonel, was Assistant Director of Medical Services of the 1st Division on the Western Front. He received three more mentions in despatches and was appointed a Companion of the Order of St Michael and St George. His Australian-born wife Laura, known as Lil, was the sister of Charles Merrett, a prominent businessman and Militia officer. Her half-brother, Colonel Harry Perrin, was another Militia officer.
Vernon Sturdee was educated at Melbourne Grammar School, before being apprenticed to an engineer at Jaques Brothers, Richmond, Victoria. Commissioned as a second lieutenant in the Corps of Engineers, the Militia's engineer component, on 19 October 1908, he was promoted to lieutenant in the Royal Australian Engineers, as the permanent component was then known, on 1 February 1911.AMF Army List of Officers, October 1950 He married Edith Georgina Robins on 4 February 1913 at St Luke's Church of England, Fitzroy North, Melbourne.
First World War Gallipoli
Sturdee joined the Australian Imperial Force (AIF) on 25 August 1914 with the rank of lieutenant. He was promoted to captain on 18 October, and appointed adjutant of the 1st Division Engineers. He embarked from Melbourne for Egypt on the former P&O ocean liner Orvieto on 21 October 1914. He participated in the landing at Anzac Cove on 25 April 1915, disembarking from the transport before 9:00. His duties included supervising the engineer stores park on the beach at Anzac Cove, as well as the construction of jam tin grenades. He was evacuated twice for hospital treatment for enteric fever and for serious damage to his stomach lining from internal burns as a result of too much "Condy's crystals" disinfectant being put into drinking water. As a result, he was to suffer stomach problems for the rest of his life. In July, Sturdee contracted influenza and was evacuated from Anzac Cove.
Sturdee was promoted to major on 28 August 1915, and in September assumed command of the 5th Field Company, a unit raised in Egypt to support the newly formed 2nd Division. From then until the end of the campaign, he was responsible for all engineering and mining work at Steele's, Quinn's and Courtney's Posts, three of the northernmost and most dangerous and exposed parts of the line. He departed Anzac Cove for the last time on 17 December 1915, two days before the final evacuation.
Western Front On returning to Egypt after the evacuation of Anzac, Sturdee assumed responsibility for the provision of hutting at the AIF reinforcement camp at Tel el Kebir. There was already another 5th Field Company in Egypt, which had been raised in Australia. Accordingly, Sturdee's 5th Field Company was renumbered 8th, and assigned to the 5th Division when it was formed in February 1916. This move gave the new division an experienced field company, but at the expense of items of the company's mail going to France for a time and arriving back in Egypt marked "Not Fifth, try Eighth."
The 5th Division moved to France in June 1916, where it participated in the disastrous Battle of Fromelles in July. During the action, Sturdee's 8th Field Company supported the 8th Infantry Brigade. A trench dug by the former facilitated the latter's withdrawal across no man's land. For his service at Gallipoli and Fromelles, he was mentioned in despatches, (MID) and awarded the Distinguished Service Order. (DSO) Heavy losses in the fighting at Fromelles prevented the 5th Division from participating in the Battle of the Somme. To free up another division to participate, II ANZAC Corps organised "Franks Force" to take over a divisional frontage in the Houplines sector, and Sturdee became its Commander Royal Engineers (CRE). When the 5th Division finally moved to the Somme sector in November, he became CRE in charge of the road from Albert to Montauban.
On 13 February 1917, Sturdee was appointed to command the 4th Pioneer Battalion, with the rank of lieutenant colonel. Pioneer battalions were organised as infantry but contained a high percentage of tradesmen and were employed on construction tasks under engineer supervision. Over the next nine months the 4th Pioneer Battalion maintained roads, built camps, laid cables and dug trenches and dugouts. By 1917, the Australian government was pushing strongly for British Army officers holding Australian commands and staff posts to be replaced by Australians. As part of this "Australianisation" of the Australian Corps, Sturdee became CRE of the 5th Division on 25 November 1917, replacing a British Army officer. On 27 March 1918, Sturdee was seconded to General Headquarters (GHQ) British Expeditionary Force as a staff officer, remaining there until 22 October 1918. This provided a rare opportunity, for an Australian officer, of observing the workings of a major headquarters engaged in active operations. For his service on the Western Front, Sturdee was mentioned in despatches a second time, (MID) and appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire for his work at GHQ. (OBE)
Between the wars Sturdee embarked for Australia on 16 November 1918, and his AIF appointment was terminated on 14 March 1919. He was entitled to his AIF rank of lieutenant colonel as an honorary rank, but his substantive rank was still only that of a captain. He was given the brevet rank of lieutenant colonel on 1 January 1920, but this did not become substantive until 1 April 1932. Sturdee initially served as Senior Engineer Officer on the staff of the 3rd Military District at Victoria Barracks, Melbourne. In 1921, he attended the Staff College at Quetta in British India. He was an instructor in military engineering and surveying at the Royal Military College, Duntroon from 16 February to 31 December 1924, before returning to Melbourne to serve on the staff of the 4th Division until 26 March 1929. Posted to the United Kingdom, he served at the War Office and attended the Imperial Defence College in 1931. From 1 January 1931 to 31 December 1932, he was the military representative at the High Commission of Australia in London.
Sturdee was Director of Military Operations and Intelligence at Army Headquarters in Melbourne from 14 February 1933 to 1 March 1938, a period "when the Army was at rock bottom", and then served as Director of Staff Duties until 12 October 1938. He was given the brevet rank of colonel on 1 July 1935; this became temporary on 1 July 1936 and finally substantive on 1 July 1937, over twenty years after he had become a lieutenant colonel in the AIF. He was appointed a Commander of the Order of the British Empire in the New Year Honours in 1939 for his services on the Army Headquarters staff. (CBE)
Like his predecessor as Director of Military Operations and Intelligence, Colonel John Lavarack, and many other officers, Sturdee had little faith in the government's "Singapore strategy", which aimed to deter Japanese aggression through the presence of a powerful British fleet based at Singapore. In 1933, Sturdee told senior officers that the Japanese
Second World War Defence of Australia In 1939, the Chief of the General Staff, Lieutenant General Ernest Squires, implemented a reorganisation of the Army in which the old military districts were replaced by larger commands led by lieutenant generals. On 13 October 1939, Sturdee was promoted from colonel to lieutenant general and assumed control of the new Eastern Command. He had to supervise the raising, training and equipping of the new Second Australian Imperial Force units being formed in New South Wales, as well as the now-conscript Militia.
On 1 July 1940, Sturdee accepted a demotion to major general to become the commander of Second AIF's newly raised 8th Division, receiving the Second AIF serial number NX35000. His period in this command was brief. On 13 August 1940, the Chief of the General Staff, General Sir Brudenell White, was killed in the Canberra air disaster. Sturdee was restored to his rank of lieutenant general and appointed Chief of the General Staff. As such, he was responsible for the training and maintenance of the AIF in the Middle East and the Far East—although not their operational control—and for the administration and training of the Militia.