page_title: Edmund Herring
section_title: Western desert
hierarchical_section_title: Edmund Herring / Second World War / Western desert
caption_attribution_description: Bardia, Libya 29 December 1940. No. 5 gun crew, 1st Battery, "A" Troop, 2/1st Field Artillery Regiment. The gun crew comprises Sergeant Pearse, Bombardier Frankfort, Gunner Hillcoat, Gunner O'Sullivan, Gunner W. K. Smith and Gunner Krumback. This 25-Pounder Mark II is camouflaged with hessian and streamers and engaged in harassing Italian positions before the actual "push".
context_page_description: Lieutenant General Sir Edmund Francis Herring, KCMG, KBE, DSO, MC, KStJ, ED, KC was a senior Australian Army officer during the Second World War, Lieutenant Governor of Victoria, and Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Victoria. A Rhodes scholar, Herring was at New College, Oxford, when the First World War broke out and served with the Royal Field Artillery on the Macedonian front, for which he was awarded the Military Cross and Distinguished Service Order. After the war he carved out a successful career as a barrister and King's Counsel. He also joined the Australian Army, rising to the rank of colonel by 1939.
  During the Second World War, Herring commanded the 6th Division Artillery in the Western Desert Campaign and the Battle of Greece. In 1942, as a corps commander, he commanded the land forces in the Kokoda Track campaign. The following year, he directed operations in the Salamaua-Lae campaign and Finisterre Range campaign. Herring left his corps to become the longest-serving Chief Justice and Lieutenant Governor of Victoria, serving for three decades. In the latter capacity, he was patron of many charitable organisations.
context_section_description: At the Battle of Bardia, Herring controlled all 120 guns used in the division's attack, in which the infantry were supported by Great-War-style barrages. After the victory at Bardia, Herring's gunners supported the attack on Tobruk. More than half of his guns were British, and some were commanded by regular British officers who were sceptical of the ability of an Australian Militia officer. War Correspondent Chester Wilmot noted that:
  Herring has a quiet, easy manner and his last war service has given him an understanding of the British to which they were quick to respond. After Bardia and Tobruk those officers who had been most skeptical were his strongest champions. In building up the artillery plan, Herring brought to bear the same thorough, relentless logic and attention to detail with which he had so often built up a legal argument.
caption: 25-pounder gun crew of the 2/1st Field Artillery Regiment at Bardia
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