page_title: Thomas Blamey
section_title: Papuan campaign
hierarchical_section_title: Thomas Blamey / Second World War / Papuan campaign
caption_attribution_description: English: General Sir Thomas Blamey And Lieutenant General R.L. Eichelberger.
context_page_description: Field Marshal Sir Thomas Albert Blamey, GBE, KCB, CMG, DSO, ED was an Australian general of the First and Second World Wars, and the only Australian to attain the rank of field marshal.
  Blamey joined the Australian Army as a regular soldier in 1906, and attended the Staff College at Quetta. During the First World War he participated in the landing at Anzac Cove on 25 April 1915, and served as a staff officer in the Gallipoli Campaign, where he was mentioned in despatches for a daring raid behind enemy lines. He later served on the Western Front, where he distinguished himself in the planning for the Battle of Pozières. He rose to the rank of brigadier general, and served as chief of staff of the Australian Corps under Lieutenant General Sir John Monash, who credited him as a factor in the Corps' success in the Battle of Hamel, the Battle of Amiens and the Battle of the Hindenburg Line.
  After the war Blamey was Deputy Chief of the General Staff, and was involved in the creation of the Royal Australian Air Force. He resigned from the regular Army in 1925 to become Chief Commissioner of the Victoria Police, but remained in the Militia, rising to command the 3rd Division in 1931.
context_section_description: The defence of Australia took on a new urgency in December 1941 with the entry of Japan into the war. Within the Army there was a concern that Bennett or Lavarack would be appointed as commander-in-chief. In March 1942, Vasey, Herring and Steele approached the Minister for the Army, Frank Forde, with a proposal that all officers over the age of 50 be immediately retired and Major General Horace Robertson be appointed commander-in-chief. This "revolt of the generals" collapsed with the welcome news that Blamey was returning from the Middle East to become commander-in-chief of Australian Military Forces.
  General Douglas MacArthur arrived in Australia in March 1942 to become Supreme Commander South West Pacific Area (SWPA). In addition to his duties as commander-in-chief, Blamey became commander of Allied Land Forces, South West Pacific Area. In the reorganisation that followed his return to Australia on 23 March, Blamey appointed Lavarack to command the First Army, Mackay to command the Second Army, and Bennett to command the III Corps in Western Australia. Vasey became deputy chief of the general staff (DCGS), while Herring took over Northern Territory Force, and Robertson became commander of the 1st Armoured Division. Blamey's Allied Land Forces Headquarters (LHQ) was established in Melbourne, but after MacArthur's General Headquarters (GHQ) moved to Brisbane in July 1942, Blamey established an Advanced LHQ in nearby St Lucia, Queensland.
  The Allied command structure was soon put under strain by Australian reverses in the Kokoda Track campaign. MacArthur was highly critical of the Australian performance, and confided to the Chief of Staff of the United States Army, General George Marshall, that "the Australians have proven themselves unable to match the enemy in jungle fighting. Aggressive leadership is lacking."  MacArthur told Curtin that Blamey should be sent up to New Guinea to take personal command of the situation. Curtin later confessed that "in my ignorance (of military matters) I thought that the Commander in Chief should be in New Guinea." Jack Beasley suggested that Blamey would make a convenient scapegoat: "Moresby is going to fall. Send Blamey up there and let him fall with it!"
  Blamey felt he had no choice, but his assumption of command of New Guinea Force sat uneasily with Rowell, the commander of I Corps there, who saw it as displaying a lack of confidence in him. A petulant Rowell would not be mollified, and, after a series of disagreements, Blamey relieved Rowell of his command, replacing him with Herring. More reliefs followed. Herring relieved Brigadier Arnold Potts of the 21st Infantry Brigade, replacing him with Brigadier Ivan Dougherty on 22 October. Five days later, Blamey replaced Allen as the 7th Division's commander with Vasey. Nor were generals the only ones to be removed. Blamey cancelled Chester Wilmot's accreditation as a war correspondent in October 1942 for spreading a false rumour that Blamey was taking payments from the laundry contractor at Puckapunyal. Wilmot was reinstated, but on 1 November 1942, Blamey again terminated Wilmot's accreditation, this time for good.
  
  Blamey made a controversial speech to the 21st Infantry Brigade on 9 November 1942. According to the official historian, Dudley McCarthy:
  [Blamey] said that the Jap was like a gorilla; he would get into a hole and he would not surrender; while in his hole and protected by it he would kill; to be dealt with he had to be got out of his holes and put on the run. Blamey added that it was like shooting rabbits: while the rabbits were in their burrows they could not be shot; they had to be got on the run and then the man with the gun could get them. "It never entered my head as I stood there on parade that the general had any idea he was being offensive, or that he intended to be so", wrote Brigadier Dougherty (then a newcomer to the brigade) afterwards. "But the brigade gave to what he said the interpretation that 'they ran like rabbits'. This interpretation of what he said spread throughout New Guinea and indeed back home, and
caption: Blamey and Lieutenant General Robert L. Eichelberger.
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