page_title: John Northcott
section_title: Second World War
hierarchical_section_title: John Northcott / Second World War
caption_attribution_description: Tel-El-Kebir, Egypt. Major-General J. Northcott with officers of the Australian Army Ordnance Corps inspecting an American Stuart M3 Light Tank.
context_page_description: Lieutenant General Sir John Northcott KCMG, KCVO, CB, KStJ was an Australian Army general who served as Chief of the General Staff during the Second World War, and commanded the British Commonwealth Occupation Force in the Occupation of Japan. He was the first Australian-born Governor of New South Wales.
  Northcott joined the Australian Army as a reservist in 1908, before becoming a regular officer in 1912. On duty in Tasmania when the Great War broke out in 1914, he joined the 12th Infantry Battalion, a unit from that state. He was wounded in the landing at Gallipoli on Anzac Day and invalided to Egypt, the United Kingdom, and ultimately Australia, taking no further part in the fighting. After the war, Northcott served on a series of staff posts. He attended the Staff College, Camberley and Imperial Defence College and also spent time overseas as an exchange officer with the British Army and as a military attaché in the United States and Canada.
  During World War II, Northcott was attached to the British 7th Armoured Division in the Middle East to study armoured warfare, returning to Australia in December 1941 to organise the new 1st Armoured Division.
context_section_description: Northcott was promoted to the local rank of major general on 13 October 1939, when he was appointed Deputy Chief of the General Staff. He accompanied Richard Casey to the Dominions' Conference in London in later that year as his military adviser. For his service as Deputy Chief of the General Staff, he was made a Companion of the Order of the Bath on 1 January 1941.
  On 26 January 1940, Northcott became acting Chief of the General Staff (CGS) following the death of Lieutenant General Ernest Ker Squires. In August, his successor, General Sir Brudenell White, died in an air crash and Lieutenant General Vernon Sturdee succeeded him. The post of commander of the 8th Division thereby became available but Northcott was excluded from consideration because his knowledge was vital to the new CGS. When the commander of the 9th Division, Major General Henry Wynter, fell ill in January 1941, Lieutenant General Sir Thomas Blamey asked for Northcott to replace him, but Northcott was involved in organising the 1st Armoured Division and the appointment instead went to Brigadier Leslie Morshead.
  Northcott joined the Second Australian Imperial Force (AIF) as a major general on 1 September 1941 and was given the AIF serial number VX63396. He was attached to the British 7th Armoured Division in the Middle East to study armoured warfare, returning to Australia in December 1941 to organise the new 1st Armoured Division. The job was a challenging one that some of his subordinates felt that Northcott was not up to, given his lack of command experience. In March 1942, Northcott found out from The Herald newspaper that he was to be promoted to command II Corps. "This is what they do to me", was his comment, "just as my first tank is coming down the road". The new post came with a promotion to the temporary rank of lieutenant general on 6 April 1942, which became substantive on 12 December 1945. Northcott was succeeded as commander by Major General Horace Robertson, an officer with a distinguished combat record in the desert.
  However, on 10 September 1942, Northcott was appointed Chief of the General Staff. Formerly, the Army had been controlled by the Military Board. This ceased to function on 30 July 1942, with its responsibilities being assumed by the Commander-in-Chief, General Blamey. The Adjutant General, Major General Victor Stantke, the Quartermaster General, Major General James Cannan and the Master-General of the Ordnance, Major General Leslie, who would formerly have been members of the board, now came under the Lieutenant General Administration (LGA), Lieutenant General Henry Wynter. This left the CGS with responsibility for the day-to-day running of the Army. His job also involved liaison with Royal Australian Navy (RAN) and the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF), and he frequently had to represent Blamey in meetings with the Minister for the Army, Frank Forde.
  Northcott spent much of his time from 1943 on in a long battle with the government over the number of men and women allocated to the Army. He attempted to do so without Blamey being dragged into a political fight but this proved to be impossible. In September 1944, the government reduced the Army's monthly intake of women from 925 to 500, while it only received 420 out of 4,020 men allocated to the three services. Such a meagre allocation was below what the Army needed to maintain its strength, and formations had to be disbanded. Blamey took up the matter with Prime Minister John Curtin, and managed to get a more satisfactory monthly allocation of 1,500 men per month out of 3,000 allocated to the three services.
  The relationship between Northcott as Chief of the General Staff and Blamey as Commander-in-Chief bore some similarities to the one between the RAAF's Chief of the Air Staff, Air Vice Marshal George Jones, and Air Vice Marshal William Bostock, the commander of the RAAF forces in the field, but Blamey was senior to Northcott, both in rank and in the Army's command structure. The relationship could still have been a delicate one, but in the event it was characterised by non
caption: Northcott with officers of the Australian Army Ordnance Corps inspecting an American M3 Stuart Light Tank.
exif: {}