page_title: Thomas Blamey
section_title: New Guinea Campaign
hierarchical_section_title: Thomas Blamey / Second World War / New Guinea Campaign
caption_attribution_description: English: Port Moresby, New Guinea. 1943-09-13. General Sir Thomas Blamey GBE, KCB, CMG, DSO, ED, Commander In Chief, Allied Land Forces, South West Pacific Area, Giving a press conference at Headquarters, New Guinea Force. Shown: Mr H. Mishael, Melbourne "Age", Sydney Morning Herald (1); General Sir Thomas Blamey (2); Mr Dean Schedler, Associated Press (3); Mr Haydon Lennard, Australian Broadcasting Commission (4); Mr F. Robinson, International News Service (5); Mr J. Henry, Reuters (6); Mr F. Peterson, Sydney Sun (7); Mr H. Dash, Sydney Telegraph (8); Mr Brydon Taves, United Press (9); Mr Yates Mcdaniel, Associated Press (10).
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 relationship between MacArthur and Blamey was generally good, and they had great respect for each other's abilities. MacArthur's main objection was that as commander-in-chief of AMF as well as commander of Allied Land Forces, Blamey was not wholly under his command. Official historian Gavin Long argued that:
  Nothing substantial would have been gained by this arrangement and much would have been lost: notably the existence of a single commander who could advise the Australian Government on all the problems of its army and be answerable to that Government for the manner in which it was employed both at home and in the field.
  The next operation was MacArthur's Operation Cartwheel, an advance on the major Japanese base at Rabaul. The Australian Army was tasked with the capture of the Huon Peninsula. Blamey was ordered to again assume personal command of New Guinea Force. His concept, which he developed with Herring and Frank Berryman, who had replaced Vasey as DCGS, was to draw the Japanese forces away from Lae with a demonstration against Salamaua, and then capture Lae with a double envelopment. Blamey remained a devotee of new technology. His plan called for the use of the landing craft of the 2nd Engineer Special Brigade, and he intended to cross the Markham River with the aid of paratroops. Supplies would be brought across the river using DUKWs, a relatively new invention. He also attempted to acquire helicopters, but met resistance from the RAAF, and they were never delivered. MacArthur accepted a number of changes that Blamey made to his strategy, probably the most notable of which was putting the landing on New Britain before Blamey's attack on Madang.
  
  The campaign started well; Lae was captured well ahead of schedule. Blamey then handed over command of New Guinea Force to Mackay and returned to Australia. The 7th Division then advanced through the Ramu Valley while the 9th Division landed at Finschhafen. The campaign then slowed owing to a combination of logistical difficulties and Japanese resistance. Blamey responded to a request from Mackay to relieve Herring, whose chief of staff had been killed in an aircraft accident. He immediately sent Morshead. In February 1944 there was criticism in Parliament of the way that Blamey had "side tracked" various generals; the names of Bennett, Rowell, Mackay, Wynter, Herring, Lavarack, Robertson, Morshead and Clowes were mentioned. Blamey responded, 
  We had twelve divisions to fight the Jap. On arrival of other equipment, other considerations came in and we now have six divisions. Can you tell me what should have been done with the surplus generals? I do know that on every occasion I proposed to terminate a general's appointment, politicians have tried to stop it. 
   Frank Forde criticised Blamey for having too many generals. Blamey could only reply that the Australian Army had one general for 15,741 men and women compared to one per 9,090 in the British Army.
  Blamey was annoyed by the media campaign run against him by William Dunstan and Keith Murdoch of The Herald and Weekly Times newspaper group, but success in New Guinea led to a change of heart at the newspaper, and Blamey even accepted a dinner invitation from Murdoch in 1944. There was another victory, though, far more significant. The Army had taken heavy casualties from malaria in the fighting in 1942. Blamey took the advice of Edward Ford and Neil Hamilton Fairley, and strongly backed their ultimately successful efforts to control the disease. To acquaint himself with the issues, Blamey read through Manson's Tropical Diseases, the standard medical textbook on the subject.  Blamey also promoted the work of Howard Florey on the development of penicillin, and wrote to Curtin urging that £200,000 be earmarked for Florey's vision of a national institute for medical research in Canberra, which ultimately became the John Curtin School of Medical Research.
  Blamey was involved in discussions with the government over the size of the Army to be maintained. Now that the danger of invasion of Australia had passed, the governm
caption: Blamey briefs journalists on operations around Lae in September 1943. The scale model was specially constructed for the planning of this campaign.
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