Vernon Sturdee Lieutenant General Sir Vernon Ashton Hobart Sturdee KBE , CB , DSO ( 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 Anzac s 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 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 , DC , 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 providing 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 . 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 . He married Edith Georgina Robins on 4 February 1913 at St Luke ' s Church of England , North Fitzroy , 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 RMS " 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 Grenade s . 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 " 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 , and awarded the Distinguished Service Order . 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 , and appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire for his work at GHQ . 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 . 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 general s . 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 in order 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 . As the prospect of war with Japan became more likely , so also did the need to make appropriate arrangements for leading the defence of Australia . In 1935 , Lavarack had recommended that in the event of war , the Military Board be abolished and its powers vested in a Commander in Chief . In April 1941 , the Minister for the Army , Percy Spender , recommended that this now be done , with Sturdee becoming Commander in Chief of the Australian Military Forces . Instead , the government elected to adopt the British system , in which the Military Board ( or Army Council as it was called there ) continued to operate , with a separate GOC Home Forces . On 5 August 1941 , Major General Sir Iven Mackay was appointed to this newly created post . However , the idea of a Commander in Chief did not go away and editorials in the " Sunday Telegraph " and the " The Sydney Morning Herald " advocated the appointment . East Indies campaign . Sturdee attempted to defend the islands to the north of Australia as best he could . With only one AIF infantry brigade available , the 23rd , he could only afford to protect the islands most strategically important to the defence of Australia . He sent the 2 / 21st Infantry Battalion to Ambon , the 2 / 22nd to Rabaul , and the 2 / 40th Infantry Battalion and 2 / 2nd Independent Company to Timor . Sturdee knew that their prospects were slim but expected them to " to put up the best possible defence " with what resources they had , and hopefully slow the Japanese advance to allow time for reinforcements to arrive in Australia . When there were doubts about the morale of one commander , Sturdee replaced him with a staff officer from Army Headquarters who volunteered for the position despite being well aware of the odds . All the garrisons were overrun after a spirited defence , except for the 2 / 2nd Independent Company , which managed to hold on in East Timor . In February 1942 , on advice from Lavarack that the Dutch East Indies would soon fall , Sturdee urged the Australian government that the 17 , 800 troops returning from the Middle East , originally bound for Java , be diverted to Australia . Sturdee contended that Java could not be held , and that Allied resources should instead be concentrated in an area from which an offensive could be launched . The best place for this , he argued , was Australia . When Prime Minister John Curtin backed his Chief of the General Staff , it brought him into conflict with British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and President Franklin D . Roosevelt , who suggested that the AIF be diverted to Burma . In the end , Curtin won his point , and subsequent events vindicated Sturdee ' s appreciation of the situation . Official historian Lionel Wigmore concluded : Island campaigns . In March 1942 , the Military Board was abolished and General Sir Thomas Blamey was appointed Commander in Chief . Blamey decided that after the hectic events of the previous months , Sturdee needed a rest and appointed him as Head of the Australian Military Mission to Washington , DC , where the war ' s strategy was now being decided . Sturdee accepted on condition that after a year ' s duty in Washington he would be appointed to an important command . In Washington , Sturdee represented Australia before the Combined Chiefs of Staff and managed to obtain the right of direct access to the Chief of Staff of the United States Army , General George Marshall . For his services as Chief of the General Staff , Sturdee was made a Companion of the Order of the Bath on 1 January 1943 . Sturdee returned to Australia and assumed command of the First Army on 1 March 1944 . His headquarters was initially located in Queensland , but on 2 October 1944 it commenced operations in Lae , and Sturdee assumed command of the troops in New Guinea . These included Lieutenant General Stanley Savige ' s II Corps , with its headquarters at Torokina on Bougainville ; Major General Alan Ramsay ' s 5th Division on New Britain ; Major General Jack Stevens ' 6th Division at Aitape ; and the 8th Infantry Brigade west of Madang . On 18 October , Blamey issued an operational instruction that defined the role of the First Army : " by offensive action to destroy enemy resistance as opportunity offers without committing major forces . " Sturdee was concerned by this order ' s ambiguity and sought clarification from Blamey . The Commander in Chief responded by stating that " my conception is that action must be of a gradual nature " involving the use of patrols to determine Japanese strengths and positions before large offensives were undertaken . The situation on New Britain was straightforward enough ; the enemy was known to be stronger than the Australian forces there — although it was not realised just how much stronger — and so the best that could be done was to eliminate small numbers of Japanese troops by aggressive patrolling . At Aitape , Stevens was tasked on the one hand with pushing the Japanese back far enough to protect the airfields ; but on the other , with not allowing the 6th Division to become heavily engaged since it might be required for use elsewhere . On Bougainville , Savige had the strength and ability to conduct a major campaign , but Blamey counselled caution . Juggling a number of contradictory requirements , Sturdee had to conduct three widely separated campaigns , the Aitape - Wewak campaign , the New Britain campaign and the Bougainville Campaign , and do so with limited resources . Shipping , which was controlled by General Douglas MacArthur ' s GHQ South West Pacific Area , was a source of " continual anxiety " . On 18 July 1945 , Sturdee wrote to Savige : Sturdee ' s operations were effective . On Bougainville , at a cost of 516 Australian dead and 1 , 572 wounded , Savige ' s troops had occupied much of the island and killed 8 , 500 Japanese ; another 9 , 800 died from malnutrition and disease . On New Britain , where 74 Australians died and 140 were wounded , the heavily outnumbered 5th Division had overrun central New Britain . Meanwhile , the 6th Division at Aitape and Wewak had lost 442 dead and 1 , 141 wounded while clearing the Japanese from the coast and driving them into the mountains , killing 9 , 000 and taking 269 prisoners . On 6 September 1945 , Sturdee received the surrender of Japanese forces in the First Army area from General Hitoshi Imamura , the commander of the Japanese Eighth Area Army , and Admiral Jinichi Kusaka , the commander of the South East Area Fleet , in a ceremony held on the deck of the British aircraft carrier at Rabaul . The two Japanese swords handed over in the surrender ceremony , together with the sword worn by Sturdee , which was his father ' s , were presented to the Australian War Memorial by Lady Sturdee in 1982 . For his service in the final campaigns , Blamey recommended Sturdee for a knighthood , but this was reduced to a third mention in despatches . Later life . In November 1945 , the Minister for the Army , Frank Forde , informed Blamey that the government had decided to re - establish the Military Board and he should therefore vacate his office . Sturdee became acting Commander in Chief on 1 December 1945 . On 1 March 1946 , the post of Commander in Chief was abolished and Sturdee became Chief of the General Staff again . There was much work to be done ; the wartime Army had a strength of 383 , 000 in August 1945 , of whom 177 , 000 were serving outside Australia . These troops had to be demobilised , but what should replace the wartime Army had not yet been determined . Sturdee and his Vice Chief of the General Staff , Lieutenant General Sydney Rowell , had to develop an appropriate structure . The proposal submitted to Cabinet called for national service , a regular army of 33 , 000 and reserves of 42 , 000 , but the government baulked at the £20m per annum price tag . A smaller force of 19 , 000 regulars and 50 , 000 reservists at a cost of £12 . 5m per annum was finally approved in 1947 . Conditions of service were also overhauled . At the same time , the Army had to handle huge stockpiles of equipment , stores and supplies . Some were far in excess of the Army ' s needs and had to be deposed of . Hospitals still had to be run , although some were transferred to the Department of Repatriation . The Army had to maintain its schools and training establishments . Moreover , the Army had to field and maintain part of the British Commonwealth Occupation Force in Japan . Over next fifty years , operations would be conducted by the new Australian Regular Army that Sturdee created , rather than the Militia or specially enlisted expeditionary forces . Sturdee retired on 17 April 1950 . In recognition of his services , he was created a Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire on 1 January 1951 . In retirement , he continued to live in Kooyong , Melbourne . He became a director of the Australian arm of Standard Telephones and Cables and was honorary colonel of the Royal Australian Electrical and Mechanical Engineers from 1951 to 1956 . The Army named the Landing Ship Medium " Vernon Sturdee " after him . He died on 25 May 1966 at the Repatriation General Hospital , Heidelberg . He was accorded a funeral with full military honours , and cremated . Lieutenant General Sir Edmund Herring , a boyhood friend from Melbourne Grammar , was principal pall bearer . Sturdee was survived by his wife , their daughter and one of their two sons . Before he died , he burned all his private papers . " I have done the job , " he said . " It is over . "