Hero or Deserter? Page 2

  Born with red hair and a fiery temper to match, Gordon was heavily influenced by his father’s Christian work ethic and love of all things military. There was no question that every boy had to enlist in the school cadets, which was no hardship so far as Gordon was concerned. Throughout his formative years he yearned to be a soldier, an ambition that became even more pronounced as a teenager.

  There was no shame in nationalism and Gordon took every opportunity to wave his flag at passing military parades as army units marched through Melbourne on their way to the Boer War. On the relief of Mafeking, which was celebrated by a half-day holiday at school, he led his own tin-can band through the streets of Balwyn to mark the occasion.1

  Intellectually he showed promise, but his nerves often let him down at examination time, a weakness he was determined to conquer. As with many of the challenges Gordon Bennett faced in adult life, he set about overcoming this obstacle with a mixture of military-style precision and sheer willpower. It worked. Eventually he won a scholarship to nearby Hawthorn College, where he excelled in mathematics, a talent which was to help mould his career in civilian life.

  After matriculating in 1902, he gained his first job as a clerk with the Australian Mutual Provident Society and began studying as an actuary. However, he continued to be obsessed by thoughts of soldiering, and intended to join the militia, an extension of the army cadets beloved of many schoolboys at the time, as soon as he was old enough. Immediately after his 21st birthday he approached a near neighbour who was commanding officer of a Victorian infantry regiment. Colonel J. McLaren was so impressed by Bennett’s demeanour and enthusiasm that he told him to report to the headquarters of the 5th Australian Infantry Regiment on the next drill night.

  Bennett was immediately accepted as a recruit officer and ordered to attend training four nights a week, as well as each Saturday afternoon. This was no hardship for the young man. For the next six months he learned all he could about tactics, infantry drill, administration and military law and he was soon on his way to becoming a second-lieutenant. After his commission was confirmed towards the end of 1908, Gordon Bennett became driven by an all-consuming passion for his part-time role as a civilian soldier. By the beginning of World War I he held the rank of major and had been appointed second-in-command of the 6th Battalion AIF. The 6th Battalion was one of the first infantry battalions to be raised during World War I and was later sent to Egypt.2

  Bennett’s meteoric rise through the ranks ran parallel with the progress of another ambitious soldier, Thomas Albert Blamey, who was three years older. Like Bennett, Blamey came from a large family and joined the cadet corps at school, where he was similarly inspired by developments in the Boer War. Blamey spent his childhood at Wagga Wagga in New South Wales and he, too, made no secret of his desire for military status. In 1906 he gained a commission in the Cadet Instructional Staff of the Australian Military Forces and became a staff officer.

  Blamey’s elevation came 18 months before Bennett was appointed an officer within the militia. Despite their similarities of talent, temperament and approach, unlike Blamey, Bennett was classified as a civilian soldier. This had ramifications in terms of status and career prospects, and it was a bitter pill for Bennett to swallow. Over the years, the pair would fight to better each other in seniority and power. While Blamey was made a captain four months before Bennett, Bennett was elevated to the rank of major a full two years ahead of Blamey. Bennett was put in charge of his own brigade at Gallipoli, 18 months before Blamey enjoyed the same level of command in France. Competition between the two men and real or perceived offence by one against the other cemented their life-long rivalry. It would haunt their careers and ultimately impact on the very course of Australia’s role in World War II.3

  But this was all in the future. For now Gordon Bennett was more concerned with carving a reputation for himself in World War I. It did not take him long. As second-in-command of 6th Infantry Battalion he hit the ground running, leading his men ashore at Gallipoli on 25 April 1915 with an aura of invincibility that few could match. His bravery under fire even caught the attention of C.E.W. Bean in his official history of the war as he recorded Bennett’s fortitude during an advance from Sniper’s Ridge: ‘When the men, who realised that everything had miscarried, were suggesting a retirement, Bennett told them that he would lead them, but it would be forward and not towards the rear.’ 4

  Even two gunshot wounds on the same day failed to deter him from further action, as Bean also noted.

  ‘From their position on Pine Ridge at last they caught sight of a party of the enemy. This was a group in front of the Turkish guns which were in plain view on the Third ridge opposite. Major Bennett at once began to direct the fire of his men upon this group. He stood up for this purpose, and had opened a map, when he was immediately shot in the wrist and shoulder. Handing over command to an officer of another battalion, he went to the rear to have his wound dressed. He was sent to a hospital ship, but next day found an opportunity to desert and rejoined his battalion in the front line.’ 5

  If Bennett thought he was bulletproof, this should have been a reminder of his own mortality but, outwardly at least, he showed no sign of fear in combat. The major’s undoubted courage clearly impressed his men but those of higher rank were not so sure. Word got about that he often lost his temper and did not take kindly to criticism.

  But while some regarded Bennett as foolhardy and a risk-taker, others viewed him as resourceful and more than capable when commanding his troops on the front line. By the age of 29 he was a temporary brigadier and put in command of the 3rd Brigade of the AIF. He also served in France, seeing action at Bullecourt, Passchendaele and on the Hindenburg Line.

  It was at Pozières in July 1916 that Bennett had his closest shave. He later described Pozières as nothing short of ‘Hell itself’, the enemy bombardment as devastating.6 His memories of that time depict a man neither immune to fear nor controlled by it. ‘Bodies of hundreds of Australians were strewn along the road where they had fallen,’ he recalled. When stopping for a rest he noticed a runner in his late teens who was ‘scared stiff’.

  ‘So was I,’ Bennett admitted.

  ‘One shell landed at my feet. The blast tore off the sleeve of my tunic and ripped it up the back. It did not touch me – but it was close. The runner almost panicked but I talked to him and he quickly gained control of himself. On we went with shells falling all around.’

  As with his earlier struggle to overcome exam nerves, Bennett’s self-mastery in battle was an act of will. Months earlier, at the Battle of Krithia in Gallipoli, he had been forced to face his demons. Until then he had been wont to insist that he was ‘not in the least affected by danger’.

  Later he would write: ‘I could push fear to the back of my mind almost automatically. Now I found that my dreadful experience there had shattered my complacent approach to the problems of facing dangers squarely in battle. I realised that I could not possibly allow this new weakness to rule me. If I could not fight down the dread and the fear I could not go on commanding men in battle,’ he added. ‘Of course I had decided that no one must know that my nerve had cracked. That had to be concealed at all costs. It was this consideration that helped in restoring my self-control.’7

  This was a surprising admission given Bennett normally exuded total confidence. Here was a man who was willing to admit to his fears, doubt and fallibility, but only to himself. Perhaps if he had shared his anxiety with others he might not have made mistakes in later life, but this was a world in which men could not show their true feelings and where post-traumatic stress disorder was unrecognised.

  On 18 November 1916, at the Scottish National Church, Chelsea, London, he married Bessie Agnes Buchanan, whom he had met in Melbourne. Bess stayed on in England, and the couple’s only child, Joan, was born early in 1918.

  Come the end of December 1916, Bennett was confirmed in the rank of brigadier-general. It was an extraordinary achievement for someone of his relative
youth. Later he would look back on his time as commander of the Australian 3rd Infantry Brigade with something approaching fondness, despite the associated horrors. Indeed for the rest of World War I it seemed he could do no wrong; on one occasion he was personally congratulated by Britain’s Commander-in-Chief, Field Marshal Sir Douglas Haig.

  Bennett’s medals and citations piled up, including the Distinguished Service Order, Companion of the order of St Michael and St George and Companion of the Order of the Bath. To add to his reputation he was also mentioned in despatches no fewer than eight times. By the end of the war, of all the fighting generals produced by the first AIF, Brigadier H. Gordon Bennett, CB, CMG, DS, was the youngest. He was still only 32.8

  While some were surprised at Bennett’s decision to leave the regular army at the end of the war, he planned to continue as a civilian soldier and resume his work as an accountant. Perhaps a little battle weary, he was keen to settle down to family life with Bess and their daughter back home in Melbourne. He remained a citizen-officer and continued to involve himself in military affairs, commanding the 9th Infantry Brigade in 1921 and rising once again to lead the 2nd Australian Division in 1926.

  Throughout the 1920s and much of the ’30s Bennett threw himself into business, running a clothing manufacturing company and becoming president of the Australasian Institute of Cost Accountants. He was president of the NSW Chamber of Manufacturers and fought continuously for the production of munitions in wartime.

  Even in civilian life he never softened his drive, and sometimes he infuriated his opponents. In his draft memoir, held at the Mitchell Library in Sydney, there are references to his ‘persistence as a fighter’, and when he believed in a cause he ‘fought continuously and stubbornly to the end’.9 But like many former army men, peacetime was vaguely unsatisfying for him. Commercial life could never match the whiff of war and the drama of a combat zone. By the late 1930s he sensed his time might come again. However, to secure a top military appointment, he needed to work the system to his advantage, and this wasn’t at all Bennett’s style.

  Bennett was 52 years old and the second-highest-ranking citizen-officer in Australia when World War II broke out. His exemplary service in World War I had earned him immense kudos. A proven commander, he still had the energy of a man half his age and he expected to be made the commander of an Australian Expeditionary Force. When his old adversary Thomas Blamey won the top job over him, Bennett was incandescent with rage.

  The problem was that Bennett had a knack of upsetting his military superiors. Well before the outbreak of World War II, he got the top brass off-side with a series of articles published in Sydney’s Sun. In one he declared that nothing was being done to train senior officers in the militia for high command. Instead only staff officers were being appointed to lead divisions, to the exclusion of militia officers like himself who, in his view, were much more capable. All potential leaders should be encouraged to make themselves fit enough for high command, and training for the rank and file should also be stepped up, he urged.

  Not surprisingly, full-time professional officers were apoplectic. Bennett’s impudence sent retired colonels and serving members of the Staff Corps into paroxysms of rage.10 Finally, a heavily promoted article by Bennett on Australia’s defence proved too much. The Sun was instructed not to publish his views anymore. Instead an apology appeared in the newspaper alerting its readers to a decision by the Military Board forbidding ‘this distinguished officer’ from having any further communication with it.

  ‘It may be easily understood that General Gordon Bennett is not the favourite of a self-satisfied military administration,’ the Sun opined. ‘He is bold in his opinions, plain spoken in his assertions and pugnacious in temperament,’ it added. ‘Military red tape has put its stranglehold on the throat of Major-General H. Gordon Bennett.’11

  A lesser man might have given up the fight and continued to make his way in commercial life but Bennett was made of sterner stuff. Further, he knew he also had his backers, especially in politics. The Sun series had created enough interest for Bennett’s views to become the subject of intense debate during a Federal Cabinet meeting, which decided to take no action against him for his critical remarks.

  By the beginning of hostilities in 1939, Bennett was first commander of the Volunteer Defence Corps in New South Wales. Within a few months he was also in charge of training depots in the state. But he still had his eye on a much bigger prize. Nothing less than the leadership of a division would suit his purpose, yet his ambitions were to be thwarted.

  Thomas Blamey, who had also returned to civilian life and served in the militia but unlike Bennett had kept his nose clean, pipped his rival to the post when in October 1939 he was appointed to command the 6th Division. Bennett was ropeable. Five months later the government decided to form another AIF division, the 7th, and amalgamate the two under Blamey’s command. That was not the end of it. Once again Bennett was given the cold shoulder when Lieutenant-General Sir Vernon Sturdee was given the leadership of the 8th Division on 1 August 1940.

  As Lionel Wigmore’s The Japanese Thrust makes clear, Bennett’s aggressive temperament and public criticism of his superiors was a recurring theme in his career: ‘The references to the Staff Corps in his newspaper articles had caused resentment among professional officers. Bennett thus had become a controversial figure and when leaders were sought who could command general support, strong points of resistance to his being chosen were encountered.’

  Bennett was left in no doubt that he did not meet the requirements for top office when he was told by General Sir Cyril Brudenell White, Chief of the General Staff, that he had ‘certain qualities and certain disqualities’ for an active command. This was extremely galling for a man with such a high opinion of himself.12

  Then came the hand of fate. In a tragic twist, White was killed in a plane crash at Canberra airport on 13 August 1940 which claimed the lives of ten people, including three members of the Australian Cabinet.

  Sturdee, who had only been in charge of the 8th Division for a couple of months, was given General White’s job, leaving the government and military with another hole to fill. Never backward in coming forward, Bennett sat down at his home in Sydney’s Elizabeth Bay and typed a letter to Prime Minister Robert Menzies: ‘I am very anxious to be appointed to the command of the 8th Division AIF which has been vacated by General Sturdee.

  ‘My age [53] and my service in the last war and in the Citizen Forces since then, surely justify my appointment. The only reason for my suppression is the attempt on behalf of the Permanent Staff to have all the high appointments in the A.I.F. reserved for themselves. This is not in the interest of the A.I.F. nor of the Citizen Force officers.

  ‘I would appreciate your support when your Cabinet considers the matter this week.’13

  Little did Bennett know at the time, but Sturdee was lobbying for him to take over. The newly appointed Chief of the General Staff believed that on the basis of Bennett’s experience alone he deserved the job. When the matter came before Menzies and his ministers, the War Cabinet agreed to accept Sturdee’s recommendation.

  Major-General Gordon Bennett was now the commander of the 8th Division, the third of what was to be a series of four Divisions enlisted for World War II. There was a certain symmetry to his appointment, for General Sir John Monash, who had been Bennett’s hero in World War I, had been commander of the 3rd Division of the 1st AIF. As Bennett was to reveal in his personal papers, ‘The 8th had the same shaped colour patch as the 3rd – the oval, popularly known as the Eggs A-Cook.’

  He was now following in the footsteps of the man he regarded as ‘Australia’s most famous and most brilliant war General’.

  Sadly their reputations and careers would not chart the same course.

  Chapter 2

  READYING FOR WAR

  The 8th Division drew its force from all over Australia. The 22nd Brigade, comprising the 2/18th, 2/19th and 2/20th Battalions, came mainly from Ne
w South Wales. The 23rd Brigade’s 2/21st and 2/22nd Battalions were made up of men from Victoria, while the 2/40th Battalion’s ranks consisted of Tasmanians. The 24th Brigade’s battalions came from Queensland, South Australia and Western Australia and formed the 2/26th, the 2/29th and 2/30th.

  There were also artillery regiments, including the 2/9th, 2/10th, 2/11th, 2/14th, 2/15th Field Regiments, and the 2/3rd and 2/4th Anti-tank Regiments. Other units were the 2/4th Machine Gun Battalion from Western Australia, the 2/3rd Pioneer Battalion and the 8th–9th Divisional Cavalry.

  Finally came the Royal Australian Engineers, who comprised men from the 2/10th Field Company in Victoria, the 2/11th Field Company from Queensland, the 2/12th Field Company of New South Wales, and Western Australia’s 2/4th Field Park Company.

  They were an eclectic mix: farmhands from the bush, tradies from the suburbs, and white-collar workers who were more used to pushing pens than pushing their luck on the battlefield.

  In the early days of the division, developments within the war in Europe and the Middle East demanded changes to the 8th. In December 1940 the 24th Brigade was sent to Egypt, which meant another brigade was required to complete the infantry of 6th, 7th, 8th and 9th Divisions. As a result, the 27th Brigade was formed from recruits attached to other divisions who were from all over Australia. Over the next few months brigades and individual units continued to be transferred from one division to another in response to emergencies, and this meant that various parts of 8th Division were doing their training in locations scattered across Australia.1

  On 4 July 1940 the temporary headquarters of the new division had been established at Victoria Barracks in Sydney, but in less than a month it was transferred to Rosebery Racecourse, in the city’s south. As the year progressed, thousands of men signed up at enlistment halls in towns and villages across Australia, most of them raw recruits who had never handled a gun in their life. The rookie soldiers were sent to hastily prepared training camps. In New South Wales these were set up at Ingleburn and Walgrove in Sydney’s west. Among the new recruits were Joe Byrne and George Daldry, both Sydney boys with a reputation for fighting.