Thomas Blamey

• Born: 24 January 1884

Military commander and field marshal

Place of birth: Lake Albert, Australia

Place of death: Heidelberg, Australia

Education: Staff College, Quetta, India (now Command and Staff College, Quetta in Quetta, Pakistan)

Significance: Sir Thomas Blamey was an Australian military commander who served in both world wars. He was the commander-in-chief of the Allied Land Forces during World War II and was one of the few commanders of any Allied nation to serve as a commander during all six years of the war. He was the first Australian to have been named a field marshal.

Background

Thomas Blamey was born on 24 January 1884 in Lake Albert, New South Wales. The seventh of ten children born to Richard Henwood Blamey and Margaret Louisa Blamey, he attended public schools in Wagga Wagga. At Wagga Wagga Superior Public School, he was a member of his school's cadet corps, which provided military training and activities, such as drills and ceremonial parades.

In 1899, Blamey was a pupil-teacher at his former school and continued his leadership role with the cadet corps. He was hired as an assistant teacher at Freemantle Boys' School in Western Australia in 1903, where he remained involved with the cadets.

In 1906, Blamey was offered a position as a preacher but reconsidered when he learned the Commonwealth Cadet Forces was accepting recruits. He received the third-highest score nationwide in the military exam and enlisted in the forces that year, upon which he was assigned to the administrative and instructional staff in Melbourne as a lieutenant.

Military Career

Blamey joined the Australian Military Forces in 1910 as a captain. He studied at Staff College, Quetta, in Quetta, British India, from 1912 to 1913. In May 1914, he went to London, England, and was stationed at the War Office. Two months later, World War I broke out. Blamey was sent to Egypt as an intelligence officer of the First Australian Division. There he participated in the land invasion of the Gallipoli Peninsula on 25 April 1915. He later went to Egypt and helped form the Second Australian Division. He received several promotions and became chief of staff of the Australian Corps under Lieutenant General Sir John Monash in June 1918. After the war ended, Blamey rose rapidly through the ranks of the military. Initially assigned to Army Headquarters in Melbourne as the director of military operations, by March 1925, he had become the second chief of the General Staff.

In September 1925, Blamey resigned from the army and joined the militia. That same month, he began working as the chief commissioner of police in Victoria. His tenure was marred by controversy. In October 1925, a man with his badge was found in a brothel during a police raid. Although Blamey claimed his badge had been stolen, he had a reputation for womanising and drinking, and it was widely acknowledged that it was him. In 1935, he was knighted. The next year, he was forced to resign as chief commissioner after making a false statement to a royal commission.

Blamey resigned from his post as the commander of the Third Division of the militia in 1937 but remained a member of the militia. He briefly worked as a radio commenter on international affairs. When World War II broke out in September 1939, he was called back to service. He became the commander of the Sixth Division, the first division of the Second Australian Imperial Forces (AIF), which was a new military force organised to defend Australia both at home and abroad. The next year, he helped to form the Seventh Division and was named the commander of the AIF.

Known for his military planning and acumen, Blamey gained increasingly more powerful positions and higher ranks. In April 1941, he was commander of the Australian Corps during the evacuation of Greece, which fell to the Nazis after having been protected from Italian invasion the preceding autumn. He went on to become the deputy commander-in-chief of the British Forces in the Middle East. A few months later he was promoted to general. In March 1942, he became the commander-in-chief of the Australian Military Forces. Working under American general Douglas MacArthur, who, as supreme Allied commander of the South-West Pacific Area, had authority over all forces, Blamey became the commander of the Allied Land Forces. His tenure as commander-in-chief was not viewed favourably by all, with some faulting his propensity for alcohol and brothels. Prime Minister John Curtin defended Blamey by saying, "When Blamey was appointed the Government was seeking a military leader, not a Sunday school superintendent".

After the war ended, Blamey planned to retire from the military but was dismissed effective 1 December 1945 and moved to Melbourne. He wrote, was an advocate for the welfare of veterans, and was associated with an anticommunist group known as the Association. On 8 June 1950, he was recalled from retirement and promoted to field marshal under Prime Minister Sir Robert Menzies but became severely ill soon thereafter. He died on 27 May 1951 in Heidelberg, Victoria. An estimated 250,000 people viewed the procession at the state funeral held in his honour.

Impact

Blamey served in Australia's military during its transition from a small, part-time force whose sole purpose was to defend Australia's territory to a large national force whose purpose was not only to defend Australia but to assist its allies in a world war. As commander-in-chief during World War II, he helped to develop the force into a highly trained, competent one. He also resisted pressure from foreign military and government leaders when he felt it jeopardised Australia's interests, thereby helping to establish Australia's independence and its identity as a nation able to defend itself and make its own defence decisions.

Personal Life

Blamey married Minnie Caroline Millard on 8 September 1909. They had two sons, Charles and Thomas. Minnie Blamey died in 1935, and Blamey married artist Olga Ora Farnsworth in 1939.

Bibliography

"Field Marshal Thomas Albert Blamey." Australian War Memorial, www.awm.gov.au/people/P10676218/. Accessed 18 June 2024.

Horner, David. "Blamey, Sir Thomas Albert (1884–1951)." Australian Dictionary of Biography, vol. 13, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, 1993. Australian Dictionary of Biography, adb.anu.edu.au/biography/blamey-sir-thomas-albert-9523. Accessed 18 June 2024.

Horner, David. "Field Marshal Sir Thomas Blamey and the Australian Army." Australian Defence Force Journal, no. 148, 2001, pp. 43–52, researchprofiles.anu.edu.au/en/publications/field-marshal-sir-thomas-blamey-and-the-australian-army Accessed 18 June 2024.

Horner, David. "Launch of Australia's Field Marshal—The Leadership of Sir Thomas Blamey." Military History and Heritage Victoria, 26 July 2016, www.mhhv.org.au/?p=5533. Accessed 18 June 2024.