AUSTRALIAN ARMY CHIEFS

Evening Post, Volume CXL, Issue 148, 20 December 1945, Page 7

AUSTRALIAN ARMY CHIEFS

CANBERRA, December 19

Lieutenant-General V. A. H. Sturdee has been appointed Chief of the General Staff and Major-General S. F. Rowell Vice-Chief. The Prime Minister, Mr. Chifiey, announced the appointments today following the recent decision to reconstitute the Military

Board in place of the Commander-in-Chief of the Australian Military Forces.

Mr. Chifiey said the Army was faced with the dual problems of demobilisation and reorganisation of post-war forces.

"Post-war matters occupy a considerable amount of time of the Chief of the General Staff, and to afford him relief

it has been decided to appoint a ViceChief." he said.

General Rowell is at present at the War Office and General Sturdee is Acting Commander-in-Chief until the reconstruction of the Military Board. Previously he occupied the position of Chief of the General Staff and served as head of the military mission in Washington.

General Sturdee is a native of Victoria. Born at Frankston in 1890, he was educated at Melbourne Grammar School. He served articles as a mechanical engineer, and received a commission as a second lieutenant in the Australian Engineers in 1908. He served at Gallipoli and France during the Great War, and from 1929 to 1931 he was a general staff officer at the War Office. Later he attended the Imperial Defence College, and was subsequently Army representative at Australia House. He was director of military operations and intelligence from 1933 till 1937, when he became director of staff duties at Army headquarters. He was G.O.C. Eastern Command, Australia, in 1939 and 1940.