Australian Lieutenant General Thomas Blamey (Thomas Albert Blamey, 1884-1951) stands outside a soldiers’ club in Palestine.
Thomas Blamey is the only Australian general ever to receive the rank of field marshal (1950), a participant in the Battle of Gallipoli (1915), in 1939 he commanded the 6th Australian division, since February 1940 – the 1st Australian corps in Libya, participated in the combat actions in Greece (1941), the Syrian-Lebanese operation (1941), from May 1942 – in the Pacific Ocean – operations in New Guinea (1942-1944), landing on the island of Borneo (1944), Timor and Bougainville.
Thomas Blamey represented Australia on the day the Japanese surrender was signed on September 2, 1945, and later accepted the Japanese surrender on Morotai Island.
Thomas Blamey had a reputation for being an ardent anti-communist as well as rude.
As the most senior Australian military leader in World War II, Thomas Blamey is officially considered an outstanding military leader, but this opinion is often disputed in the historical literature – opponents point to his indecisive actions due to excessive fear for his communications; It is also often argued that Thomas Blamey was actually “crushed” by the American General MacArthur, who repeatedly made harsh statements about the low combat effectiveness of the Australian troops, and Thomas Blamey did not try to challenge them, in fact, agreeing with the criticism of MacArthur.
There is a known case when Thomas Blamey himself publicly insulted a soldier of one of the brigades that had survived months of fighting in New Guinea, recalling one fact that had taken place in leaving their positions and calling them “running rabbits”. For this, he was booed out of line and then forced to apologize.
Source: US Library of Congress.
Source of information about Thomas Blamey photo: en.wikipedia.org
Location: Palestine
Photo time: February 3, 1941
Photo by: E. Matson