Sydney Rowell - Between The Wars

Between The Wars

On 20 August 1919 at the Chalmers Church, North Terrace, Adelaide, Rowell married Blanche May Murison, the daughter of a Scottish engineer. Blanche had served in the Royal Australian Army Nursing Corps in Australia during the war. Due to his brief overseas service, the end of the war found Rowell still a lieutenant and thus junior in rank to his contemporaries but the snail-like pace of promotions between the wars allowed him to gradually catch up. He was promoted to captain on 1 January 1920, major on 1 January 1926, and the brevet rank lieutenant colonel on 1 July 1935, with substantive rank on 1 January 1936. His inter-war career consisted of a long series of staff postings, interspersed with training courses.

In 1924, Rowell passed the staff college examination for one of the two Australian spots. Qualifying in first place gave him a choice between the Staff College, Camberley and its counterpart at Quetta, and Rowell chose the former, attending from 1925 to 1926. At this time, the commandant was Major-General Edmund Ironside; the staff included Colonel J. F. C. Fuller and Lieutenant Colonels Alan Brooke and Bernard Montgomery. Fellow students included Captains Frank Messervy and Francis Tuker. From 1935 to 1937, Rowell was on exchange to the British Army as a staff officer with the 44th (Home Counties) Infantry Division. He then attended the Imperial Defence College. The class was a distinguished one, including two Victoria Cross winners, Group Captain Frank McNamara from Australia and Lieutenant Colonel George Pearkes from Canada; other students included Lieutenant Colonel William Slim and Wing Commander Keith Park. For his staff work, Rowell was made an Officer of the Order of the British Empire in the King's Birthday Honours in 1938.

Rowell returned to Australia to become Director of Military Operations and Intelligence at Army Headquarters in Melbourne but in August 1938 he became staff officer to the Inspector General, Lieutenant-General Ernest Squires, partly because Rowell was recognised as "one of the ablest of the early Duntroon graduates" but also because he had spent five of the previous thirteen years with the British Army or at British staff colleges. The government's decision to appoint a British officer to produce an authoritative report into the Army was widely seen as demonstrating the government's lack of confidence in its own officer corps. Squires' first recommendation was to restructure the military districts into four "commands". This required legislation amending the Defence Act and was not implemented until October 1939. The second recommendation was the formation of a regular brigade. The death of Prime Minister Joseph Lyons in April 1939 and his subsequent replacement by Robert Menzies caused this to be shelved.