British Commonwealth Occupation Force
At the end of World War II, Sturdee was again invited to become CGS. He made it a condition of his acceptance that Northcott be given the appointment of Commander in Chief of the British Commonwealth Occupation Force (BCOF) in Japan. Sturdee felt that Northcott had missed out on opportunities for active service through his being CGS and saw the BCOF post as a just reward for that service.
Northcott headed the BCOF from December 1945 until June 1946. As such, he negotiated the Northcott-MacArthur agreement with General of the Army Douglas MacArthur, which governed the terms and conditions under which the BCOF would occupy part of Japan. The BCOF would serve under American command, with American policy being followed. Northcott was offered, and accepted, the post of Governor of New South Wales in April 1946. He remained in Japan until June though, because Prime Minister Ben Chifley wanted the changeover to coincide with his own visit to Japan in May, and because he needed to obtain consent of the other governments concerned for the appointment of Lieutenant General Horace Robertson as Northcott's successor. Northcott's lack of experience in command once again showed, and his command was again overhauled by Robertson.
Read more about this topic: John Northcott
Famous quotes containing the words british, commonwealth, occupation and/or force:
“Among the virtues and vices that make up the British character, we have one vice, at least, that Americans ought to view with sympathy. For they appear to be the only people who share it with us. I mean our worship of the antique. I do not refer to beauty or even historical association. I refer to age, to a quantity of years.”
—William Golding (b. 1911)
“By this unprincipled facility of changing the state as often, and as much, and in as many ways as there are floating fancies or fashions, the whole chain and continuity of the commonwealth would be broken. No one generation could link with the other. Men would become little better than the flies of a summer.”
—Edmund Burke (1729–1797)
“The most costly of all follies is to believe passionately in the palpably not true. It is the chief occupation of mankind.”
—H.L. (Henry Lewis)
“Sentiment is the mightiest force in civilization; not sentimentality, but sentiment. Women will bring this into politics. Home, sweet home, is as powerful on the hustings as at the fireside.”
—J. Ellen Foster (1840–1910)