John Northcott - Second World War

Second World War

Northcott was promoted to the local rank of Major General on 13 October 1939, when he was appointed Deputy Chief of the General Staff. He accompanied Richard Casey to the Dominions' Conference in London in later that year as his military adviser. For his service as Deputy Chief of the General Staff, he was made a Companion of the Order of the Bath on 1 January 1941.

On 26 January 1940, Northcott became acting Chief of the General Staff (CGS) following the death of Lieutenant General Ernest Ker Squires. In August, his successor, General Sir Brudenell White, died in an air crash and Lieutenant General Vernon Sturdee succeeded him. The post of commander of the 8th Division thereby became available but Northcott was excluded from consideration because his knowledge was vital to the new CGS. When the commander of the 9th Division, Major General Henry Wynter, fell ill in January 1941, Lieutenant General Sir Thomas Blamey asked for Northcott to replace him, but Northcott was involved in organising the 1st Armoured Division and the appointment instead went to Brigadier Leslie Morshead.

Northcott joined the Second Australian Imperial Force (AIF) as a Major General on 1 September 1941 and was given the AIF serial number VX63396. He was attached to the British 7th Armoured Division in the Middle East to study armoured warfare, returning to Australia in December 1941 to organise the new 1st Armoured Division. The job was a challenging one that some of his subordinates felt that Northcott was not up to, given his lack of command experience. In March 1942, Northcott found out from The Herald newspaper that he was to be promoted to command II Corps. "This is what they do to me," was his comment, "just as my first tank is coming down the road". The new post came with a promotion to the temporary rank of lieutenant general on 6 April 1942, which became substantive on 12 December 1945. Northcott was succeeded as commander by Major General Horace Robertson, an officer with a distinguished combat record in the desert.

However, on 10 September 1942, Northcott was appointed Chief of the General Staff. Formerly, the Army had been controlled by the Military Board. This ceased to function on 30 July 1942, with its responsibilities being assumed by the Commander in Chief, General Blamey. The Adjutant General, Major General Victor Stantke, the Quartermaster General, Major General James Cannan and the Master-General of the Ordnance, Major General Leslie, who would formerly have been members of the board now came under the Lieutenant General Administration (LGA), Lieutenant General Henry Wynter. This left the CGS with responsibility for the day-to-day running of the Army. His job also involved liaison with Royal Australian Navy (RAN) and the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF), and he frequently had to represent Blamey in meetings with the Minister for the Army, Frank Forde.

Northcott spent much of his time from 1943 on in a long battle with the government over the number of men and women allocated to the Army. He attempted to do so without Blamey being dragged into a political fight but this proved to be impossible. In September 1944, the government reduced the Army's monthly intake of women from 925 to 500, while it only received 420 out of 4,020 men allocated to the three services. Such a meagre allocation was below what the Army needed to maintain its strength, and formations had to be disbanded. Blamey took up the matter with Prime Minister John Curtin and managed to get a more satisfactory monthly allocation of 1,500 men per month out of 3,000 allocated to the three services.

The relationship between Northcott as Chief of the General Staff and Blamey as Commander in Chief bore some similarities to the one between the RAAF's Chief of the Air Staff Air Vice Marshal George Jones and Air Vice Marshal William Bostock, the commander of the RAAF forces in the field, but Blamey was senior to Northcott, both in rank and in the Army's command structure. The relationship could still have been a delicate one, but in the event it was characterised by none of the rancour and rivalry that marred the wartime administration of the RAAF. In late 1943, Blamey sought to appoint Northcott as his deputy, but the government turned down his request, on the advice of General Douglas MacArthur, who did not want another officer who was answerable both to himself and the Australian Government. However, when Blamey travelled to Washington, DC and London in April 1944, he arranged for Northcott to act as Commander in Chief in his absence. After Wynter's death in February 1945, the post of LGA was abolished and the CGS again became responsible for administration.