Sydney Rowell - First World War

First World War

On 15 September 1914 Rowell and his classmates were commissioned as first lieutenants in the First Australian Imperial Force (AIF). At the time, Rowell's class had not yet completed its military training. The AIF's commander, Major General William Throsby Bridges, decided that regimental duty would rectify that deficiency, so he allotted the Duntroon cadets as regimental officers of the AIF, rather than as staff officers. The cost of this decision was high; of the 134 commissioned in time to serve at the front, 42 were killed and 38 wounded. Cadets were posted to units being formed in their home states, so Rowell was posted to the 10th Infantry Battalion. When he discovered that the 3rd Light Horse Regiment was to be commanded by his cousin, Lieutenant Colonel F. M. Rowell, Sydney obtained permission to swap places with another member of his Duntroon class Lieutenant Eric Wilkes Talbot Smith. It was a fateful decision; Smith was fatally wounded on Anzac Day.

Rowell contracted pneumonia and did not embark with the main body of the 3rd Light Horse Regiment. Instead, he left with its First Reinforcements on HMAT Thirty-Six on 21 December 1914. Rowell joined the regiment in Heliopolis in January. The next month he broke his left leg in a riding accident. For a time it looked like Rowell would again miss the embarkation of his regiment, but the intervention of his father ensured that he reached Anzac Cove with the 3rd Light Horse on 12 May 1915. He was evacuated sick to Egypt and then Malta in July, and returned to his regiment at Quinn's Post in August. Rowell was promoted to the temporary rank of captain on 9 September, briefly assuming command of a squadron before becoming the regimental adjutant three days later. In November Rowell was again evacuated to Egypt, this time with typhoid fever, the disease that had killed his cousin. On 20 January 1916, Rowell was returned to Australia. Because of a policy that a regular officer, once invalided to Australia, could not again be posted overseas, Rowell's period of active service was over. He was posted, along with several other Duntroon graduates who had been invalided home, to Duntroon, as an instructor at the Officers' Training School. This was closed in June 1917 and Rowell was posted to the staff of the 4th Military District in Adelaide.