Description
Title: Full Circle: Autobiography of General Sir Sydney Rowell
Author: Rowell, Sir Sydney
Condition: Very Good Plus – From the library of Brigadier Ian Gilmore OBE OAM and has his embossed label on the front end page.
Edition: 1st Edition
Publication Date: 1974
ISBN: 0522840582
Cover: Hard Cover with Dust Jacket – 206 pages
Comments: The autobiography of General Sir Sydney Rowell KBE, CB.
Lieutenant General Sir Sydney Fairbairn Rowell, KBE, CB (15 December 1894 – 12 April 1975) was an Australian soldier who served as Chief of the General Staff from 17 April 1950 to 15 December 1954. As Vice Chief of the General Staff from 8 January 1946 to 16 April 1950 he played a key role in the post-World War II reorganisation of the Army, and in the 1949 Australian coal strike. However, he is best known as the commander who was dismissed in the Kokoda Track campaign.
As a young officer, Rowell served at Gallipoli but was invalided back to Australia with typhoid fever in January 1916. The end of the war found Rowell junior in rank to his contemporaries with more distinguished war records, but he managed to catch up in the post-war period. Rowell spent five years with the British Army or at British staff colleges, establishing valuable contacts with his British counterparts.
In 1939 he was appointed chief of staff of the 6th Division and later I Corps, serving in that capacity in the Battle of Greece and the Syria-Lebanon campaign. In 1942 he commanded I Corps in the Kokoda Track campaign but was sacked. His subsequent rise to become Chief of the General Staff demonstrated that the circumstances of his dismissal in 1942 were indeed extraordinary.
