Stanley Savige

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Stanley Savige (June 26th 1890 - May 15th 1954) was an Australian army officer notable for his involvement in the establishment of a war widows and orphans benefit fund. He was a corps commander in the Bougainville campaign.

Early life

Stanley George Savige was born June 26, 1890, in Morwell, Australia. The Savige family arrived in Australia as free settlers in 1852 from Towcester, Northampton, England, and proceeded to clear, farm and settle areas of Victoria such as Narracan, Moe and Morwell in Gippsland and Lake Condah in the Western District.

Stanley was the eldest of eight children of Samuel Savige, butcher, and his wife Ann Nora. He left Korumburra State School at the age of 12 to work as a blacksmith's striker, and later in a drapery. Showing an interest in soldiering and community work, he served as a senior cadet (1907-09) and scoutmaster (1910-15).

World War I

On 6 March 1915, Savige enlisted in the Australian Imperial Force. Savige was posted to the 24th Battalion, he landed at Gallipoli in September 1915. After a series of promotions Savige was commissioned at Lone Pine on 9 November, 1915. In December 1915, during the evacuation of Gallipoli, Savige commanded rearguard actions protecting the retreating ANZAC forces.

Savige was shipped to France in March 1916. In May 1916 Savige was intelligence officer at Brigadier General Sir John Gellibrand's 6th Brigade headquarters. Savige served in operations at Pozières and Mouquet Farm in July and August of 1916. He was promoted to captain in September 1916.

In November 1916 he was wounded at Flers. By December 1916 he was admitted to hospital, suffering from influenza. He returned to his battalion and in February 1917 became adjutant. For his 'consistent good work and devotion to duty' in the fighting at Warlencourt, Grevilliers and Bullecourt, in February to May 1917, he was awarded the Military Cross.

Volunteering for special service, Savige was sent to Persia in March 1918 as part of Dunsterforce. Savige won the Distinguished Service Order for protecting refugees while under fire. He has been attributed with saving the last of the Syrian race. Savige placed his company in the rear of the procession, and drew fire away from the refugees. He was mentioned in despatches three times. Stanley Savige later he wrote a book about his experiences in Persia,Stalky's Forlorn Hope (Melbourne, 1920).

Legacy Australia

In 1923 General Sir John Gellibrand founded the Remembrance Club in Hobart. Its aim was to encourage returned servicemen in business. Stanley Savige, a former 24 Battalion Officer who had also served on Gellibrand's brigade staff, visited Hobart in August 1923. Gellibrand urged him to set up a similar club in Melbourne.

Soon after Savige's return to Melbourne, a group of ex-servicemen met to farewell one of their number who was about to go to England. Savige used this opportunity to bring up the idea of a club similar to Gellibrand's Remembrance Club. After several informal meetings, the Melbourne club's inaugural meeting was held in ANZAC House in Melbourne. Legacy Australia was founded as a charitable organization and fund to benefit war widows and orphans. For the next 26 years, due to his commitment, energy and enthusiasm, Savige's name became inseparable from both the club and the movement.

A Lone Pine (tree) was planted Stanley Savige at the Melbourne Shrine Reserve, near the north-east corner of the building at a formal ceremony in 1934. The Lone Pine was the name given to a solitary tree on the Gallipoli Peninsula in Turkey, which marked the site of the Battle of Lone Pine in 1915.

World War II

In 1940 Brigadier Stanley Savige commanded the 17th Infantry Brigade in the Middle East Campaign.

During the disastrous Battle of Greece in 1941, Stanley Savige commanded Savige Force and it's withdrawal to Larissa, under heavy fire from the invading German Army.

By 1942, the Japanese established major bases on the north coast of New Guinea, including Salamaua, a small administrative town and port, as a staging post for attacks on Port Moresby via the Kokoda Track and the Black Cat Track to Wau. On the Black Cat Track, the Japanese attacked in force, but the Australian 17th Brigade under Major-General Stanley George Savige, held out until reinforcements (The three independent companies 2/3rd, 2/5th and 2/7th) arrived.

Savige was a good commander and made efforts to visit the front lines often, something higher commanders many times failed to do. He believed that his presence was good for the soldier’s morale, and it was. He was always thinking about ‘the welfare of the troops’, and the direction of the campaign was characterized greatly by his encouragement of subordinate commanders, his concern for his men, and by the way the headquarters of his division provided particularly effective artillery support. For his great contribution to the victories at Salamaua and Lae, Savige was appointed C.B. (1943).

After driving back the Japanese across the Owen Stanley Range, Australian forces engaged the Japanese in the Salamaua-Lae campaign. The Japanese would be pursued towards Salamaua by the Australian 3rd Division, which had been formed at Wau, under the command of Maj. Gen. Stanley Savige. On August 23, Savige and the 3rd Division handed over the Salamaua operation to the Australian 5th Division under Major General Edward Milford.

In February 1944, the appointment of Lt. General Sir Edmund Herring as Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Victoria, led to a vacancy at I Corps (Australia), for which General Blamey nominated both Major General George Vasey and Major General Stanley Savige, but recommended the latter. Army Minister Frank Forde queried Blamey's recommendation, which was very unusual, and asked who was the senior officer. On being informed that Savige was senior to Vasey — although not as senior as Arthur Allen or James Harold Cannan — he dropped his objection. General Douglas MacArthur considered Vasey's supersession "outrageous".

Lt. General Stanley Savige was commander of all Allied land forces in the Territory of New Guinea from May 6, 1944 to October 1, 1944. He commanded Allied Forces in the Solomon Islands campaign until the close of the war. On August 21, 1945, on Bougainville Island, Lt. General Stanley Savige accepted the surrender of the remaining Imperial Japanese Army fighting the Bougainville campaign (1944-45) and in September 1945 he accepted the surrender of the Japanese forces at Torokina.

After the War

From October 1945 to May 1946 Savige served as co-ordinator of demobilization and dispersal.

Stanley Savige died May 15, 1954, in Kew, Victoria after suffering from a coronary artery disease.

Monuments

A commemorative bust of Stanley Savige was erected in Morwell in 2006.

References

Books

  • Gailey, Harry A. (1991). Bougainville, 1943-1945: The Forgotten Campaign. Lexington, Kentucky, USA: University Press of Kentucky. ISBN 0-8131-9047-9. -
  • Keating, G. (2006). The Right Man for the Right Job: Lieutenant General Sir Stanley Savige as a Military Commander. South Melbourne, Victoria, Australia: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19555-332-2. -
  • MacDougal, A. (2002). Australians at War: A Pictorial History. The Five Mile Press. ISBN 1-86503-865-2. -
  • Russell, W.B. (1959). There Goes a Man: The Biography of Sir Stanley G. Savige. Melbourne: Longmans. -

External links

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