Australian Brass: The Career of Lieutenant General Sir Horace Robertson

Sir Horace Robertson was one of Australia’s most colourful and controversial generals. His career spanned forty years and two world wars, as well as a lengthy period in Japan and Korea between 1946 and 1951. Australian Brass not only charts the life of ‘Red Robbie’, it uses his career as a vehicle to trace the development of the Australian regular army and professional officer corps. It is also the first account of the occupation of Japan from a senior officer’s perspective, as Robertson was Commander-in-Chief of the British Commonwealth Occupation Force after the Second World War. This episode is set in the context of the changing relationship between Britain and the Pacific dominions. The Australian regular army was not a principal source of military advice to the country’s leaders. Government moved from a reliance on amateur citizen forces to a conscious policy to develop a force of modern military professionals.