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Rupert Downes

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Rupert Downes
Head and shoulders of man in uniform with high collar and peaked cap.
Major General Rupert Downes
AllegianceAustralia Australia
Service/branchAustralian Army
Years of service1901 – 1903
1908 – 1945
RankMajor General
Service numberVX57673
Commands2nd Light Horse Field Ambulance
3rd Light Horse Field Ambulance
Battles/warsFirst World War: Second World War
AwardsCompanion of the Order of St Michael and St George
Knight of Grace of the Venerable Order of Saint John
Volunteer Decoration
Mentioned in Despatches (4)
RelationsSon of Francis Downes

Major General Rupert Major Downes CMG, KStJ, VD, FRACS (10 February 1885 – 5 March 1945) was an Australian soldier, general, surgeon and historian in the first half of the 20th century. Downes attended the University of Melbourne, graduating with his medical degrees in 1907. He returned to the university to pursue a Doctor of Medicine degree, which was awarded in 1911.

The son of an Army officer, Downes joined the Army as a trumpeter while he was still at school. He was commissioned as a captain in the Australian Army Medical Corps in 1908. Downes joined the First Australian Imperial Force (AIF) in 1914 as its youngest lieutenant colonel. He served in the Gallipoli campaign, and was appointed Assistant Director of Medical Services (ADMS) of the newly formed Anzac Mounted Division in 1916, which he combined this with the post of ADMS AIF Egypt. In 1917, he became Deputy Director of Medical Services (DDMS) of the Desert Mounted Corps. After the war, Downes wrote articles on medical aspects of the Sinai and Palestine Campaign and wrote the section on the campaign for the official history.

Returning to Australia, Downes became an honorary consulting surgeon at the Royal Children's Hospital, Melbourne and Royal Victorian Eye and Ear Hospital and honorary surgeon at Prince Henry's Hospital. He became a foundation fellow of the College of Surgeons of Australasia in 1927 and president of the Victorian branch of the British Medical Association in 1935. He lectured on medical ethics at the University of Melbourne, writing the course text book. He became Victorian State Commissioner of the St. John Ambulance Brigade, which he led for 25 years, and was president of the St John Ambulance Association for eight years.

In 1934 Downes became Director General of Medical Services, the Army's most senior medical officer, with the rank of major general. Downes oversaw the construction of major military hospitals in the capital cities. In 1944 Downes accepted a commission to edit the medical series volumes of the Official History of the Australia in the War of 1939–1945 but was never able to do so as he was killed in a plane crash in 1945.

Education and early life

Rupert Major Downes was born on 10 February 1885 in Mitcham, South Australia,[1] the youngest of fifteen children of Colonel Major Francis Downes, a British Army officer, and his wife Helen Maria, formerly Chamberlin, only five of whom survived to adulthood.[2] After service in the Crimean War,[3] Colonel Francis Downes served as commandant of the Colonial forces of South Australia and Victoria and retired with the rank of major general in the Australian Army in 1902.[4]

Painting of a group of people stand on a stage, we a sea of people looking on. A man in a naval uniform stands at the front of the stage. Behind him are two women in mourning black.
Tom Roberts' painting of the opening of the first parliament in 1901. Downes is in the white helmet, behind the Duke of Cornwall and York's legs.[5]

Rupert was educated at Haileybury, Melbourne. While still at school, he joined the Victorian Horse Artillery (St Kilda Battery) as a trumpeter.[1] In May 1901, he served in this capacity at the opening of the inaugural Parliament of Australia by the The Duke of Cornwall and York at the Royal Exhibition Building.[5] In 1903, Downes became a medical student at the University of Melbourne. A good result in his first year examinations earned him a residential scholarship to Ormond College. He graduated with the double degree of Bachelor of Medicine and Bachelor of Surgery (MBBS) in 1907.[6]

Soon after graduation, Downes enlisted in the Militia. He was commissioned as a captain in the Australian Army Medical Corps on 1 July 1908 and was promoted to major on 26 March 1913.[7] Downes served his residency at Melbourne Hospital and became a general practitioner in Malvern, Victoria, but soon returned to the university to pursue his doctorate. His Doctor of Medicine thesis, entitled "The anatomical relations of the Thymus, especially considered in regard to thymic death with an account of cases of abnormality", was accepted in 1911. He also did the coursework for a Master of Surgery, and this degree was conferred in 1912.[8]

Downes married Doris Mary Robb on 20 November 1913 at St John's Church, Toorak, Victoria. They had three children: Rosemary Major, born in 1914;[9] Valerie Major, born in March 1918;[10] and John Rupert Major, born in 1922.[11]

First World War

Downes joined the First Australian Imperial Force (AIF) on 2 October 1914, assuming command of the 2nd Light Horse Field Ambulance with the rank of lieutenant colonel.[7] At this time, he was the youngest officer of that rank in the AIF. Soon after his taking command, the unit was renamed the 3rd Light Horse Field Ambulance.[1] After training at the Broadmeadows Army Camp near Melbourne, the unit embarked for Egypt on the transport Chilka on 2 February 1915.[12]

The 3rd Light Horse Field Ambulance departed Alexandria for Gallipoli on 17 May 1915.[13] It moved to Lemnos in June, where it operated a hospital, but returned to ANZAC Cove for the August offensive.[14] Downes missed this operation, as he remained on Lemnos supervising the hospital until he returned to Anzac on 11 August.[14] He remained with his unit until 13 November, when he departed for Lemnos and then Egypt.[15]

About thirty soldiers and two dogs pose on the steps of a building beneath a pair of arches
Lieutenant General Sir Harry Chauvel (front and centre) with his Desert Mounted Corps Headquarters. Colonel Downes is immediately behind and to the right of Chauvel

After the evacuation of Gallipoli, Downes was appointed Assistant Director of Medical Services (ADMS) of the newly formed Anzac Mounted Division on 15 March 1916, with the temporary rank of colonel. This rank became substantive on 20 February 1917. Downes combined this post with that of ADMS AIF Egypt from 6 September 1916.[7] Downes therefore had to travel back and forth to Cairo. In November 1916, a Deputy ADMS was appointed to assist him.[16]

Medically speaking, the health of the Anzac Mounted Division was remarkably good,[17] but the Sinai Peninsula still had its challenges, especially for medical officers unfamiliar with conditions in the Middle East. The Battle of Romani revealed the importance of transportation in an area with few roads.[18] There was also the heat, and the problem of supplying adequate quantities of potable water. Diseases included cholera, typhus and bilharzia. With so many people and horses, sanitation was a challenge, and discipline in this area was initially slack, as it had been with disastrous results at Gallipoli. Downes took measure to improve the situation.[19] Not normally someone who engaged in disputes, Downes repeatedly clashed with the British medical officers of the Egyptian Expeditionary Force (EEF), especially the DMS EEF, Colonel A. E. C. Keble, whose attitudes Downes regarded as endangering his troops.[20][21]

Doris travelled to Egypt to visit her husband in March 1917. By June, Rupert was becoming increasingly emerged in preparations for the Third Battle of Gaza and Doris, now pregnant, decided to return home.[15] On her return journey to Australia in June 1917, her ship, the P&O liner Mongolia struck a mine and was sunk in the Indian Ocean with the loss of 23 lives.[22] The ship sank in minutes and Doris spent 11 hours in a crowded lifeboat until she was rescued by a passing steamer, which took her to Bombay. From there, she eventually made her way back to Australia via Singapore and Batavia.[23] In 1918 Doris was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire for her work among soldiers' families.[24]

On 10 August 1917, Downes became Deputy Director of Medical Services (DDMS) of the Desert Mounted Corps, while still retaining the post of ADMS AIF Egypt.[7] He was therefore answerable to three superiors: to Lieutenant General Harry Chauvel, the commander of the Desert Mounted Corps and AIF Egypt; to Major General Neville Howse, the DMS AIF in London; and to the new British DMS EEF, Major General W. T. Swan.[25] As the EEF advanced into Palestine, the major medical problem remained transportation. During the operations in the Es Salt area, Downes experimented with the delivery of drugs and medical supplies by air.[26] In the Jordan valley in 1918, however, Downes was confronted with an epidemic of malaria and vigorous preventative and prophylactic efforts were required in order to bring it under control.[27]

In October 1918, with victory near, Downes was confronted by his most serious medical crisis. Damascus contained over 3,000 sick and wounded Turkish soldiers, many of them in appalling condition.[28] Downes appointed the DADMS of the Australian Mounted Division, Major W. Evans, as Principal Medical Officer of Damascus, and gave him orders to organise the medical arrangements, bury the dead and provide care for the living.[29] The task was made more difficult by the poor communications and transport shortages, which hampered the delivery of supplies and evacuation of the hospitals; by shortages of medical units; and by the actions of Lieutenant Colonel T. E. Lawrence, who was more concerned with establishing the political authority of Hussein bin Ali, Sharif of Mecca over Damascus.[30] At this point the Desert Mounted Corps itself began to experience epidemic diseases, particularly of bronchopneumonia, cholera and malaria, putting the medical services under enormous pressure. Through extraordinary measures, including the diversion of lighthorsemen and motor vehicles to medical units, Downes managed to evacuate the sick to Beirut, and the crisis abated.[31]

For his service in the Sinai and Palestine Campaign, Downes was mentioned in despatches four times,[32][33][34][35] and was appointed a Companion of the Order of St Michael and St George on 1 January 1918.[36][37] His citation read:

In addition to his duties as ADMS Australian and New Zealand Mounted Division, Colonel Downes has carried out those of A.D.M.S., Australian Imperial Force in Egypt for many months. He has shown considerable administrative ability and has placed Australian A.M.C. matters on a much better footing than they were when he took over the appointment.[38]

Interwar years

Returning to Australia, Downes became an honorary consulting surgeon at the Royal Children's Hospital, Melbourne and Royal Victorian Eye and Ear Hospital and honorary surgeon at Prince Henry's Hospital.[1] He became a foundation fellow of the College of Surgeons of Australasia in 1927 and president of the Victorian branch of the British Medical Association in 1935.[1] Downes "established himself as one of Melbourne's leading pediatric surgeons".[39] He disagreed with certain medical practices then in vogue. In a 1922 paper published in the Medical Journal of Australia, Downes examined 100 cases of tonsillectomy in children and concluded that most of them were unnecessary. It would be another four decades before the medical profession accepted this.[40] Downes lectured on medical ethics at the University of Melbourne from the late 1930s until his death in 1945.[41] He wrote the course text book, entitled Medical Ethics, which was published in 1942.[42]

Downes was chairman of the Masseurs' Registration Board, a councillor of the Victorian division of the Australian Red Cross, and chairman of the Red Cross National Council. He became Victorian State Commissioner of the St. John Ambulance Brigade, which he led for an Australian record period of 25 years, and was president of the St John Ambulance Association for eight years. He also was chairman of the Victorian Civil Ambulance Service from 1937 to 1938.[1] He was appointed a Commander of the Venerable Order of Saint John in 1930,[43] and a Knight of Grace of the order in 1937.[44] At the same time, Doris became an Officer of the order.[45]

Downes wrote the section on the Sinai and Palestine campaign in Volume I of the Official History of the Australian Army Medical Services in the War of 1914–1918.[46] Downes wrote this book-length treatment in the late 1920s under the direction of Medical Series editor Graham Butler. The two men had discussed the prospect during a visit Butler made to Egypt in 1918 to inspect the medical records of the AIF and again in France in 1919. In 1926, Downes published an article in the Journal of the British Army Medical Corps entitled "The Tactical Employment of the Medical Services in a Cavalry Corps". This was expanded into one of the chapters of the Official History, which was published in 1930. Downes' manuscript proved too long for the proposed book, and had to be extensively edited by Butler.[47] Downes was later instrumental in supporting Butler's Medical Series and helped obtain the funding necessary to complete the project.[48]

In 1930, Downes' son John, then aged 10 and in his first year as a boarder at Geelong Grammar, fell seriously ill with meningitis. Despite the best efforts of two eminent medical practitioners, Dr Keith Fairley and Dr Reginald Webster, John succumbed to toxemia and died.[49]

A group of men in suits pose for a picture.
Army Medical officers participate in a training exercise in the southern highlands of New South Wales in April 1936. Downes is front row, centre.

Downes remained in the Army. He became a colonel in the Australian Army Medical Corps on 8 January 1920. He was DDMS of the 3rd Military District (Victoria) from 1 July 1921 to 26 June 1933, and Officer in Charge of Voluntary Aid Detachments from 1 July 1921 to 15 March 1940.[7] Downes was also the head of the medical services of the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) from 1924 to 1940, when they were finally separated from the Army.[50] Downes was also honorary surgeon to the Governor General of Australia from 1 July 1927 to 30 June 1931. On 20 August 1934 Downes became Director General of Medical Services (DGMS), a full-time post and the Army's most senior medical officer.[7]

Downes' first priority was a recruiting campaign to increase the number of medical professionals in the Army. In this was he moderately successful.[51] An Army-wide recruiting campaign led by Major General Sir Thomas Blamey doubled the size of the Army from 35,000 in 1938 to 70,000 in 1939 as the Munich Crisis led many people to believe that another war was imminent.[52] Downes presided over a major effort to stockpile drugs and medical equipment required for a mobilisation. With the help of the Department of Health and the Commonwealth Serum Laboratories most of this was delivered by July 1939.[53]

In 1939, Downes began a tour of military and other medical centres in India, the Middle East, the United Kingdom, France, the United States and Canada.[54] While in London, Downes arranged for Doris and Valerie to be formally presented to the King and Queen at Buckingham Palace by Ethel Bruce, the wife of Stanley Bruce, the High Commissioner to the United Kingdom.[55] Downes foresaw a major war, fought in the islands to the north of Australia. While in London, he took steps to obtain the services as consultants of two eminent Australian physicians, the surgeon Sir Thomas Dunhill and Neil Hamilton Fairley, an expert on tropical diseases.[56] The outbreak of the Second World War caused Downes to curtail the North American leg of his tour, and return to Australia in October 1939.[54]

Second World War

A group of solders in shirt sleeves stand at attention.
Generals Simpson, Blamey, and Morshead pay their respects at the military funeral service for Generals Vasey and Downes in Cairns.

Downes, in his role as DGMS, pressed for the construction of major military hospitals in the capital cities. He argued that, after the war, they should be handed over to the Repatriation Commission for the care of sick and disabled ex-service personnel. Despite strong opposition on the grounds of cost, Downes won his case in October 1940. Time soon vindicated his judgement; and today the major military hospitals in the state capital cities, the vast Concord Repatriation General Hospital in Sydney, the Austin Hospital in Melbourne and Greenslopes Private Hospital in Brisbane stand in tribute to his foresightedness.[57]

In late 1940, medical units in the Middle East were experienced "precarious and at times acute" shortages of medicals stores. Units were sent to the Middle East as fully equipped as was possible, with the expectation that the British Army would make up the difference, but British policy was that all possible sources had to be exploited before any demands could be made on United Kingdom sources. General Sir Thomas Blamey, the Commander in Chief of the AIF, recognised this as something that had to be negotiated between the two governments;[58] but medical officers in the Middle East blamed the Medical Services in Australia, and therefore Downes, for the situation. The Minister of the Army, Percy Spender decided to pay a visit to the Middle East to see the situation for himself but before he did so, he resolved that Downes should become Director of Medical Services (DMS), AIF (Middle East). On arrival in the Middle East with the Chief of the General Staff, Lieutenant General Vernon Sturdee, Spender found that Blamey had already appointed Major General Samuel Burston to that post. This came as a surprise to them as they had not realised that Blamey had the authority to make such an appointment; but on seeing the situation for himself, Spender confirmed Burston's appointment.[59]

On returning to Australia, Spender appointed Major General F. A. Maguire as DGMS, with Downes being appointed to the newly-created new post of Inspector General of Medical Services (IGMS).[59] As IGMS, he toured extensively, visiting all the Australian states and overseas locations where Australian troops had been sent, including Papua and New Guinea, Malaya, the Middle East and North Africa as well as the Netherlands East Indies (Indonesia), India and East Africa.[1] When Blamey reorganised the Army on his return to Australia in 1942, he appointed Burston as Director General of Medical Services. Downes became DMS of the Second Army on 6 April 1942. He joined the Second AIF as a major general on 27 June 1942,[7] receiving the AIF serial number VX57673.[60]

Downes held this post until 22 August 1944. Now nearly sixty, he then accepted an invitation to write the medical history series of the official history Australia in the war. In March 1945, he decided to accompany Major General George Alan Vasey to New Guinea, where Vasey's 6th Division had encountered an atabrine-resistant strain of malaria in the Aitape-Wewak campaign. On 5 March 1945, the RAAF Lockheed Hudson aircraft Downes was travelling in crashed into the sea about 400 yards (370 m) from Machans Beach, just north of the mouth of the Barron River near Cairns. Downes and Vasey were killed along with all nine other Australian service personnel on board. Downes' body was recovered and buried in Cairns War Cemetery with full military honours. Downes was survived by Doris, Valerie and Rosemary. A memorial service was held at St Paul's Cathedral, Melbourne on 9 March 1945.[61]

Downes became the third most senior Australian officer to die in the Second World War, after General Sir Brudenell White, who died in the Canberra air disaster in 1940,[62] and Lieutenant General Henry Wynter, who died on 7 February 1945.[63]

Legacy

Downes' papers are in the Australian War Memorial.[64] The Royal Australasian College of Surgeons established the triennial Rupert Downes Memorial Lecture in his honour. The subject of the Lecture is "related to some aspect or aspects of military surgery, medical equipment (military and civil), the surgery of children, neurosurgery, general surgery, medical ethics or medical history; these being subjects in which Downes was particularly interested".[65]

Rupert Downes Memorial Lectures

  • 1950 S.R. Burston Some Medical Aspects of Atomic Warfare
  • 1954 A.S. Walker The Following Wind of History
  • 1957 F.K. Norris Be Strong and of Good Courage
  • 1961 Sir Albert Coates The Doctor in the Services
  • 1965 D. Waterson Œsophageal Replacement in Pædiatric Surgery
  • 1970 J.H. Louw The Scientific Method in Surgery
  • 1972 H.E. Beardmore Pædiatric Surgery - Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow
  • 1976 P.P. Rickham Nephroblastoma - a New Look at an Old Problem
  • 1978 C.M. Gurner Military Medical Preparedness
  • 1980 D.G. Hamilton One Hundred Years of Pædiatric Surgery in Sydney
  • 1983 G.B. Ong The Trifacetted Nature of Surgery in Hong Kong
  • 1988 B.A. Smithurst Distinguished Australian Military Surgeons
  • 1990 Patricia K. Donahoe The Development of Tumour Inhibitors
  • 1994 General Sir Phillip Bennett Medical Aspects of Australia’s Defence
  • 1996 Professor Averil Mansfield Arterio-Venous Malformations and their Treatment
  • 1998 D. Trunkey I am Giddy, Expectation Whirls me Round
  • 2000 A. Wyn Beasley Of Scurvy and Shipwreck - the Dutch Discovery of Australasia
  • 2002 Colonel D. Beard The Music of Warfare
  • 2005 Robert Pearce Trust me, Claudius

Source: Rupert Downes Memorial Lecture and Medal (PDF), Royal Australasian College of Surgeons, retrieved 16 January 2009

Notes

  1. ^ a b c d e f g Hill, A. J. (1981). "Downes, Rupert Major (1885 - 1945)". Australian Dictionary of Biography. Canberra: National Centre of Biography, Australian National University. ISBN 978-0-522-84459-7. ISSN 1833-7538. OCLC 70677943. Retrieved 5 November 2010.
  2. ^ Howie-Willis 2008, p. 13
  3. ^ Howie-Willis 2008, p. 10
  4. ^ Howie-Willis 2008, pp. 15–20
  5. ^ a b Howie-Willis 2008, p. 29
  6. ^ Howie-Willis 2008, pp. 32–34
  7. ^ a b c d e f g AMF Gradation List of Officers, 18 January 1945
  8. ^ Howie-Willis 2008, pp. 37–38
  9. ^ Howie-Willis 2008, p. 32
  10. ^ Howie-Willis 2008, p. 44
  11. ^ Howie-Willis 2008, p. 226
  12. ^ Howie-Willis 2008, p. 59
  13. ^ Howie-Willis 2008, p. 85
  14. ^ a b Howie-Willis 2008, p. 90
  15. ^ a b Howie-Willis 2008, p. 101
  16. ^ Downes 1930, pp. 646–647
  17. ^ Downes 1930, pp. 598–599
  18. ^ Downes 1930, pp. 582–585
  19. ^ Downes 1930, pp. 600–611
  20. ^ Howie-Willis 2008, p. 143
  21. ^ Howie-Willis 2008, p. 164
  22. ^ P&O Line, Swiggum, retrieved 19 May 2009
  23. ^ Howie-Willis 2008, p. 102
  24. ^ "No. 30935". The London Gazette (invalid |supp= (help)). 4 October 1918.
  25. ^ Downes 1930, pp. 647–650
  26. ^ Downes 1930, pp. 693–694
  27. ^ Downes 1930, pp. 705–713
  28. ^ Downes 1930, p. 729
  29. ^ Downes 1930, p. 731
  30. ^ Downes 1930, pp. 732–735
  31. ^ Downes 1930, pp. 736–741
  32. ^ "No. 29845". The London Gazette (invalid |supp= (help)). 1 December 1916.
  33. ^ "No. 30474". The London Gazette (invalid |supp= (help)). 12 January 1918.
  34. ^ "No. 31138". The London Gazette (invalid |supp= (help)). 22 January 1919.
  35. ^ "No. 31383". The London Gazette (invalid |supp= (help)). 5 June 1919.
  36. ^ "No. 30450". The London Gazette (invalid |supp= (help)). 1 January 1918.
  37. ^ "No. 30514". The London Gazette (invalid |supp= (help)). 5 February 1918.
  38. ^ Honours and Awards - R M Downes (PDF), Australian War Memorial, retrieved 1 June 2009
  39. ^ Howie-Willis 2008, p. 236
  40. ^ Howie-Willis 2008, p. 228
  41. ^ Howie-Willis 2008, p. 233
  42. ^ Downes 1942
  43. ^ "No. 33618". The London Gazette. 24 June 1930.
  44. ^ "No. 34356". The London Gazette. 1 January 1937.
  45. ^ "No. 34356". The London Gazette. 1 January 1937.
  46. ^ Downes 1930, pp. 547–713
  47. ^ Howie-Willis 2008, pp. 227–229
  48. ^ O'Keefe 1988, pp. 29–30
  49. ^ Howie-Willis 2008, p. 251
  50. ^ Walker 1961, pp. 180–181
  51. ^ Howie-Willis 2008, p. 263
  52. ^ Long 1952, p. 26
  53. ^ Walker 1953, pp. 15–20
  54. ^ a b Walker 1953, p. 20
  55. ^ Howie-Willis 2008, p. 279
  56. ^ Walker 1953, p. 32
  57. ^ Walker 1953, pp. 78–81
  58. ^ Walker 1953, pp. 333–339
  59. ^ a b Howie-Willis 2008, pp. 305–309
  60. ^ WW2 Nominal Roll, Australian War Memorial, retrieved 23 May 2009
  61. ^ Howie-Willis 2008, pp. 349–356
  62. ^ Long 1952, pp. 89–90
  63. ^ Long 1952, p. 8
  64. ^ Downes papers, AWM 3DRL/0518
  65. ^ Rupert Downes Memorial Lecture and Medal (PDF), Royal Australasian College of Surgeons, retrieved 16 January 2009

References

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