Gordon Bennett (general)

Lieutenant General Henry Gordon Bennett CB, CMG, DSO, VD was a senior Australian Army officer who served in both World War I and World War II. Despite highly decorated achievements during World War I, during which he commanded at both battalion and brigade level and became the youngest general in the Australian Army, Bennett is best remembered for his role in the Battle of Singapore in February 1942 in the Pacific War, as commander of the 8th Australian Division, he escaped while his men became prisoners of the Imperial Japanese Army. After this, Bennetts military career waned and although he rose to command a corps, he never commanded troops in battle again. In 1945, his escape caused controversy and resulted in a Royal Commission, which found that he had been unjustified in relinquishing his command.

Bennett was born in Balwyn, Melbourne, onApril 1887, to George Bennett, a South Africanborn school teacher, and his Australianborn wife, Harriet. He was the sixth of nine children and attended Balwyn State School, where his father taught, and then Hawthorn College as a teenager having been given a threeyear scholarship. While at Hawthorn, he did well at mathematics and in 1903, as a 16yearold, after completing a competitive examination he was accepted into the AMP Society to train as an actuary. In May 1908, just after he turned 21, Bennett volunteered to serve in the Militia, Australias reserve military force, joining the 5th Australian Infantry Regiment as a recruit officer. After completing a sixmonth parttime course, he was appointed as a provisional second lieutenant, and posted to the regiments B Company, in Carlton, Victoria. He continued to work at AMP during this time, but devoted most of his spare time to his military duties and rose in rank quickly, reaching major in 19

Source: Wikipedia