George Frederick Wootten

(Confirmed)

Born: 1 May, 1893

Died: 30 March, 1970

Biographical Summary:

George Frederick Wootten was one of the early graduates of the Royal Military College, Duntroon. He landed at Gallipoli with the 1st Battalion, AIF on 25 April 1915.

Awarded the DSO and four Mentioned in Despatches.

He went on to have a distinguished military career in both the First and Second World Wars.

Sir George Frederick Wootten (1893-1970), soldier, solicitor and administrator, was born on 1 May 1893 at Marrickville, Sydney, seventh child of London-born parents William Frederick Wootten, carpenter and later civil engineer, and his wife Louisa, nee Old. He attended Fort Street Model School and, encouraged by his father, entered the Royal Military College, Duntroon, Federal Capital Territory, in 1911. Graduating in August 1914, Lieutenant Wootten was posted to the 1st Battalion, Australian Imperial Force. He went ashore at Gallipoli on 25 April 1915, became adjutant of his battalion next day and quickly won a reputation for courage. In May he was promoted captain. By the time of the evacuation in December he was a major.

"When (Sir) John Monash was forming the 3rd Australian Division in England in 1916, Wootten served briefly on his staff, but he made his name at the infantry brigade level in 1916-17. He was brigade major first to James Cannan of the 11th Brigade, then to (Sir) Charles Rosenthal of the 9th Brigade, both outstanding commanders. Wootten was awarded the Distinguished Service Order in October 1917 for excellent staff work. Two months later he was transferred to the headquarters of the 5th Division where he worked in the operations branch. In October 1918 he joined the General Staff at Field Marshal Sir Douglas (Earl) Haig's headquarters. His six months there completed a remarkable wartime experience as a staff officer. He was four times mentioned in dispatches. Only 25 years old, he was posted to the Staff College, Camberley, England, in March 1919. At St Joseph's Catholic Church, Roehampton, London, on 3 January 1920 he married Muriel Anna Frances Bisgood, a nurse.

"That month Wootten sailed home to an Australia tired of war and with little interest in its army which was about to be reorganized and sharply reduced. Junior staff appointments in Adelaide then Hobart had no allure for Wootten who, as a brevet major, was on captain's pay. In 1923 he resigned his commission. …"

He resumed service in the Citizens Military Force in 1937 in command of 21st Light Horse Regiment and was promoted to Lieutenant-Colonel.

"On 13 October 1939 Wootten was seconded to the A.I.F. and appointed to command the 2nd/2nd Infantry Battalion, despite doubts about his physical fitness for such a post. When the A.I.F. Reinforcement Depot was set up in Palestine late in 1940, he was promoted temporary brigadier and made its commander. In February 1941 he was given the well trained and equipped 18th Brigade. As part of the 7th Division which was earmarked for the expedition to Greece, Wootten was instructed in March 1941 to capture the minor Italian fortress at Giarabub, Libya. This done, he was suddenly ordered on 4 April to move his brigade forthwith to Tobruk because the German Afrika Korps was transforming the situation in the Western Desert. Nine days later he came under the command of Major General (Sir) Leslie Morshead who had raised and trained the 18th Brigade. After nearly five months besieged, Wootten's was the first brigade to be relieved. It rejoined the 7th Division, but only after the 7th's successful campaign in Syria. He was awarded a Bar to his D.S.O. for his leadership at Tobruk.

"In March 1942 Wootten returned to Australia. When belatedly the 7th Division was sent to Papua to intervene in the crisis on the Kokoda Track in August 1942, his brigade was detached to bolster the defence of the Milne Bay airstrips. Having helped Milne Force to crush the Japanese, he took part in the worst fighting of the Pacific war—Buna and Sanananda, where pressure from General Douglas MacArthur's ignorant General Headquarters for quick results in impossible situations caused unnecessary casualties. In March 1943, as temporary major general, Wootten succeeded Morshead as commander of the 9th Division, which was training on the Atherton Tableland, Queensland. He was appointed C.B.E. in May.

"The task of training his division for jungle warfare and amphibious operations was not lightened for Wootten by the death of his elder son George in an aircraft accident in May 1943 while he was on active service with the Royal Australian Air Force. From September that year to January 1944 he led his division to victories in New Guinea at Lae, Finschhafen and Sattelberg. A year of rest and training in Australia was followed by the pointless but successful operations of June-July 1945 in Borneo around Brunei and Labuan. Wootten worked to re-establish civil order in the former British territories, supporting the British Borneo Civil Affairs Unit attached to his headquarters. He was appointed C.B. (1945). …

"In 1944 he had received the United States of America's Distinguished Service Cross. One of his brigadiers, Selwyn Porter, remembered him as 'the shrewdest Divisional Commander whom I have encountered. . . . He was sound, sure and careful'. Wootten left Labuan for Sydney on 22 September 1945…"

Australian Dictionary of Biography, Volume 16, (MUP), 2002. [JSB]

Service Number: 351001

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