ROBERTSON, Horace Clement Hugh

  1. Service Details
  2. Personal Details
  3. Unit and Rank Details
  4. Awards and Honours
  5. Notes
  6. Sources

Service Details

Branch of Service
Army
Conflict
World War I (1914-1918)
Date of Enlistment
02/11/1914
Date of Discharge
30/10/1954
Place of Enlistment
Royal Military College, Duntroon ACT

Personal Details

Gender
Male
Other Name(s)
Nicknamed 'Red Robbie'
Date of Birth
29/10/1894
Place of Birth
Warrnambool, Victoria
Address (at enlistment)
Royal Military College, Duntroon ACT
School(s) Attended
Outtrim State School, Geelong Grammar School
Occupation
Soldier
Next of Kin
Jessie Robertson (wife), Melbourne, Victoria

Unit and Rank Details

Final Rank
Major
Final Unit
AIF Headquarters (Egypt)

Awards and Honours

Distinguished Service Order (Commonwealth of Australia Gazette: 4 October 1917, page 2626, position 66)
Mentioned in Despatches (Commonwealth of Australia Gazette: 11 October 1917, page 2664)
Mentioned in Despatches (Commonwealth of Australia Gazette: 1 April 1920, page 545)

Notes

Robertson entered the Royal Military College, Duntroon on 7 March 1912 and graduated early, along with the rest of his class, on 2 November 1914. He was a member of the guard of honour at the naming ceremony at Canberra on 12 March 1913. He married in Melbourne on 7 November 1914 before embarking from Fremantle with the Machine Gun Section of the 10th Light Horse Regiment in February 1915. He fought at Gallipoli from May to December 1915 and was promoted to Major in May 1916 in Egypt. He was given command of a squadron in the Light Horse and earned the Distinguished Service Order for his role in the attack on the Turks at Magdhaba in December 1916. According to Gullett, Robertson led the men of the 10th Light Horse to the rear of the Turkish position at Magdhaba "with great dash, (and) rode down the wady at the gallop with his men shouting wildly close behind him, he cut across a column of 300 Turks retreating in disorder. Among the prisoners was a senior officer of the engineers, who shared the terror of his men at the sight of the dusty and unshaven horsemen. He informed Robertson - who looked very young for his rank (of Major) - that he would only surrender his sword to the Australian officer in charge. Somewhat embarrassed, Robertson said that he was the leader. He was as dusty and disreputable-looking as his men, and the Turk handed over his sword with the air of a man resigned to a violent death at the hands of savages." He spent most of the rest of the war in staff positions and was appointed to the Order of the Nile in 1920 for his work in repatriating the light horse units.

In December 1934 he became Director of Military Art at the Royal Military College, the first graduate from RMC to be appointed to the role. In July 1937 he convened a meeting at the Hotel Canberra at which the Federal Capital Territory Rugby Union was formed. Robertson was elected its first president. He held that role until he was posted, in February 1939, to command the 7th Military District at Darwin. In 1940 Robertson was appointed to the command of the 19th Infantry Brigade and led his men during the campaign in Libya in 1940-41 including the capture of Tobruk. Later in 1941 he turned the AIF Reinforcement Depot in Palestine into a model training centre for all troops in the Middle East. He went on to serve in numerous leadership roles during the remainder of World War 2 in Australia and New Guinea and commanded the British Commonwealth Occupation Force in Japan from 1946 to 1951 and the British Commonwealth Forces, Korea when the Korean War began in 1950. He was also appointed a K.B.E. in 1950. Robertson died at the Repatriation General Hospital, Heidelberg, Victoria on 28 April 1960. He was nicknamed 'Red Robbie' because of the colour of his hair.

Sources

Colonel J.E. Lee, 'Duntroon: The Royal Military College of Australia 1911-1946', 1952
Australian Dictionary of Biography online
http://www.adb.online.anu.edu.au/adbonline.htm
Chester Wilmot, 'Tobruk 1941', 1944 (pp.17,18,38-40) Henry Gullet, 'Official History of Australia in the War of 1914-1918, vol. VII - The Australian Imperial Force in Sinai and Palestine' (pp. 218, 222, 223)
AWM Honours & Awards
AWM Collections Record: J02972
Stories from the ACT Memorial, 'The Honour Guard at the Canberra Commencement Ceremony', ACT Heritage Library www.library.act.gov.au/find/history/stories_from_the_act_memorial
The Canberra Times - 14 July 1937, 13 February 1939, 20 February 1939

Create Certificate
Horace Robertson (shaving), Sinai c1917. AWM image J02972.

Horace Robertson (shaving), Sinai c1917. AWM image J02972.

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