The Crimson Thread of Kinship

Lindsay Murray and Percy Ings are commemorated at a cemetery in Breadalbane, New South Wales. Both men were raised in Australia and killed in the Battle of Fromelles in 1916. Both are interred 17,000 km from home. That they were involved in a war so far away is central to Australia’s status in a British world in the early 20^th century. Murray and Ings trained and served as Australian soldiers in a standardised Empire army. They personify the British learning experience of the Western Front. Their loss was keenly felt by family and friends in Australia.

16/07/2024

<30 min

Two Soldiers, the Great War, and Breadalbane, New South Wales

The crimson thread of kinship runs through us all. Even the native-born Australians are Britons, as much as the men born within cities of London and Glasgow.

Sir Henry Parkes 1890^[1]

In a field not far from the village of Breadalbane in New South Wales lies the old graveyard of the Chisholm Memorial Church of St Silas. It is a forlorn place. The gravestones are worn. Some of them are indecipherable. A sargasso of weed surrounds the dated plinths and the youngest is now nearly ninety years old. The old markers stand crooked or lie as clumps of broken marble. Their foundations have been undermined or sunk or shifted with time. Forgotten and overgrown, the clay soil is dominated by unkempt tussocks of Kangaroo and Snow grass.^[2] This is a cemetery that tells a story of Australia, and the generations of 19^th century names speak to the endeavours of intrepid colonial settlers. The two columns supporting the long disused gates to the graveyard remember two local men, Lindsay Murray and Percy Ings, who fell in the Battle of Fromelles on the same day in 1916. That both were commemorated in this way is testament to how keenly their loss was felt in this tiny hamlet nearly 12,000 miles away. Equally, it speaks to a story of a different and often forgotten time and place in Australian history from where the story resonates still. The monuments are representative of Australia’s connection to the world. A hemisphere from where they now lie, these men are worthy of commemoration.

The weed strewn Breadalbane Graveyard with old gaves shown

The old churchyard in the tiny village of Breadalbane, 16 September 2022. (source: author)

Commemorative plaques on the gates to the cemetery, Breadalbane, New South Wales. (source: author)

In 1914, Breadalbane was a small though well-established farming community nestled in the upper reaches of the Lachlan Valley. There were several churches, a store, and a hotel refurbished in 1913, and which remained in service until 1998.^[3] Although a long way from France, the Great War would soon catch up with Breadalbane. After Gallipoli, the depleted Anzac divisions were sent to Egypt to recuperate prior to deploying to the Western Front. There, the decision was made to double the size of the force. In addition to the First and Second Divisions, Australia would raise the Fourth and Fifth Divisions. Another division, the Third, was raised in Australia and went to England directly. Numbers were no problem. The successful enlistment campaigns of 1915 generated thousands of new recruits, and these men—the ‘Fair Dinkums’—arrived in Egypt at the same time as those returning from Gallipoli. The Official History recorded that the process of creating the new divisions was straight forward.^[4] ‘Sixteen new battalions were required, and it happened that the original force employed had included exactly sixteen’.^[5] Accordingly, the sixteen veteran battalions were split. Half the men were posted to form the nucleus of the new units, and they were trained in the British pattern.

The British Army of the Great War was a coalition of national elements with shared values and culture. This extended to military training. The Infantry Training Manual of 1914, used across the Empire, was the standardised curriculum until well into 1916.^[6] Indeed, Imperial standardisation was central to Australian practice during the war.^[7] Empire infantry used the innovative 1908 pattern cotton webbing set, designed to distribute the weight of equipment evenly.^[8] Rifles, grenades, bayonets, and all sundry equipment was standardised.^[9] All Empire troops wore the flat Brodie steel helmet. Any soldier from any of the Empire’s divisions could ostensibly be taken from his own formation and effectively placed in another from anywhere else. ^[10] This is no small accomplishment when one considers the size of the force and how the Australians integrated seamlessly into the construct. Lindsay Murray and Percy Ings are indicative of the 1916 expansion of the AIF.

An Australian recruiting poster from mid-1915: The soldier calls out the Australian bush cry of 'coo-ee' to potential recruits at home. (Source: AWM ARTV05167)

Lindsay Bertram Murray was a 22-year-old NSW railwayman when he enlisted on 30 July 1915. Murray signed his attestation papers in the nearby township of Goulburn and his next of kin was listed as Mrs Arabella Murray of Mountain Ash farm via Breadalbane.^[11] He was the eldest of ten children born to Arabella and Thomas Murray, though his father had passed after an illness on 27 December 1914. Murray senior was buried in the cemetery at Breadalbane where his son was later commemorated.^[12] Lindsay Murray was educated at Breadalbane Public School.^[13] His papers indicate he was 5’6” tall. He weighed 148lbs and had brown hair, blue eyes, and a fair complexion.^[14] A studio portrait of Murray is held by the Australian War Memorial, and it shows a young man wearing an Australian slouch hat staring into the distance.^[15] Reaching out across the longue durée, there is something of the devil-may-care attitude in Murray’s expression. It may well personify the egalitarian digger of Charles Bean’s Anzac legend. Murray was allocated the service number 3555 and initially posted to the 11^th reinforcements for the 4^th Infantry Battalion of the First Australian Division. He departed Australian waters on HMAT A17 Port Lincoln on 13 October 1915. In Egypt he was reallocated to A Company of the 53^rd Australian Infantry Battalion on 16 February 1916. Murray’s battalion and parent formations were the 14^th Infantry Brigade and Fifth Australian Division. It trained for the next four months in Egypt. Lindsay Murray’s 53^rd Battalion would have been his ‘home’.

Lance Corporal Lindsay Murray and Private Percy Ings

The men of Breadalbane. Left: Lance Corporal Lindsay Murray (Source: AWM P05899.004) Right: Private Percy Ings (Source: Virtual War Memorial Australia)

Percy Edwin Ings’ image depicts an earnest young man staring into the camera from under the peaked cap as issued early in the war.^[16] The second eldest of eight children to Edwin and Emily Ings, Percy Ings was raised on a property named ‘Cede Ceàrn’ in Breadalbane where he attended the Public School. He was the same age as Murray, and they were at school during the same period. Ings completed a carpentry apprenticeship and was in the employment of the Ibbotson and Portus Timber Yard in Goulburn prior to enlisting. His papers indicate that he was 5’3” tall and weighed 140lbs. He had brown hair and eyes, and a fair complexion.^[17] He enlisted at Liverpool in Sydney on 9 July 1915 and was allocated the service number 909 in the 30^th Australian Infantry Battalion. The 30^th Battalion was raised as part of the 8^th Brigade at Liverpool Camp on 5 August 1915 and embarked on HMAT A72 Beltana on 9 November 1915. Ings was transferred to the 8^th Australian Machine Gun (MG) Company when it was formed on 19 March 1916 in Egypt.^[18] The weapons were used as an adjunct to artillery and would ‘sweep the ground’ ahead of an advance. The British Army had a deep appreciation of the trigonometry and geometry associated with sighting and directing plunging gunfire.^[19]

MG Companies comprised a headquarters section and four sections of four Vickers guns each.^[20] The Vickers machine gun was a legendary weapon and served the British and Commonwealth defence forces for more than sixty years. The weapon was mounted on a tripod and cooled by water held in a jacket around the barrel. The gun weighed 28.5 lbs, and the water for the jacket around the barrel weighed 10 lbs. The tripod weighed 20 lbs. Rounds for the weapon were assembled into a canvas belt, and the gun had a cyclic rate of fire of 500 rounds per minute.^[21] The detail is important. The firepower available to a MG company in the attack was decisive, and well understood within the BEF. However, the Germans had a deeper appreciation of how effective machine guns were in defence. ^[22]

An Australian Vickers Gun July 1916. Vickers Gun teams accompanied the infantry into battle and afforded a great deal of firepower to the attacking force. (Source: AWM P07670.003)

Australian machine gunners in France in 1916. (source: AWM EZ0079)

The First and Second Australian Divisions arrived in France in March 1916. The Fourth Division followed. The Fifth Division was the last to arrive in late June, under the command of Major General James Whiteside McCay.^[23] McCay, a former Australian Federal politician, lawyer, and citizen soldier had a formidable intellect. He was a respected trainer and had connections to the High Commission in London and to the Australian Minister of Defence, George Pearce. On paper, McCay was a good choice to command. He had led the 2^nd Australian Brigade on Gallipoli where he was wounded at Krithia on 8 May 1915. Bean records McCay standing on the parapets calling “Come on Australia!” and urging his men forward as Turkish bullets landed around him.^[24] In addition to his intelligence and drive, McCay genuinely cared for his soldiers. He demanded and received high standards from them.^[25] He was, however, unsuited to the command in which he served—for despite his fine qualities, McCay was dour, inflexible, and unable to engage with his men in a way that they understood him.

The Fifth Division arrived in France on 25 June 1916 five days before the Somme offensive. The Division’s brigades entrained to the Armentières ‘nursery’ sector in northern France to acclimatise. The Australians were not ready for combat and would not participate in the coming battle. On 1 July 1916, the opening day of the Battle of the Somme proved to be the worst day in the British Army’s history. Attacking without adequate artillery support against uncut barbed wire and well-defended German positions, the BEF suffered 60,000 casualties in twenty-four hours, 20,000 of whom were killed.^[26] Little was achieved. Notwithstanding this, the General Officer Commanding, Sir Douglas Haig, insisted that the offensive continue to relieve pressure on the French fighting around Verdun.^[27] The Australian divisions waited fifty miles to the north. It would not be long before they joined in.

Though it was the last to arrive in France, the Fifth Division would be the first into action. ^[28] The division’s diary highlights it was seconded to Lieutenant General Richard Haking’s XI Corps of the British First Army on 13 July 1916 to participate in a diversionary demonstration.^[29] The scheme paired the Australians with the British 61^st Division to assault a German salient north of the Somme. It was defended by a strong position known as the ‘sugarloaf’. Behind the sugarloaf salient lay the French village of Fromelles for which the operation would later be named. The water table in this part of northern France was very high so defensive positions were built up. The ground across which the infantry would assault was flat and devoid of cover, and in front of the sugarloaf no man’s land was 400 metres wide. There was inadequate artillery support and assumptions were made about the effect that shellfire would have on the prepared German defences, particularly the barbed wire and depth of the German dugouts. The 5^th Division was inexperienced and the 61^st Division significantly understrength. The German line was manned in depth by the experienced 6^th Bavarian Reserve Division comprising infantry and machine gunners all aware of the build-up. The Germans shelled the preparations, causing casualties before the attack even started.^[30] Finally, orders were received during the morning of 19 July for the operation to proceed; and in the early evening, the Fifth Australian and 61^st British Divisions left their trenches to cross no man’s land. Both divisions deployed three brigades with two battalions per brigade in the attack. In the Fifth’s circumstance, the 8^th Brigade was on the left (in the north), the 14^th Brigade was in the centre, and the 15^th Brigade abutted the 61^st Division opposite the sugarloaf. In the European summer, there were about three hours of daylight remaining.

The Fromelles front: the ground across which Australian and British troops advanced on 19 July 1916. The British lines are in the lower portion of the photograph. The German lines are above. In order from L-R, the Fifth Division deployed the 8^th, 4^th and 15^th Brigades in the attack. The British 61^st Division was on the 15^th Brigade’s right. Behind the German line in the salient sat a built-up defensive position called the ‘sugarloaf’. The distance between the lines near the sugarloaf was 500 yards. (Source: AWM E05990)

Men of the 53^rd Battalion (Lindsay Murray’s Unit) a few minutes before the Battle of Fromelles. (Source: AWM H16396)

The 8^th Brigade, including the 8^th MG Company with Private Percy Ings in its number, quickly seized the German trenches, and then pushed forward to set up a series of outlying posts behind the German lines. They were incredibly exposed. The 14^th Brigade was not as fortunate. The wire in front of the German lines was not completely cut, and the advancing 53^rd Battalion was exposed to machinegun fire from the sugarloaf on its flank. The brigade managed to enter and take the German trenches, but it was costly. The 53^rd Battalion’s commanding officer, Lieutenant Colonel Ignatius Norris, was killed in the advance.^[31] And somewhere in the maelstrom, Corporal Lindsay Murray was wounded. On the right, the 5^th Division diary indicates that ‘machine gun fire from the sugarloaf worried the troops directly they came over the parapet’.^[32] This is an understatement. The 15^th Brigade was cut down as it left the trenches and then as it tried to get through the unbroken wire. Veteran Hugh Downing wrote that ‘the sandbags were splashed with red, and red were the firesteps, the duckboards, the bays. And the stench of stagnant pools of the blood of heroes is in our nostrils even now’.^[33] The 15^th Brigade’s commander, Harold ‘Pompey’ Elliott, wept as he witnessed his men struggling to get back under fire.^[34] The 61^st Division failed to make any headway at all.

During the night of 19-20 July, the Australians came under counterattack. The 8^th Brigade was exposed to German machinegun fire from the northeast and the 14^th Brigade was attacked and shelled in turn. The 15^th Brigade and 61^st Division was ordered to sortie against the sugarloaf again, but the order did not reach the 61^st in time. The 15 Brigade went on and faired as badly as it did in the first assault.^[35] By the next morning the situation was parlous, and orders were relayed to each brigade to abandon their gains and withdraw. And so, the survivors of the 5^th Division retreated under fire as dawn broke the next morning. The 8^th Brigade departed first, then the 14^th Brigade which received its orders late. Then came the many stragglers of the 15^th Brigade which continued to drift in from no-man’s land. Bean’s diary highlighted that the 8^th MG Company lost eight Vickers guns and their crews in the withdrawal.^[36] Among their number was Percy Ings, the young man’s remains were later recovered and interred at the Anzac Cemetery at Sailly-sur-la-Lys, near Armentières.^[37]

The scene was harrowing. It was summer, the sun was shining, the weather was warm. The men lay where they fell in that interminable period. A few were wounded, and Lindsay Murray was among these. His record listed him as missing on 19 July 1916.^[38] For two days, he suffered under the sun and the stars, through the pain, and swelling and fear; through the suppuration and the thirst. Murray’s fortitude was remarkable. He dragged himself, or was found and carried, back into the Australian lines. His record subsequently reads ‘22 July 1916 CCS Admitted GSW thigh’, but it was too late.^[39] His wound was gangrenous, and in the era before penicillin it was a death sentence. In Murray’s short life there was now no time, but he had an interminable interval to think. He surely knew what was to come. On 24 July Murray was transferred to a General Hospital, ‘GSW R thigh gas gangrene’, and on 28 July 1916 he finally succumbed. ^[40] Lindsay Murray was buried at Wimereux Cemetery in France on the same day.^[41]

At Fromelles, the Fifth Division suffered 5,533 casualties.^[42] Haking blamed the Australians entirely:

The artillery preparations were adequate. There were sufficient guns and sufficient ammunition. The wire was properly cut, and the assaulting battalions had a clear run into the enemy’s trenches. The Australian infantry attacked in the most gallant manner and gained the enemy’s position, but they were not sufficiently trained to consolidate the ground gained. They withdrew and lost heavily doing so.^[43]

Bean disagreed: ‘The reasons for this failure seem to have been loose thinking and somewhat reckless decision on the part of the higher staff…it is difficult to conceive that the operation, as planned, was ever likely to succeed’.^[44] Whatever the circumstance, the Fifth Division was destroyed at Fromelles and so was McCay’s reputation.^[45] He sealed his fate as a leader when he enforced orders from Army Headquarters that called a halt to any localised truce to gather in the wounded.^[46]

In days, the government notified the Ings and Murray families in Breadalbane. Both wrote to the Army Records Office. The letters, written in the beautiful script of the day, call poignantly across the years seeking news of where their sons had been laid to rest. The seasons followed seasons. On Armistice Day—11 November 1918—Charles Bean returned to the Fromelles battlefield. It was as Golgotha: ‘We found the old No-Man’s-Land simply full of our dead,’ his diary reads. ‘The skulls and bones and torn uniforms were lying about everywhere’.^[47] Not long after the war these men were gathered and laid to rest in the VC Corner Cemetery. Australia and the Empire welcomed its other sons home. On 6 September 1919, the Goulburn Evening Penny Post recorded the arrival of several returned soldiers back to Breadalbane, among them Corporal Cecil Ings, brother of Percy Ings.^[48] The district turned out and a reception was held in the Breadalbane Hall. The Ings family held a dinner for invited family and friends in their home, and the years rolled by.

Percy Ings and Lindsay Murray were memorialised on the gateposts of the church. The changes came and some were large, but most were imperceptible. In time, Percy Ings’ father, Edwin, passed and was laid to rest near where his son was commemorated.^[49] Arabella Murray left the world, too, and rested beside her departed husband.^[50] The foundations of the Church of St Silas were damaged, and the church was rebuilt elsewhere. But the gates at the cemetery stood resolute in the sun and the rain, and sometimes the snow, for a century, and one day—no history could state exactly when—it was no longer a British world. But it did not matter. For Australia remembers Percy Edwin Ings and Lindsay Bertram Murray still.

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Footnotes

¹ Sir Henry Parkes at the Federation Conference in Melbourne 6 February 1890.

² State Government of New South Wales (NSW): Nature Conservation Council of NSW, M. Graham, Fire and the Vegetation of the Lachlan Region, Sydney, 2013, p. 24. The grasses depicted are themeda australis (Kangaroo Grass) and poa sieberiana (Snowgrass).

³ Tracey, J., Upper Lachlan Shire Community Heritage Study 2007 – 2008, Upper Lachlan Shire Council and Heritage Branch, 2009, p. 65.

⁴ Bean devotes a chapter to the doubling in the OH, Vol. III, pp. 32-68.

⁵ Bean, OH, Vol III, p. 36.

⁶ Field service Manual: 1914 Infantry Training (Four Company Organization), His Majesty’s Stationary Office (HMSO), London, October 1914.

⁷ John Connor, Anzac and Empire: George Foster Pearce and the Foundations of Australian Defence, Melbourne ,2011.

⁸ Loe, p. 10.

⁹ Loe, p. 14.

¹⁰ By the middle of 1916, the UK had fielded 58 divisions in France under the banner of the British Expeditionary Force (BEF). These comprised four Australian, four Canadian, one New Zealand, the Naval Division, and 48 British Infantry Divisions. The final Australian 3^rd Division remained training in UK on the Salisbury Plain until late 1916.

¹¹ The Murray family was well known in the district and a Mountain Ash Road near Breadalbane still exists today.

¹² Professor Peter Dennis et al, The AIF Project, University of New South Wales.

¹³ The school remains open in 2022. Breadalbane Public School, [Online] available at: https://breadalban-p.schools.nsw.gov.au

¹⁴ National Archives of Australia (NAA), Service Record of Lindsay Bertram Murray, 53 Infantry Battalion AIF

¹⁵ AWM P05899.004, Studio Portrait of LCPL Lindsay Bertram Murray.

¹⁶ Virtual War Memorial Australia, No. 909 Private Percy Edwin Ings.

¹⁷ National Archives of Australia (NAA), Service Record of No. 909 Private Percy Edwin Ings.

¹⁸ NAA, Service Record Percy Ings.

¹⁹ Appendix A, SS106, Notes on Indirect Fire, pp. 20-26, provides a great level of detail associated with the application of fire against adversaries beyond visual range.

²⁰ Army Orders 414 of 22 October 1915.

²¹ Specifications taken from: Handbook for the ·303-In. Vickers Machine Gun (Magazine Rifle Chamber) Mounted on Tripod Mounting, Mark IV, London, October 1914.

²² Even so, as early as 1907 British trials had indicated that two machine-guns would destroy a battalion in the open in only a minute if the troops did not seek cover. See: Dominic Graham, in Tim Travers & Chris Archer (eds.), Men at War: Politics, Technology and Innovation in the Twentieth Century, New Jersey, 2011, p. 74.

²³ Geoffrey Serle, 'McCay, Sir James Whiteside (1864–1930)', Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, 1986.

²⁴ Bean, OH Vol. II., p. 27, Bean was present during this fighting, and he recalled that he knew this battlefield better than any other save Pozières in France.

²⁵ Serle, 'McCay, Sir James Whiteside (1864–1930)'.

²⁶ See Martin Middlebrooke’s defining The First Day on the Somme, London, 1971.

²⁷ Gary Sheffield & John Bourne (eds), Douglas Haig: War Diaries and Letters 1914-1918, London, 2005, p. 203.

²⁸ Bean, OH, Vol. III, pp. 328–333.

²⁹ AWM4 1/50/5 Part 3, General Staff, Headquarters 5^th Australian Division, July 1916, Report on Operations 19 July 1916.

³⁰ Bean, OH, Vol. III, pp. 356-7.

³¹ Bean, OH, Vol. III, pp. 368-9.

³² AWM4 1/50/5 Part 3, Report on Operations 19 July 1916,

³³ Downing, To the Last Ridge: The WW1 Experiences of W.H. Downing, Sydney, 2000, p. 35.

³⁴ Ross McMullin, Pompey Elliot, Melbourne, 2002, p. 224.

³⁵ Wray, Sir James Whiteside McCay, pp. 189-190.

³⁶ Peter Burness (ed.), The Western Front Diaries of Charles Bean, Sydney, 2018, p. 115.

³⁷ NAA, Service Record Percy Ings.

³⁸ NAA, Service Record Lindsay Murray.

³⁹ CCS: Casualty Clearing Station. GSW: Gun Shot Wound.

⁴⁰ NAA, Service Record Lindsay Murray.

⁴¹ The source for Lindsay Murray’s image AWM P05899.004 incorrectly lists his place of death as Pozières. The error may be due to his ienlistment as a reinforcement in the 4^th Battalion of the 1^st Australian Division. Murray’s service in the 53^rd Battalion and place of burial clearly indicate he was killed at Fromelles.

⁴² Bean, OH, Vol. III, p. 442.

⁴³ Bean, OH, Vol. III, p. 444.

⁴⁴ Bean, OH, Vol. III, p. 444.

⁴⁵ Wray, Sir James Whiteside McCay, p. 204.

⁴⁶ Bean, OH, Vol. III, pp. 439-440.

⁴⁷ Burness, The Western Front Diaries of Charles Bean, p. 618.

⁴⁸ ‘Breadalbane District News’, in the Goulburn Evening Penny Post, 6 September 1919, p. 4.

⁴⁹ ‘Breadalbane District News’, in the Goulburn Evening Penny Post, 11 December 1924, p. 2.

⁵⁰ ‘Breadalbane District News’, in the Goulburn Evening Penny Post, 2 October 1934, p. 2.

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(Frederickson, 2024)

Frederickson, L. 2024. 'The Crimson Thread of Kinship'. Available at: https://theforge.defence.gov.au/article/crimson-thread-kinship (Accessed: 27 December 2024).

(Frederickson, 2024)

Frederickson, L. 2024. 'The Crimson Thread of Kinship'. Available at: https://theforge.defence.gov.au/article/crimson-thread-kinship (Accessed: 27 December 2024).

Lewis Frederickson, "The Crimson Thread of Kinship", The Forge, Published: July 16, 2024, https://theforge.defence.gov.au/article/crimson-thread-kinship. (accessed December 27, 2024).

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Within this area, Defence’s newest members will be exposed to the conflict spectrum and theories associated with its employment. While additional emphasis will be afforded to one’s own Service, consideration will be given to joint operations and planning processes. The topic will also include an exploration of current ADF operations and emerging technological impacts on future preparedness.

The ADF’s contribution to Australian National Power through shape, deter and respond activities will be understood in general terms. Tied with this awareness will be ADO roles and responsibilities, including civil-military relations. The importance of Defence’s contribution in this regard will be linked to a general sense of Australia’s strategic environment. Resource management fundamentals will help underpin responsible expenditure of Commonwealth funds.

All members of Defence will also need to be competent in military administration, ADF roles and structures, and undertake all initial mandatory training. This foundation will continue to develop in subsequent JPME levels and increasingly expand opportunites for Joint Stream (out-of-category) postings and roles. APS does not require core military skills.

Following on from their respective recruit or commissioning course, ADF personnel will commence their Initial Employment Training (IET). This period can include workplace experience and periods of on-the-job training.

Graduation from IET marks the formal transition from Level 1 to Level 2. It is at this point when they are considered effective in the workplace.

Defence members at this level will have a sound understanding of their own Service or domain warfare systems and capability. As they progress through Level 2, they will display a stronger understanding about the ADF’s holistic contribution to Joint Force warfighting domains. This will extend to the nature and theory of war, which has developed through an academic study of historical case studies and contemporary military issues. Importantly, such awareness will help inform their understanding of the impact of technology on current and future warfare. Awareness of gender perspectives on operations will contribute to their well-rounded application of the Profession of Arms.

By recognising the difference between complicated and complex problems, personnel at this level will ensure their problem-solving strategies and decision making are optimised. In the earlier stages, personnel will employ more transactional, linear thinking, decision support tools (such as the Joint Military Appreciation Process or variations) but they will increasingly apply alternate thinking strategies to seek more sophisticated options. Greater availability of human-machine teaming systems will progressively reduce our reliance on lower order cognitive activity and thus facilitate more nuanced considerations to complex problems.

Australia’s approach to the formulation of military strategy and its strategic environment (including international and geopolitical) will strengthen as members advance in this Level. Through both courses and experience, they will also acquire a stronger understanding of interagency strategies, policies and decision making processes.

As they progress through Level 2, Defence personnel will progressively develop awareness and then expertise beyond their initial employment category.

These broader systems and processes will expand to include one or more of the five key Joint Streams: Military Support, Operations, Capability Development and Delivery, Strategy Policy and Engagement, and Intelligence.

Within JPME Level 2, Defence personnel will become increasingly proficient in their initial employment category. Through both their formal courses (initial employment training and subsequent intermediate courses) and workplace experience, they will display competency in their contribution to military power. As they develop greater technical expertise, senior personnel at this level will become suitable for growing the next generation, by seeking instructional roles.

Those operating at this level will understand both internal Joint Force command relationships and international engagement with coalition partners. Their employment of operational art will consider instruments of national power and campaign design, while the relationship challenges between strategic, operational and tactical levels of war will be clearly understood. Continual professional development will keep Level 3 practitioners abreast of emerging trends and future warfare techniques. Expertise will be apparent in the planning requirements for force generation and the factors that shape the execution of joint operations. National and military strategic planning considerations for Volatile, Uncertain, Complex, Ambiguous and Novel (VUCAN) environments will mature. Personnel will be increasingly aware of the influence technology has on current and future warfare as well as whole-of-government response options.

Those operating at this level will be increasingly comfortable with systems thinking to perceive and influence complex adaptive systems. Various alternative thinking strategies, such as Design Thinking and Multi-Criteria Decision Making, will allow them to thrive in the challenging multi-domain environment.

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Expertise in one or more of the Joint Streams specific processes will continue to develop with staff and/or leadership responsibilities aligning with roles held.

Examples of the advanced knowledge base likely to be demonstrated include: One Defence Capability System (or its successor) and FIC management, Joint Force staff roles, advanced Human Resources systems and processes, Whole of Government and international engagement approaches, as well as legislative requirements associated with the relevant Joint Stream.

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Increasing leadership expectations will develop within their category’s specialist vocation.

This level is recognised for its future Joint Force planning, development and sustainment challenges. Those operating in these positions will resolve military resource challenges and understand limitations of contracted support to operations. Operational artists will be adept at integrating strategic objectives to planning through the exploitation of emerging and non-traditional concepts for joint and multinational warfare. These skills will manifest in their ability to design and lead theatre strategies, campaigns and major operations. They will also be seeking opportunities to exploit technology’s influence on current and future warfare as well as its role in whole-of-government response options.

Cognitive performance will be enhanced through active seeking of diversity and a tolerance for ambiguity. Dealing with Defence-related wicked systems will be normal.

Problem-solving will increasingly accept increased risk to reflect the greater depth of wisdom and confidence in one’s judgments. This level is also noted for strategic thinking, visioning and championing a learning culture.

Level 4 leaders will be strong advocates of divergent thinking in their subordinates (when appropriate), to ensure Defence continues to improve systems and processes.

Those operating at this level have a very clear understanding of the impacts on national Defence policy and strategy. They will positively influence military capability development to enhance relevant instruments of national power. A strong awareness of contemporary global affairs and trends, combined with a deep understanding of international relations theories, will enhance their management of national military resources to support national security and foreign policy. Gender, peace and security impacts will continue to guide their strategic policy development.

Those operating at this level will be considered Generalists who possess a wide range of skills and expertise in multiple Joint Stream areas. With the exception of a select few specialists, these personnel will have actively sought out opportunities to broaden their versatility beyond their specialisation. Typical areas will include: strategic planning, civil-military relationships, campaign planning, strategic governance, business and financial acumen, One Defence Capability System leadership, strategic direction setting of emerging capabilities, policy leadership for future capability needs, and industry engagement for sustainment and growth.

At the enlisted level, Tier B and C warrant officers provide a vital link across the ADF, not only championing 75% of the ADF at the strategic table but also helping translate the top-down messaging. To do this, they must excel in understanding both worlds. Strategic level warrant officers also play a pivotal role in the command team relationship not only as advisors to decision-makers, but also in the strategic leadership of organisational culture, ongoing professional development, and the ideological underpinnings of the Profession of Arms throughout the ADF’s workforce

For those still in key roles within their primary category, there will be strong leadership expectations to ensure the delivery of capability, strategic advice on capabilities, limitations and future needs, as well as shaping the professional development system to grow future generations within the field.

Senior officers and their equivalents will be comfortable in crisis leadership situations across all aspects of Defence. They will be highly effective when commanding Joint Task Forces or conducting influence operations. This performance will come from a deep understanding of Joint Force attributes, structures, capability requirements, emerging concepts and risks affecting military strategies and campaign development. Their strategic leadership abilities will extend to synthesising operational lessons learned across all Force elements including deployment, employment and sustainment. All of these areas will be enhanced by their astute awareness of political and resource implications in joint warfare strategy and planning.

Multi-agency, political and global wicked systems are an expected reality of Level 5 roles. Those operating at this level will have the cognitive agility to respond comfortably with these challenges by exploiting paradigm shifting approaches (such as nudge theory) to improve systems to a more advantageous state.

Senior leaders at this level will be expert in strategic communication and information impacts. They will comfortably implement grand strategy through future-focused policy formulation and employment of armed forces. Their expertise in national intelligence community and architecture will help them influence national security and foreign policy. The implications of contemporary challenges on national security strategies will be understood. This depth of understanding will be drawn from a strong awareness of national powers’ characteristics, capabilities and limitations combined with the civil-military relations necessary to deliver national power instruments.

Senior officers and SES band public servants at the highest echelons will be skilled in decision cycles and information/knowledge management systems. They will understand Government processes for capability acquisition and how to exploit technology enablers within enterprise systems.

As leaders of Force Element Groups (FEGs) or Joint Task Forces (JTFs), senior military officers will integrate emerging capabilities and technology to both maintain force-in-being deterrence and deliver operations to meet Government response options. In policy and advisory roles, they will exploit emerging capabilities and technologies when shaping military strategy, policy development and implementation. Industry engagement will enhance support of sovereign capability and Australia’s economic prosperity

A Service Warrant Officer is a unique appointment within each Service, one of influence and advice rather than Command. E10 Warrant Officers have strategic leadership responsibilities as Command advisors to Senior Leadership of their Service to provide critical insight to key decisions through an alternative lived experience and with support from Senior Enlisted Personnel to give a balanced, informed and analysed perspective from the workforce.

They also play a pivotal role in the organisation’s leadership, able to utilise their professional knowledge and experience to provide context and make the complex simple and the simple compelling. The unique appointment ensures the Service WO stays connected to contemporise issues for the workforce and represent those gaps and opportunities at the appropriate delegated level.

Service Warrant Officers deliberately steward, communicate and are genuinely dedicated to their Service; while always supporting strategic organisation culture and setting the conditions for long-term success.

Service Warrant Officers have a concurrent liability to foster relationships supporting Australia’s national power through networking and encouraging active engagement with counterparts to promote a commonality of purpose: – Friendship, Partnership and Leadership.

Social Mastery

Trust Development Through Consistency social-character-level2

Character Role Model social-character-level3

Culture Alignment social-culture-level1

Diversity Appreciation social-culture-level2

Cultural Stewardship social-culture-level3

Biography

Lewis Frederickson

Director History and Heritage Services

Group Captain

Lewis Frederickson is a currently serving Air Force Officer within the History and Heritage Branch - Air Force. He previously lectured in the history and strategy of air power as the Chief of Air Force Fellow at the University of New South Wales and the Australian Defence Force Academy. During the course of his military career, Lewis deployed several times to the Middle East Region, and he has enjoyed the gamut of staff, training and operative appointments – though, particularly his service as a Qualified Aviation Instructor.