Virtual
War Memorial
Australia

Phil Greville was born in Queenscliff, the son of Staff Sergeant (later Colonel) S J Greville, OBE of the Australian Signals Corps. After schooling in Victoria, New South Wales and the Australian Capital Territory—a consequence of the posting cycle even then—he graduated from one of the wartime courses at RMC Duntroon in December 1944 (although through illness he was not commissioned until  January 1945). He served in New Guinea at the war’s end, with the 2/8th Field Company RAE and with several engineer works units building infrastructure variously for soldiers awaiting repatriation to  Australia, Japanese prisoners of war awaiting processing back to Japan, and to support the re-establishment of the 8th Military District with its postwar responsibilities for the defence of the Australian  territories of Papua New Guinea. 

He returned to Australia in February 1946 and enrolled at the University of Sydney to complete his engineering degree. Like many returned soldiers at the time, he was older than some of the undergraduates alongside him and suffered from repeated bouts of malaria. The courses were overcrowded and the facilities strained as a result, but he completed the program successfully and was  posted as SORE2 to the staff of the Chief Engineer of Eastern Command, Colonel R R McNicoll. In late 1951 he was posted to 1RAR in command of the assault pioneer platoon; cross-posting of junior officers from other corps was necessitated by the decision to boost the Australian commitment to the Korean War to two infantry battalions in a regular army that possessed just three. While engaged  in work on a minefield in August 1952, Greville and one of his soldiers were captured by the Chinese. As a captain he was the most senior Australian prisoner of the war, and spent a year in the Chinese camps during which he was interrogated vigorously and subjected to the usual round of attempted indoctrination.

Repatriated in September 1953, he held a variety of increasingly senior engineer postings over the next twenty years. In July 1955 he was appointed engineer instructor at RMC Duntroon with additional responsibility for works, and in this capacity oversaw the first major postwar expansion of facilities including the building of Anzac Block, the Military Instruction Wing and the swimming pool. He attended the Staff College, Camberley in 1959 followed by the Long Transportation course in the United Kingdom; on his return to Australia at the end of 1961 he assumed the post of Director of  Transportation in Army Headquarters, a position he held until the middle of 1965. In this capacity he developed policies and procedures for the maintenance of forces ashore that would be the basis of  Army practice in both Borneo and Vietnam. Senior staff jobs followed in Eastern Command, culminating in his appointment as Commander of the 1st Australian Logistic Support Group (1ALSG) in  Vietnam in which he presided over the wind-down and disposal or return of the large logistics support and maintenance organisation that had gradually been built up in Vung Tau. Greville’s fiercest  battles were fought as Director Transport (Army) and DirectorGeneral, Movements and Transport (Defence) between 1973–74. The creation of a separate transportation corps within the Army—drawn  from capabilities formerly possessed by the RAE and the Royal Australian Army Service Corps (which was abolished)— and the decision to create a separate Logistics Command, to be based in  Melbourne, posed significant problems because of the ways in which they were implemented. In particular, Greville argued strenuously against the decision to locate logistics and movement planning  staff away from Army Headquarters in Canberra, and foresaw significant longer-term problems for the Army’s capacity to maintain a force at a distance through the downgrading of maritime and  terminal operating capabilities and the passing of responsibility for army small ships to the Royal Australian Navy. Many of his arguments were to be vindicated, in time. 

His final appointment was as commander of the 4th Military District with headquarters in Adelaide. He retired from the Army in 1980, and embarked on a second and equally vigorous career as a  consultant, author and commentator. He was defence correspondent for the Adelaide Advertiser, wrote regularly for Pacific Defence Reporter and, for a number of years, acted as research officer for  Senator Don Jessop (South Australia). In 2002 he published the fourth volume of the RAE corps history, Paving the Way, which covered the decades of his own professional involvement between 1945–72 and which offers an immensely detailed and authoritative study of Army engineering issues and their impact on the wider Army in a period of more-or-less constant overseas engagement.

Forthright in his views, possessed of a sharp intellect and a dry sense of humour, he was a noted cricketer and footballer (AFL) in his youth and maintained these interests alongside a passion for  history and writing in his retirement. He died after a period of ill-health at Southport, Queensland on 10 March 2011.
Article adapted from Dr Jeffrey Grey’s article in the Australian
Army Journal