Brudenell White

General Sir Cyril Brudenell Bingham White, (23 September 1876 – 13 August 1940), more commonly known as Sir Brudenell White or C. B. B. White, was a senior officer in the Australian Army who served as Chief of the General Staff from 1920 to 1923 and again from March to August 1940, when he was killed in the Canberra air disaster.

Early life and career Group portrait of officers at the Staff College at Camberley in 1906. White, then a lieutenant, is in the back row, third from the left.

White was born in St Arnaud, Victoria, on 23 September 1876. He joined the colonial militia force in Queensland in 1896, and served in the Second Boer War with the Australian Commonwealth Horse. In 1901 he became a founding member of the new Australian Army, and in 1906 was the first Australian officer to attend the British staff college. In 1912 he returned to Australia and became Director of Military Operations, at a time when Andrew Fisher's Labor government was expanding Australia's defence capacity.

First World War When the First World War broke out in August 1914, White supervised the first contingents of the Australian Imperial Force (AIF) to go the front. During the Gallipoli campaign, he was chief of staff to Major General Sir William Bridges and then to Major General William Birdwood, gaining the rank of brigadier general in October. He was awarded the Distinguished Service Order (DSO) for his actions during the opening phase of the campaign. The citation for the medal, appearing in The Edinburgh Gazette in July 1915, reads as follows:

After the early 1916 evacuation from Gallipoli which he masterminded as "The Silence Ruse", he was Brigadier General, General Staff (BGGS) of I ANZAC Corps in France, arriving there late in March.