Portrait of a Manly Hero

Sir Arthur Roden Cutler, 1916-2002

A small cottage in Wentworth Street, close to the Manly School, was the birthplace of Arthur Roden Cutler on Empire Day 21 May 1916 at the height of the Great War. He was the eldest of Arthur and Ruby Cutler's four children - three boys and a girl. Soon after (Arthur) Roden's birth, the Cutler family moved into their newly built home on Addison Road overlooking Little Manly Bay. Roden and his two brothers and sister enjoyed what seems to have been an idyllic childhood, playing on the beach, swimming in the Little Manly tidal pool and fishing off the rocks at Smedley's (Manly) Point. Family life for the Cutlers was a happy one.

When Roden reached school age, he attended Manly Public School throughout Infants and Primary levels and on into the junior secondary school at Darley Road, as did his brothers and sister.

Their father, Arthur Cutler, a commercial salesman, was a well-known, champion shootist in the Manly Rifle Club; Roden was to follow in his father's footsteps, becoming a champion rifle shot both at senior high school and university. In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, many members of the Cutler family, who were mainly settled on sheep and cattle homesteads in the Central West of New South Wales, were champion shootists, some of international calibre. They became widely known as the "Shooting Cutlers" who won many trophies. Arthur and then his son, Roden, were part of that grand tradition.

During the 1920s Manly had become a renowned state school that produced many sporting champions, especially in swimming, surf-life saving and rugby union. It also had developed a strong academic reputation. This was despite the fact that the school at Darley Road was grossly over-crowded, providing schooling at the Infants, Primary and Junior Secondary levels up to the Intermediate Certificate Examination. Roden Cutler enthusiastically absorbed the sporting ethos at the School. At the same time, he was an excellent, hard-working student in class. He represented the School in swimming and cricket, and developed into a strong surfer after school in the surf at nearby South Steyne of Manly Ocean Beach. He was a member of the local Boy Scout troop and attended Sunday School and Youth Fellowship at St Andrews Presbyterian Church.

He was successful in the Intermediate Certificate Examination and thus gained entrance to Sydney Boys' High School, which was highly selective at the time and only took the best of students in Sydney. Only fifteen years of age when he began attending Sydney High, he soon established himself in the school's swimming and cricket teams, and joined the school's military cadet corps. He proceeded on to the Leaving Certificate Examination, matriculating for the University of Sydney. He became a school prefect in his final year and captained the school's representative rifle team. He was also an outstanding water polo player and won School Blues awards for swimming, water polo and rifle-shooting - an all-round school athlete and citizen. During the school holidays, he became a fine horseman, learning to ride on his uncle's property near Bathurst.

Roden's father died tragically in a car accident, and soon after the Leaving Certificate, the young man was compelled to take a job in the Public Trustee's Office to help support his mother and his brothers and sister, who were still at school. In effect, he became the family's main breadwinner. As well, at night he attended lectures at Sydney University. He also joined the University Regiment and managed to maintain his sporting interests. He won University Blues for swimming and rifle-shooting. By evening study, he completed a degree in Economics, majoring in Public Administration. He graduated in 1934.

With the threat of a world war looming in autumn 1939, Roden Cutler enrolled in an army officers' training course gaining the rank of lieutenant. He then began intense artillery training, although with antiquated World War I equipment.

When war was declared on 4 September 1939, Roden Cutler transferred to a Field Brigade. In April 1940 this became part of the Australian 7th Division as the 25th Field Regiment, Royal Australian Artillery. Cutler was appointed one of its four officers under the command of Lieutenant-Colonel Ingate, a First World War veteran.
The youthful Cutler had no hesitation in joining up for overseas on 1 May 1940; such was the keen sense of duty instilled in him by his family, his school and the wider community of Manly. The 25th Artillery trained for most of 1940, but on 20 October they sailed on the Queen Mary for the Middle East. Cutler's division stayed in Palestine for three months of training. The British High Command then decided to invade Syria which was a military stronghold of the Vichy French government who had sided with the German Nazi government in the war.

The twenty-five year old artillery lieutenant from Manly, who was extremely fit, found himself embroiled in the fierce fighting in the bitter and difficult Syrian campaign against the determined French military made up of the French Foreign Legion, elements of the regular French army that had sided with Vichy, and Senegal and Morocco colonial units. The campaign involved savage house-to-house fighting and a harsh, unforgiving mountainous terrain.

Cutler emerged from it all as a fearless hero. In the Syrian Campaign he formed part of the artillery observation team of 2/25 Battalion. On one dangerous occasion, he and a few others set up a forward station in a farm house on an exposed hill to direct artillery fire. An enemy tank spotted them and attacked. They found themselves cut off behind enemy lines. A two-pound shell missed Cutler's head by inches and his comrade, Captain Clark, was mortally wounded, a Bren gunner was killed outright and another Australian infantryman was badly wounded. The situation was grim in the extreme, but Cutler took immediate and decisive action. Assisted by the Bren gun fire from the solitary Australian infantryman left, Cutler used an artillery rifle to hold off enemy tanks from advancing closer. He then supervised the urgent evacuation of the wounded back to safety behind Australian lines.

Later, Cutler set up another artillery telephone line in a stone house in a forward position in a town that was just beginning to be occupied by the French Foreign Legion. Soon Cutler's party was cut off behind enemy lines again in a most dangerous position. Luckily it was nightfall. Under cover of darkness, he and his companions stripped off their boots and crept back in the shadows to the Australian line.

Afterwards, Cutler and his men found themselves attacking a French machine gun outpost at Damour. The Australians were badly held down on broken ground below the outpost by racking fire from three machine gun nests further up the hill. Several casualties resulted. Summing up the situation quickly as well as the lay of the land, Cutler suddenly hurled his 6 feet 4 inch frame up the ridge and charged straight at the closest French machine gun nest. The French gunners were so stunned as he jumped into their enplacement that they immediately surrendered to him. He ran on relentlessly to the next nest yelling for them to surrender in his schoolboy French. They, too, caught off guard, surrendered. He ventured on, hurling a grenade into the third nest while covered by Australian Bren gun fire. All of the enemy nests in that part of Damour were successfully put to silence in a stirring escapade that was all over in a few minutes. Cutler then calmly escorted the prisoners-of-war back to his own line.
Soon after, in hilly country around Damour, the Australian infantry's wireless communications broke down. Cutler volunteered to trek back across the insecure landscape a few miles, and then carry a new telephone line forward so that the artillery fire could be brought down upon the French strongholds to ensure the success of the advance. On his way through exposed and rugged countryside, Cutler was caught in a hail of machine gun bullets and fell badly wounded with his right leg shattered. He lay, isolated and exposed in the day's searing heat and the night's bitter cold for twenty-seven hours with bullets occasionally whistling above him during the day.

All this time his comrades were unable to reach him and his painful leg wound became septic. Finally, because all of the Australian Red Cross stretcher bearers had been shot by enemy fire, French prisoners-of-war were sent forward with a stretcher to retrieve him to safety. It was felt that the Vichy would not fire at their own men. Later, Cutler's leg was amputated above the knee as gangrene had set in and his health was failing badly. His active service in the Syrian Campaign had taken place between 19 June and 6 July 1941, mainly in the Merdjayoun and Damour districts.

After recovering slowly in hospital, but with dangerous relapses, he was repatriated to Australia on the hospital ship Oranje. While on board, sitting in an armchair in the sun, he was told that news had reached the ship over the radio on the BBC News that he was to be awarded the Victoria Cross for bravery, but he found this at first hard to believe.

Roden Cutler was the only Australian artillery officer ever to win the award. Before he arrived in Sydney aboard the Oranje, the news of the award was spread across the front pages of all the metropolitan newspapers, together with photographic portraits of him in uniform, sometimes with his mother, Ruby. He suddenly had become a most famous Australian war hero. Such fame stayed with him for the whole of his life.
The community of Manly was to give their local hero a tumultuous welcome. His mother with his brothers Geoffrey and Robin and sister Doone accompanied him with great pride on a ceremonial ferry journey from Circular Quay to Many Wharf. Roden was in his dress uniform on crutches; Geoffrey was in his RAAF uniform and Robin in that of the AIF. When they arrived at the newly re-built Manly Wharf, a huge excited crowd was waiting and Manly Cove was filled with cheers. Six hundred children from Manly Public School formed a cheering guard of honour along the wharf. Alderman Robert Miller, resplendent in his mayoral robes, greeted the Cutler family as they came down the gangplank. He also was an amputee veteran - of Gallipoli and World War I. He and Roden walked side by side past the school children' guard of honour with Mrs Ruby Cutler on a walking stick between them. They were closely followed by the excited 600 children from Manly Public School. Like the sound of an earthquake, the applause was deafening.

Several thousand people had jostled with each other between Manly Town Hall and the wharf. The whole local community has come together in force to celebrate their hero and hear him speak from the platform:
"Coming back to Manly today is the happiest experience of my life. Many years ago I remember the marvelous welcome given here to 'Boy' Charlton when he returned from the Olympic Games. I didn't think I would ever be so honoured. When I was told this morning that there was a civic welcome for me today I couldn't believe it. It never dawned on me I was a hero. It still doesn't. I feel that the decoration given to me is a symbol of the bravery of all Australians. One can't win it on his own. It takes a whole regiment."

It was a masterly short speech, most appropriate for the home front Australian public, fearful at the time of a Japanese invasion. It was meant to stiffen the sinews.

And the rest is history! After the war, Arthur Roden Cutler had a long and distinguished career in the Australian diplomatic service overseas: in New Zealand, the Netherlands, the United Nations, the United States of America, the Somali Republic, Pakistan, Egypt and Ceylon (now Sri Lanka). He later became (from 1966 to 1981) New South Wales' longest serving state governor.

Sir Arthur Roden Cutler VC AK KCGM KCVO CBE died at the age of eighty-five on Thursday 21 February 2002. After retirement, he had remained vigorously active 'on the sidelines of public life', taking on numerous directorships and company chairs. His outstanding public service had earned him three knighthoods and several honorary degrees from universities. He was patron of numerous sporting, cultural and charitable organisations. Many foundation stones and memorial plaques across New South Wales bear his name. He was truly described as a 'People's Governor'. From the award of the Victorian Cross, he remained an unforgettable public icon as well as a great Manly local hero.

Many people still remember him on ANZAC Day parades in Sydney - a tall, imposing and handsome figure in splendid military regalia drawing special cheers of instant recognition from the street crowds lining the way as he passed by, standing upright and erect in an open military vehicle near the head of the procession.

A vast crowd attended his state funeral in St Andrews Anglican Church and lined the Sydney streets in mourning at the passing of a great Australian. He led a remarkable life of a gentleman, soldier, sportsman and diplomat of the highest caliber. He was indeed a towering war hero, a true son of Manly.

References

John Ramsland, 'A Remarkable Life: Roden Cutler as Sporting, Military and Local Hero', Sporting Traditions. Journal of the Australian Society of Sports History, vol. 20, no 2, May 2004, pp.39-54.

John Percival, For Valour. The Victory Cross. Courage in Action, Thames Methuen, London, 1985, pp.137-158.

Lionel Wigmore & Bruce Harding, They Dared Mightily, Australian War Memorial, Canberra, 1986, pp.141-143.

Colleen McCullough, Roden Cutler, V.C. The Biography, Random House, Sydney, 1998, 418p.