Reg Pollard (general)

Sir Reginald George Pollard, KCVO, KBE, CB, DSO was a senior commander in the Australian Army. He served as Chief of the General Staff from 1960 to 1963. In 1962, he oversaw deployment of first team of Australian military advisors to South Vietnam. In 1970, he served as Australian Secretary to Queen Elizabeth II during the Royal Visit.

About Reg Pollard (general) in brief

Sir Reginald George Pollard, KCVO, KBE, CB, DSO was a senior commander in the Australian Army. He served as Chief of the General Staff from 1960 to 1963. Born in Bathurst, New South Wales, Pollard graduated from the Royal Military College, Duntroon, in 1924. Pollard joined the Second Australian Imperial Force in 1940, and the following year saw action with the 7th Division in the Middle East, where he was mentioned in despatches. He spent much of the remainder of the war in staff and training positions in Australia. In 1962, he oversaw deployment of the first team of Australian military advisors to South Vietnam. After retiring from the military in 1963, he became Honorary Colonel of the Royal Australian Regiment. In 1970, he served as Australian Secretary to Queen Elizabeth II during the Royal Visit in 1970 and was appointed a Knight Commander of theRoyal Victorian Order the same year. He died at Wyrallah, NewSouth Wales, in 1978, and was buried at St Andrew’s Anglican Church, Strathfield, on 31 October. He was the third son of Albert Edgar Pollard and his Australian wife Thalia Rebecca, née McLean. He married Daisy Ethel Potter, a typist, on October 31, 1939. He had three children, one of whom died in infancy. He is survived by his wife and three children. He also had a son, David, who died in 2010. He has a daughter, Victoria, and a son-in-law, Peter, who served in the British Army in the 1980s and 1990s, and died in 2011, aged 89.

He and Frederick Scherger inaugurated a tradition when they found a horse’s jawbone during a field exercise. The previous year, they declared their find a lucky charm and brought it back to the college as a mascot; it became known as “Enobesra”. Pollard was appointed adjutantquartermaster of the 17th Battalion, headquartered at North Sydney, in July 1925. In December 1932, while serving with the 44th in Western Australia, he was promoted to captain. In November 1938, he travelled to England to attend Staff College, Camberley; he graduated in September 1939, the planned two-year course having been curtailed to the outbreak of the Second World War. In June 1940, he joined the Australian Defence Force Act of 1940 and served as Assistant Military Liaison Officer at the Australian High Commission in London. His next posting was as General Staff Officer Grade 3, General Duties at the 2ndnd District Training Base, Sydney. In July 1938 he was transferred to the National Army Camp, Melbourne, and in October 1936 he was posted to Headquarters Headquarters, 2nd District Base, Melbourne. He returned to Australia in November 1936. In September 1937 he was appointed as adjutantsquartermaster to, successively, the 18th Battalion and, in September 1932, the 44rd Battalion. In October 1937 he became commandant of the National Rifle Association of Western Australia.

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