In Memoriam - Brigadier Noel Russell (Chic) Charlesworth

Brigadier Noel Russell (Chic) Charlesworth, DSO

(1928–2004)

Noel Russell ‘Chic’ Charlesworth was born on 3 January 1928 in Balgowlah in New South Wales. In 1945, after completing his secondary education at Sydney High School during which time he played rugby union for Sydney’s Combined High Schools, Charlesworth applied for a cadetship at the Royal Military College (RMC), Duntroon, and entered the College in February 1946. Charlesworth’s intake was the last of the three-year wartime courses and he graduated in December 1948, having reached the cadet rank of sergeant in his final year and having played for the RMC 1st XV.

Charlesworth was allotted to Infantry, and after completing a young officers’ course at the School of Infantry at Seymour, he was posted as a rifle platoon commander with the 3rd Battalion, The Royal Australian Regiment (3 RAR) in the British Commonwealth Occupation Force (BCOF) in Japan. Early in 1950, with the expected end of the occupation, he commanded a platoon escort for a shipload of Japanese war criminals who had been sentenced to imprisonment on Manus Island. In September 1950, Charlesworth was part of 3 RAR’s deployment to participate in the Korean War.

He took part in 3 RAR’s advance from Pusan in the south to Pakchon in the north, just short of the Yalu River. At the end of October 1950, during a two-company attack on a Chinese Red Army position, Charlesworth was wounded in the lower legs by fragments from a grenade. He was evacuated to the British General Hospital in Japan and completed his medical recovery in Australia at Repatriation General Hospital Concord. After a short period of service with 1 RAR at Holsworthy and after much urging on his part, Charlesworth was posted back to Korea in December 1951 to rejoin 3 RAR as the battalion’s antitank platoon commander.

In August 1952, he attended the British Army School of Infantry at Nether Avon in the United Kingdom. The following year, Charlesworth returned to Australia in order to take up a three-year posting as an instructor at the School of Infantry at Seymour. In 1956, he was appointed Adjutant of the 41st Infantry Battalion (Byron Scottish) and later attended the Command and Staff College at Fort Queenscliff. In the late 1950s and first half of the 1960s, subsequent postings included instructing at RMC Duntroon, as a company commander with the 1st Battalion, Pacific Island Regiment, and service in the Directorate of Military Operations and Plans at Army Headquarters. Promoted to lieutenant colonel, Charlesworth became the Army member of the Joint Intelligence Staff.

In January 1967, Charlesworth assumed command of 2 RAR and led the battalion on its first operational deployment to South Vietnam. There, 2 RAR was joined by two attached companies and supporting elements from the 1st Battalion, the Royal New Zealand Regiment, to form 2 RAR/NZ (Anzac) Battalion under Charlesworth’s command. This was the first occasion on which New Zealand troops served directly under the command of an Australian unit commander. During the Anzac Battalion’s service in Vietnam, the unit took part in fourteen successful operations in which 187 enemy were killed, sixty-seven wounded and twelve captured for the loss of twenty-four Australians and four New Zealanders killed in action. These operations included Coburg, in which the battalion deployed with the remainder of the 1st Australian Task Force to the province of Bien Hoa to take part in the defence of the eastern approaches of the US Army logistics complex at Long Binh. During this deployment, the Viet Cong and the North Vietnamese Army launched the countrywide 1968 Tet Offensive in which the Australian Task Force was instrumental in countering the enemy’s movement through the Bien Hoa area. Charlesworth received the Distinguished Service Order (DSO) for his leadership of 2 RAR during its tour of duty in Vietnam.

After completing his service in Vietnam, Charlesworth was posted to Britain as an instructor at the Staff College at Camberley. Later postings included the Directorate of Infantry and, on being promoted to colonel, the position of Chief of Staff at Headquarters Northern Command. When the 1st Division’s headquarters was reactivated at Enoggera Barracks in 1973, Charlesworth served as its Chief of Staff for six months before being appointed to command the 3rd Task Force at Lavarack Barracks in Townsville with the rank of Brigadier. In 1976, Brigadier Charlesworth became Australian Army Attache in Washington and concluded his career in 1982 in the position of Chief of Staff, Headquarters Field Force Command at Victoria Barracks in Sydney.

In retirement, Brigadier Charlesworth served as the military member of the New South Wales Veterans’ Review Board between 1982 and 1992 and was later President of the Sydney Legacy from 1998 to 2000. He married Bettie in 1952 and had two children, a son Phillip (who followed him to RMC and the Regular Army), and a daughter, Sueanne.

Colonel J. M. Church, DSO (Retd)

Canberra