Commander Rowland Griffiths-Bowen
- Position
- Member Centenary Committee
- Committee group
- Executive; Aerial; Historical, arts and science and pageantry
- Year of death
- 1965
- Plaque number
- FB13
- Dedicated by
- Kings Park Board on 29 September 1929
- More information
Biography abstract:
Rowland Griffiths-Bowen (14/1/1879 - 21/10/1965) was born at Taggerty, Victoria. His father died when he was seven and the family moved to Petrie, Queensland where Rowland attended the local state school.
In 1895-1911 he worked in Brisbane as a railways clerk. He served in the Queensland Naval Brigade, became a sub-lieutenant in 1900 in the emerging Commonwealth naval forces and in 1922 joined the Royal Australian Navy as a lieutenant.
He was district naval officer at Thursday Island until February 1914 and assistant District Naval Officer (DNO) in Melbourne until the outbreak of the war.
Mid August, Bowen sailed with the Australian Naval and Military Expeditionary Force which had been hastily raised to destroy German wireless stations in the Pacific. In the force's first operation in German New Guinea he led a party of 25 naval reservists in an attack on the radio station at Bitapaka. They were ambushed in dense jungle by a party of natives led by three German officers. In the skirmish that followed one of the Germans was wounded and surrendered. Bowen ordered him, under threat of shooting him, to call on his comrades to surrender for 800 Australians were advancing. Soon afterward Bowen was shot in the head by a sniper and evacuated; he was mentioned in despatches for gallantry and was promoted acting lieutenant-commander in November.
His action in coercing a prisoner to act as a decoy was later described by official historians as an infringement, through ignorance, of the rules of warfare. Legal or otherwise, the incident had unforeseen consequences; the false report of the strength of Australian troops reached the acting governor of German New Guinea who ordered his small force to abandon the defence of the coastal belt. The military occupation of the colony followed without opposition.
In April 1915, he resumed duty in Melbourne and in 1916 because the first state president of the Returned Sailors' and Soldiers' Imperial League. New year he was posted to Perth.
Then 1919-23 he was DNO in Tasmania, followed by DNO in Perth (1923-35). Commander Rowland Griffiths-Bowen retired in 1936 and settled in Sydney.
Commander Rowland Griffiths-Bowen served on several of the Western Australian Centenary Committee groups (Executive; Aerial; Historical, arts and science and pageantry) in 1929.