Field marshal is the highest rank of the Australian Army and was created as a direct equivalent of the British military rank of field marshal. It is a five-star rank, equivalent to the ranks in the other armed services of Admiral of the Fleet in the Royal Australian Navy, and Marshal of the Royal Australian Air Force. The subordinate army rank is general. Appointed field marshals Lord Birdwood, 1925 Field Marshal Sir William Birdwood (later created The 1st Baron Birdwood) was a British Army officer who commanded the Australian Imperial Force (AIF) in the First World War. As such, he was made a general in the AIF in 1917, and in the Australian Army in 1920. When he was promoted to the rank of field marshal in the British Army on 20 March 1925, Birdwood was also made an honorary field marshal in the Australian Military Forces. He held the rank until his death on 17 May 1951, and his baton is kept in the Australian War Memorial. King George VI, 1938 King George VI was appointed a field marshal in the Australian Army on 2 June 1938. Sir Thomas Blamey, 1950 Sir Thomas Blamey was the first and is the only Australian-born field marshal of the Australian Army. He was promoted to the rank on the insistence of the then Australian Prime Minister Sir Robert Menzies. Blamey served in the First World War in the First Australian Imperial Force (AIF), from the horrors of trench warfare at the ANZAC positions at Gallipoli to duties as chief of staff to Lieutenant General Sir John Monash, Commander of the Australian Corps in France and Belgium. Blamey attained the rank of brigadier general by the war's end. During the inter-war years he served as chief commissioner of the Victoria Police. During the 1920s and 1930s he expressed public concern over the state of the Australian Military Forces due to financial restrictions brought about by the Great Depression. Later, during the Second World War, he commanded the 2nd AIF. He was promoted to general in 1941 and became Commander-in-Chief of the Australian Military Forces and Commander of Allied Land Forces in the South West Pacific Area under the overall command of United States General Douglas MacArthur. Blamey attended Japan's ceremonial surrender in Tokyo Bay on 3 September 1945 and signed the Instrument of Surrender on behalf of Australia. He later personally accepted the