Major General Sir Frederick Gallagher Galleghan, DSO, OBE, ISO, ED (11 January 1897 – 20 April 1971) was a senior officer in the Australian Army who served in the First and Second World Wars.

Born in a suburb of Newcastle, New South Wales, Galleghan volunteered for service with the Australian Imperial Force in the First World War.

[1] Galleghan volunteered for the Australian Imperial Force (AIF), raised for overseas service at the start of the First World War, in January 1916 and was assigned to 34th Battalion as a corporal.

[1][3] Galleghan return to employment with the postal service, this time on clerical duties, before commencing work for the Department of Trade and Customs in 1926.

It was only following the intervention of Billy Hughes, at the time the Attorney-General of Australia, that an appointment was found for him in October 1940, when he was named commander of the newly formed 2/30th Battalion.

[8] The battalion continued to hold up the Japanese advance, which resumed the following day due to a quick repair of the bridge.

[11] The Japanese continued to advance and three days later, Galleghan briefly commanded the 27th Brigade in an engagement at a rubber plantation; Maxwell had sited his headquarters some distance to the rear.

[13][14] Once on Singapore, the 27th Brigade was tasked with the defence of its northwest coast, with 2/30th Battalion positioned to overlook the causeway between Johore Bahru and the island.

[15] On 9 February, early in the Battle of Singapore and with the Japanese having landed in the adjacent sector, Maxwell sent Galleghan to hospital on the ground he was not fit for duty due to ear troubles.

[16] In Galleghan's absence from the front, the Japanese were able to make significant advances as 2/30th Battalion was withdrawn to the rear by a pessimistic Maxwell, who considered the defence of Singapore a lost cause and was seeking to minimise casualties among his forces.

[17][18] After the Battle of Singapore resulted in the British loss of the island, Galleghan was made a prisoner of war (POW) by the Japanese.

[1] Imprisoned at Changi with the remainder of the captured Allied soldiers, he was put in charge of POWs from the AIF's Base Depot.

The high standards of discipline and presentation that he expected from his 2/30th Battalion was carried over the POWs under his command, with unarmed combat classes and officer training regimes being implemented.

[19] His strict standards resulted in a clash early the following year, when a group of 900 POWs who had been held under harsh conditions in Java arrived at Changi.

Galleghan was critical of their appearance, and suggested that the senior officer in charge of the newly arrived POWs, Lieutenant Colonel Weary Dunlop, be replaced.

Before he and his group of POWs left Changi to go onto a camp on the Thai-Burma railway, Dunlop expressed his disappointment at Galleghan's lack of interest in helping them with provisions.

[1] In the postwar period, Bennett's escape to Australia at the end of the fighting at Singapore came under scrutiny, with some senior generals considering his actions to amount to desertion of his troops.