John Hamilton: John's new book, Price of Valour details the life of Hugo Throssell, Victoria Cross recipient. The book was launched by former Prime Minister John Howard at the Shrine of Remembrance on Thursday 23 August 2012.
Terry Smith tells the little known story of the Australia Army Training Team Vietnam (AATTV). In 1972, 64 Australians, who never numbered more than 30 at any one time, helped to train light infantry battalions of the Cambodian Amy. A total of 13, 6000 officers and men were trained in Phuoc Tuy Province of South Vietnam between January and November 1972.
Patrick Lindsay. Since 2002, Patrick Lindsay has established himself as one of Australia's leading non-fiction authors, having written 17 books. Patrick will explore the Spirit of Kokoda, looking at how it was created on the Kokoda Track in Australia's darkest days in 1942 and why it is still relevant and inspiring Austrailans 70 years on.
Nigel Buesst. No man better personified the archetypal Australian of the early decades of the last century than Albert Jacka. His heroic feats captured the imagination of a generation. Join director Nigel Buesst for this special screening of his documentary on Jacka, the first Australian Victoria Cross recipient of World War I. Please note: this file only includes audio discussion and does not include the documentary.
Dr Peter Pederson. Much has been written, particularly in recent years, about the costly attack at Fromelles on 19 July 1916. If some have called it the forgotten battle, an epithet which was never really merited, they can hardly do so now. This talk will analyse various facets of the planning and execution of the attack and set them within the context of the tactical doctrine that guided the operations of the British Expeditionary Force at the time.
Alasdair McGregor. Arguably best remembered for his photographs of Douglas Mawson and Ernest Shackleton's Antarctic expeditions, Frank Hurley was also a renowned war photographer and cine cameraman. He saw service with the AIF from the horrific battles of Flanders in World War I to the Desert Camplaign of North Africa in World War II.
Join the Shrine's Manager of Exhibitions and Collections, Jean McAuslan, on a specual Curator's Tour of the award winning travelling exhibition, 'Indigenous Australians at War: from the Boer War to the present'. Jean will uncover the individual and family stories of service and sacrifice of the First Australians.
Jen Hawksley. Join war historian, Jen Hawksley, from the University of Wollongong, to discuss aspects of her research into Australian parents who were institutionalised after losing thier son/s during the First World War and returned soldiers who were treated in hospitals for shell shock and other war-related psychological conditions. Jen will conceptualise an unprecedented national trauma at the microcosm of the individual patients, their families and the doctors who tried to treat a generation...
Peter Rees. By the end of the Great War, forty-five Australian and New Zealand nurses had died on overseas service and over two hundred had been decorated. These were women who left for war on an adventure but were soon confronted with remarkable challenges for which their civilian lives could never have prepared them. Peter Rees takes us into the hospital camps, the wards and the tent surgeries on the edge of some of the most horrific battlefronts of human history.
Join Associate Professor, Glen Stasiuk, from Murdoch University, for the screening and discussion of his documentary 'The Forgotten'. Glen explores the role played by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders in European and American wars and Australia's peacekeeing missions. These proud 'Black Diggers' have continued a warrior tradition that stems back through the ages. Aboriginal soldiers have replaced the spear with the gun. the kangaroo hide with the khaki uniform, the boomerang with the grenad...
Ross McMullin. Pompey Elliott was a charismatic, controversial and outstandingly successful Australian commander. He was significant in such major battles of the Great War as Fromelles, Polygon Wood and Villers-Brettonneux. An accomplished tactician and remarkably brave, he was renowned for never sending anyone anywhere he was not prepared to go himself. His tempestuousness generated numerous anecdotes that amused his men and disconcerted his superiors. Historian, Ross McMullin, has written an a...
An historian from the Sea Power Centre - Australia, discusses the Battle of the Coral Sea in 1942. That year is remembered in Australia's history as being amongst the darkest days of World War II. Australia's mainland came under attack within months of Japan entering the war. Securing Australia's sea lines of communications was pivotal to keeping Australia in the fight. The Battle of the Coral Sea was one of several important naval battles and the precursor for the Battle of Midway.
Ross McMullin. In evaluating the impact of the Great War, Australians have tended to focus on the collective impact of all the casualties. there has been less focus on the individuals of exceptional talent and potential who did not return. Australians today don't know the stories of these special identities whose loss was a national deprivation. Historian, Ross McMullin, biographer of Pompey Elliott, has been researching Australia's lost generation for his latest book.
David Howell
Daniel Reynaud joins us from the Avondale College of Higher Education Lake Macquarie, NSW, to discuss the fascinating interacting development of the ANZAC Legend and Australian War Cinema. Associate Professor Reynaud is Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Theology and is and authority on ANZAC cinema, having published a number of scholarly articles and a book.
Antonio SagonaDespite the centrality that the Gallipoli peninsula and the 1915 campaign have in the psyche of many Australians, the Battlefield itself has not bee physically studied in great detail. This illustrated lecture will report on the first two seasons of archaeological fieldwork conducted in 2010 and 2011 in the ANZAC Battlefiled. Join Professor Tony Sagona from the University of Melbourne to discuss the discoveries made on the Gallipoli Peninsula.
Brian Tate. Born to a samurai clan mother and Australian father, Harry Freame's remarkable life and mysterious death are the stuff of adventure novels. Clipper ship sailor, adventurer, soldier of fortune, crack pistol shot and Gallipoli hero. Following the outbreak of the Second World War and anticipating Japan's inevitable march through the Pacific, Freame was recruited from his apple orchards into the world of mirrors as an undercover agent for the Australian Military Intelligence. Join author...
When the Chief of British Intelligence told Australia's First Official War Correspondent, CEW Bean in October 1914 that war reporters were a 'dying profession', Bean recorded in his diary that, on the contrary, he thought it was the beginning on a new era. Bean proved prescient. This talk examines how wars have been reported over time, censorship and the ANZAC legend. Dr Fay Anderson from Monash University reveals the challenges, fears, regrets, successes, and personal dangers experienced when r...
Peter Grose. For Australians, wars are fought in that mysterious land called "overseas". Few Australians are aware of the bitter battles on their own soil. There were 97 Japanese air raids on Northern Australia, including Darwin, which remains the worlst single event in Australian history with as many as 300 dead. A midget submarine attack inside Sydney Harbour led to 21 Allied sailors killed. Sydney and Newcastle were shelled. Peter Grose, author of 'An Awkward Truth' and 'A Very Rude Awakening...
Cameron Forbes. The Korean War had a profound impact on the world and the great ideological confrontation that was the Cold War. It also gave shape to Australia's strategic alliance with the United States and set the pattern for our involvement in Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan. Multi-award winning journalist and author Cameron Forbes will talk both about the giants of history - Mao, Stalin and Truman - and about the marvelous Diggers in an Australian force wich punched above their weight....
Pattie Wright. 2012 marks the 70th anniversary of the sinking of the HMAS Perth I and USS Houston in the plucky Battle of the Sunda Strait on 1 March 1942. Pattie will discuss the men's attempts to survive, escape and the POW years on the Thai Burma Railway and in Japan.
Anthony Cooper. In 1943, a small band of inexperienced Australian and British fighter pilots fought an ongoing air battle in defence of north western Australia, flying against a formidably skilled and proficient opponent. The air raids on Darwin during 1942-43 constituted the only sustained and intensive direct assault on Australian mainland territory in the whole of World War Two. Anthony Cooper, a Brisbane school teacher and author of Darwin Spitfires tells this little known story, and in so d...
Garth Pratten. The fall of Singapore is widely regarded as one of the allies' greatest military disasters of the Second World War. Central to British strategy in Asia and the Pacific, Singapre was touted as an impregnable fortress, home for a mighty fleet and yet it was conquered by the Japanese in a week. This presentation will examine the reasons for that calamitous defeat and also address some of the many myths that, 70 years later, still bedevil Australia's understanding of it.
Rosalie Triolo. No one emerges unchanged from war and Victoria's First World War teachers were no different. For some, there was no return to the classroom. For those who did reenter the workforce, some battled, briefly or for decades, with physical or psychological challenges. Others, however, managed to salvage something positive from their experiences, finding what their director knew they must find:'some soul of goodness in things evil. Join Monash University historian, Rosalie Triolo, as sh...
Ian Pfennigwerth. This year marks the centenary of the Royal Australian Navy. Join naval historian, Ian Pfenningwerth as he discusses the important and often overlooked role of the Navy during the First World War. Hear about the significant role this new Australian fleet had in persuading the German Navy to leave the Pacific.
Panel Discussion. The original purpose of military uniforms was identification but through the years, uniforms have evolved in response to changes in warfare, fashion and technology. Join this panel discussion on the evolution of twentieth century military uniforms, with particular reference to the uniforms featured in the Shrine's anniversary exhibitions, 'Pride of the Nation:Centenary of the Navy' and 'Greece, Crete and Syria' and also the ManStyle lexhibition at the National Gallery of Victor...
Stephen Dando-Collins. 'Crack hardy' was a saying used in the First World War trenches. It meant 'grin and bear it, put on a brave face'. The Searle boys had to crack hardy as they fought in one gruelling campaign after another. One brother was killed at Gallipoli, another on the Western Front and one came home a decorated hero. Join award winning author Stephen Dando-Collins, the great nephew of the Searle brothers, as he shares his family's story.
Jean McAuslan, Manager of Exhibitions and Collections at the Shrine of Remembrance, will share her insights into her recent tour of First World War (1914-18) sites of commemoration in Gallipoli, Belgium and the Somme Valley. Jean accompanied year 9 and 10 recipients of the 2011 Spirit of ANZAC prize. At Gallipoli they shared the chill conditions experienced by the original ANZACs on 25 April 1915 and the Dawn Service at Villers Brettoneux in France. Jean will speak about the enriching experience...
Mark Johnston. Australian airmen engaged the Japanese on the first and the last days of the Pacific War, as well as most of those in between. By 1945, the RAAF had grown from a numerically and technologically inferior force to the fourth largest in the world. Using the testimonies of the airmen themselves, Mark Johnston traces the inspiring but bumpy journey of the RAAF in the Pacific from defeat to victory.
