85th Anniversary of the Battle of Pinios Gorge – A Tough Fight
Reading time: 16 minutes
85 years ago today hundreds of young Australians and New Zealanders were digging into the dry soil of central Greece, preparing to meet the advancing juggernaut of the German army. They fought hard, buying the time the rest of the Allied force needed to withdraw in good order further south.
The battle of Pinios Gorge, also known as the battle for the Tempi valley, was a pivotal rearguard action fought by Anzac troops – mostly made up of Australians – from the 17th to the 18th of April, 1941. Though successful in its main goal, delaying the German advance toward the central Greek town of Larisa, it was also a case study of the things that can go wrong in the fog of war.
The confused identity of the Japanese submarine aircraft that overflew Sydney
Reading time: 26 minutes
In mid-1942 Sydney Harbour was attacked by a midget submarine raid. Some days before, aircraft launched from the mother submarine flotilla overflew the city, to check for targets. Somewhat unbelievably, the aircraft were not identified or fired at, despite being marked as Japanese.
Firepower:Lessons from WWII Seminar – Melbourne
March 19th 2026 @ 5:00 pm – 9:00 pm Firepower: From Lavarack to the Levant to the Littoral Lessons from World War II Presented by The Royal Australian Artillery Historical Company Download the event flyer here to share with your Friends, Colleagues and Associations. History Seminar 1: Australia’s ‘Road to War’ Preparedness and Mobilisation c. 1936-1941 […]
Survival in Singapore: The Triumph and Tragedy of Australia’s Greatest Commando Operation – Book Review
Reading time: 8 minutes
Tom Trumble’s Survival in Singapore offers an unsettling glimpse into one of the darkest chapters of Singapore’s wartime experience – the cruelty unleashed in the wake of Operation Jaywick. Jaywick is somewhat well remembered in Australia, as a daring raid by Australian and British commandos who sailed a disguised vessel, HMAS Krait, through enemy-held waters, hid in the Riau archipelago, and used folboat canoes to attach limpet mines to Japanese shipping in Singapore Harbour. Ships were sunk and damaged; the mission was regarded as ‘tactically brilliant’. Trumble’s book does not deny that brilliance. Instead, it shifts the spotlight to what is far less known and far more confronting; the hideous aftermath inflicted on civilians and internees by the Japanese security apparatus, who were determined to prove the raid must have been enabled by saboteurs from within.
VIETNAM 30/50 Conference – Thirty Years of War/Fifty Years of Reflection – 1945-2025
Military History Conference – Melbourne and Online – Saturday 16 May 2026 9:00 AM – Sunday 17 May 2026 5:00 PM The 30 year war in Vietnam, from 1945-1975, was brutal and devastating. It killed and maimed hundreds of thousands of both soldiers and civilians on both sides and destroyed communities across the country. Australia, […]
First-ever biomechanics study of Indigenous weapons shows what made them so deadly
Reading time: 5 minutes
Archaeological evidence for interpersonal violence (injuries of skeletal remains) is rare in Australia, but when found, usually consists of depressions to the skull and “parrying fractures”. These are breaks to the arm bones above the wrist, resulting from the raising of the arm in defence against a weapon. This can be either from a direct blow or a glancing blow off a shield – like the one used in this experiment.
Men traded wares – but women traded knowledge: what a new archaeological study tells us about PNG sea trade
Reading time: 5 minutes
Hundreds of years ago it was women who caused cultural traditions to spread – possibly through intermarriage – linking communities along Papua New Guinea’s south coast.
Life aboard a submarine in the Med during WW2
Reading time: 4 minutes
Though first invented in the 19th century, submarines didn’t really come into their own as a weapon of war until World War Two, when they saw widespread use by all parties in all theatres. Able to hide underwater and strike whenever they wanted, they were feared by friend and foe alike, but what was life like for the men that crewed these small underwater craft?
LT Reginald Black MC
Reading time: 12 minutes
Reginald Black was born in Double Bay on 4th July 1885 to The Hon. Reginald James Black MLC and Mrs Eleanor Black. He was educated at the Church of England Grammar School (Churchie), North Sydney, and at the time of his enlistment listed his occupation as a grazier operating the property “Jerralong Station” near Boggabri in the Liverpool Plains region between Gunnedah and Narrabri. Despite the location of his property, he was a highly regarded member of the Gordon Cricket Club and was recognized as the first member of the club to enlist in World War One.
New research shows WWII dominates Australians’ knowledge of military history. But big gaps remain
Reading time: 5 minutes
Eighty years ago this week, Japan surrendered after nearly four years of war in the Asia-Pacific. For Australia, this meant the end of not only the war in the Pacific, but also the second world war that had begun six years earlier, in September 1939. In that time, around one million Australians – approximately 15% of the population – served in the armed forces. Over half served overseas, with nearly 40,000 killed and more than 66,000 wounded. But what do Australians today know about this epochal moment in our history? We surveyed 1,500 Australians aged 18 and older to find out.
Anzac Guerrillas – Podcast
When the Germans took thousands of Allied prisoners during the catastrophic Greek campaign of 1941, a handful of Australian soldiers escaped from prison trains in occupied Yugoslavia. What awaited them was not passage home, but a brutal underground war where the fate of a nation was at stake.
Told through the eyes of two of the Australian escapees – mineworker Ross Sayers and storeman Ronald Jones – Anzac Guerrillas is the incredible true story of how these men became resistance fighters, double agents and spies, evading the Nazis and exposing a group of genocidal collaborators.
Ustaše in Australia: the “Citadel” of a Fascist Legacy
Reading time: 14 minutes
Between 1947 and 1952, for 170,000 non-Jewish “displaced persons,” Australia offered a chance to exit the dark, harrowing night of World War II in Europe. Many of these were hungry, traumatised, seeking peace and shelter, a place to work and rebuild. But with them came the kind of settlers which populate nightmares: war criminals, outright fascists, and aiders and abettors of the Nazi regime and its puppets in Eastern Europe.
The Irish Rising that shaped Australia
Reading time: 4 minutes
Even though a rebellion in Dublin might seem relatively minor in the grand scheme of things,” says Professor of Irish Studies at Notre Dame, Declan Kiberd, “it would actually be the pin piercing the heart of the imperial giant.
Life in an Australian field hospital in the Med during WW2
Reading time: 5 minutes
In our documentation of eyewitness accounts of Australians in the Med during WW II, we have mainly focused on the experiences of frontline troops and sailors, men who faced enemy fire and worse. What about people a little farther back from the front, those who took care of the wounded?
New evidence confirms our Indigenous languages have a common source, but how they spread remains a mystery
Reading time: 6 minutes
Have you ever wondered how Australia’s many Indigenous languages relate to one another and how far back the connections go? The Australian continent has been settled by Indigenous people for at least 50,000 years, but just how old are the languages spoken today and where did they originate? Our research provides some answers to these questions – and the answers throw up new and interesting puzzles.
From Captain Cook to the First Fleet: how Botany Bay was chosen over Africa as a new British penal colony
Reading time: 7 minutes
After Captain Cook’s Endeavour voyage in 1770, the east coast of Australia was drawn on European maps of the globe for the first time. Yet, in terms of European contact with the continent, there was an 18-year lull in between Cook’s 1770 landings and the arrival of the First Fleet in 1788.
How the Great War shaped the foundations of Australia’s future
Reading time: 9 minutes
It is striking that 2015 is the 110th anniversary of the Gallipoli offensive, the 80th anniversary of end of the Second World War in the Pacific, and the 50th anniversary of the end of the Vietnam War. This is a good time to reflect not only on the actions of those wars, but on their consequences and their enduring legacies.
World War I in Broken Hill: a Turkish-Inspired Attack on Australia’s Home Soil
From August 1914 to November 1918, over 416,000 men served in Australian forces fighting the First World War, in theatres ranging from the Pacific to the Middle East and France. 60,000 died far from home in battles fought thousands of miles away. But soon after the war began, one of the few instances when the […]
Full Program Announced! Fighting to the Finish: Australia in 1945 – Strategy, Victory and Legacy Conference, Melbourne. Book Now.
Military History & Heritage Victoria is excited to announce that tickets are now on sale for our next conference – Fighting to the Finish: Australia in 1945 – Strategy, Victory and Legacy – which will be held on 11th October 2025 in Melbourne. History Guild is proud to support this conference. Join an esteemed group […]
Open Letter to the Prime Minister: Restoring Equity in Higher Education
The following Open Letter was sent by the Australian Historical Association to the Prime Minister of Australia. History Guild strongly agrees with it’s sentiments. If you would like to support this campaign you can sign a petition here. We write as individuals with a range of political beliefs whose contributions to Australian life owe significantly […]
The story of Nancy Wake
Reading time: 7 minutes
Nancy Wake (1912–2011) was an agent for the Special Operations Executive and the most wanted woman in France during the Second World War. Dubbed the ‘White Mouse’ by the Nazis, she was the one who always got away.
On a Wing and a Prayer – Vimy to Australia 1919-2019
On this day 100 years ago, G-EAOU, a converted World War I Vickers FB.27 Vimy Bomber, landed in Darwin at the conclusion of a stunning international flight, the first England-Australia flight and the world’s longest flight to date, in the Great England to Australia Air Race, 1919 – the achievement of which has been recently compared to […]
Young people remain ill-equipped to participate in Australian democracy
Despite many young Australians having a deep interest in political issues, most teenagers have a limited understanding about their nation’s democratic system. Results from the 2019 National Assessment Program – Civics and Citizenship (NAP-CC) released today show the proportion of young people demonstrating the expected level of knowledge about topics such as democracy and government has not […]
Menzies’ call on Vietnam changed Australia’s course
Reading time: 4 minutes
In 1965, Australia was involved in two crises in Southeast Asia, one in Vietnam and the other in Indonesia. The connection between the two was vital to Menzies’ decision to increase our involvement in Vietnam. Having already committed a battalion to Malaysia to support resistance to the Konfrontasi policy of Indonesia’s Sukarno government, the logical next step for Menzies was to look to Vietnam. He did this with the support of his Cold War warrior and minister for external affairs, Paul Hasluck. They decided to send an Australian battalion to South Vietnam, partly to ensure continued American interest in the region.