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?
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.
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.
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.
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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.
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.
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?
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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.
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.
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.
Reading time: 14 minutes From August 1914 to November 1918, over 416,000 men served in Australian...
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Military History & Heritage Victoria is excited to announce that tickets are now on sale for...
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