Australian Archives

‘Vietnam vanguard’—a unit history of lasting value

by History Guild | Mar 20, 2023 | Military History | 0

Reading time: 5 minutes
The 5th Battalion’s approach to counter-insurgency, 1966. The first Australian infantry battalion to be committed to Vietnam in 1965, 1RAR, was inserted into the American 173rd Airborne Brigade. Theirs was not a happy experience. The Australians were not impressed by the American way of war, with its emphasis on massive firepower and measuring success by body counts and kill ratios. Many thought that the tactics developed by Australian and British forces in the Malayan Emergency and the Indonesian Confrontation were better suited to the Vietnam campaign, and less likely to lead to a politically unacceptable casualty rate.

The role of Australian industrial power in the defeat of Japan in World War II

by History Guild | Mar 15, 2023 | Military History | 0

Reading time: 7 minutes
Questions remain about what stopped the Japanese from invading Australia, and how it was that many of our personnel came home alive and unwounded despite the dreadful conditions they faced.

The answers largely define an achievement of Australia’s World War II generation.

What Vietnam and Iraq should teach Canberra

by History Guild | Mar 8, 2023 | Military History, Political and Economic History | 0

Reading time: 7 minutes
If we learn more from losses than wins, then the Canberra system has much to gain from examining its lousy performance in the processes that took Australia to war in Vietnam and Iraq. For Australia, both wars were all about the alliance with the United States. Both were wars of choice, although the regional implications Canberra read into Vietnam meant it was closer to a war of necessity than Iraq.

Both wars exemplify the Prime Minister’s most profound prerogative and Parliament’s lack of power. The entry to both showed the Canberra system performing below its best, revealing again the truth that artifice and farce often attend the most serious of moments of government.

Rediscovered: the Aboriginal names for ten Melbourne suburbs

by History Guild | Mar 2, 2023 | Historical Sites, Social and Cultural History | 0

Reading time: 7 minutes
Ten previously forgotten Aboriginal names for 19th century sites and suburbs of Melbourne have been recently unearthed at the Melbourne Museum. These include the names for Fitzroy (Ngár-go), Richmond (Quo-yung), Collingwood (Yálla-birr-ang) and Brunswick (Bulleke-bek).

Why archaeology is so much more than just digging

by History Guild | Feb 27, 2023 | Social and Cultural History | 0

Reading time: 5 minutes
People invariably want to hear about skeletons, pots and bits of shiny metal. It’s this type of stuff that you will often see in the media, giving the misleading impression that archaeological process is only about excavation.

While the trowel and spade are an important inclusion in the archaeological toolkit, our core disciplinary definition – that of using humanity’s material remains to understand our history – means that we utilise many ways of engaging with this past.

Australia, Indonesia and Confrontation

by History Guild | Feb 21, 2023 | Military History, Political and Economic History | 0

Reading time: 4 minutes
Between 1963 and 1966, Australian troops supported British and Malaysian forces who were opposing the Indonesian ‘Confrontation’ (Konfrontasi) of the new federation of Malaysia.
The Indonesian Confrontation (as it’s now officially designated) was a relatively small conflict instigated by Sukarno, soon wiped from the public mind and memory by the much larger war in Vietnam. But Jakarta’s provocative mixture of political rhetoric, diplomatic posturing, and low-level military engagements always carried the danger of escalation, threatening Australia’s national interests and complicating our alliance relationships.

Safeguarding our Heritage – Why we must fund Trove

by History Guild | Feb 16, 2023 | Advocacy, Social and Cultural History | 0

Reading time: 2 minutes
Trove, the National Library of Australia’s (NLA) public online database, has grown to include over 6 billion individual items. These include everything from newspapers and magazines to photographs, parliamentary papers, government and organisational reports, theses and research, audio, video and books. These are items from the NLA’s archives as well as contributions from over 1,000 organisations across Australia. These groups have been contributing thousands of volunteer hours to the task of preserving, collating, digitising and describing important artefacts from Australia’s history. They did this safe in the knowledge that it would then be maintained and safeguarded for future generations.

Peta Clancy brings a hidden Victorian massacre to the surface with Undercurrent

by History Guild | Feb 15, 2023 | Social and Cultural History | 0

Reading time: 6 minutes
The slaughter of Australian soldiers at Gallipoli in 1915 is claimed by many to be a key factor in the building of our national identity. However, warfare on our own soil has been concealed beneath a code of secrecy and silence.

A tale of subterfuge, rivalry, Napoleon and snakes: how the NSW State Library came to own the map of Abel Tasman’s voyages

by History Guild | Feb 9, 2023 | Political and Economic History | 0

Reading time: 6 minutes
Every year, tens of thousands of New South Wales State Library patrons walk past a stunning mosaic replica of the Tasman Map on the floor of the Mitchell library vestibule. The original Tasman map, recently restored, charts the two voyages of the Dutch explorer Abel Tasman in 1642 and 1644.

Why we must better understand our history

by History Guild | Jan 12, 2023 | Advocacy, Political and Economic History, Social and Cultural History | 0

Reading time: 5 minutes
History never repeats itself, but it does often rhyme. Mark Twain.
As a society it is vitally important that we understand our own history, as well as the history of other peoples throughout time. This is the only way we can make informed decisions about how we should approach the challenges that we face in the present and the future.

Left to ruin: we must preserve our forgotten wartime defences

by History Guild | Jan 10, 2023 | Historical Sites, Military History | 0

Reading time: 5 minutes
Australia built a number of coastal defences to help protect the country from any enemy attack during the second world war. Now, almost 80 years later, some of the physical remnants of those historic facilities lie forgotten and decaying.

These monuments to the nation’s home defence are in desperate need of preservation. While their condition varies greatly, too many have faded into obscurity.

Protecting country: Indigenous Australians in the defence of the north

by History Guild | Dec 29, 2022 | Military History | 1

Reading time: 5 minutes
Notions of ‘protecting country’ have, anecdotally at least, been a key motivation for Indigenous people to participate in Australia’s defence services since World War I. It may well be one reason they have been joining the army reserve’s Regional Force Surveillance Units for the past 30-odd years. The youngest of the three units, 51st Battalion, Far North Queensland Regiment, even has as its motto Ducit amor patriae, ‘The love of country guides me’.

Given that it’s been almost three decades since we last considered the defence of Australia’s north, it’s time to think about whether there are new ways to involve Indigenous people in that endeavour.

Tag: Australian