ANZAC
HMAS Australia II
HMAS Shropshire carrying out a shore bombardment, circa 1944. Left: Captain JM Armstrong, RAN in conversation with Mr SM Bruce, the Australian High Commissioner to England, in July 1945 following the ship’s arrival at Plymouth. Visible in the foreground is the propeller of one of the Japanese kamikaze aircraft that struck Australia during the bitter fighting in the seas surrounding…
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‘X Lighters’
A number of large purpose-built `X Lighters’ had been developed by the Navy in the First World War and these contributed to the landings at Suvla Bay in 1915. Although something of a military sideshow, the campaign at Gallipoli also made a contribution to the acceptance of the internal combustion…
RNZAF Hercules I
KIW44/NZ7003 C-130H on 40 Squadron RNZAF with troops of the 25th Airborne Brigade JBER during Exercise ‘Talisman Sabre’ in 2015. 40 Squadron RNZAF at Whenuapai operates five C-130Hs, including the first three production H models which, were delivered in April 1965. The squadron’s duties include flights to the Antarctic base…
RNZAF Hercules II
One of five 40 Squadron RNZAF C-130Hs, which included the first three production H models and were delivered in April 1965, crossing a remote Pacific island. The squadron’s duties include flights to the Antarctic base at McMurdo. The RNZAF has provided Hercules air support to cultural activities in New Zealand…
Australian Hercules
Royal Australian Air Force C-130J Hercules The Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) has operated a total of forty-eight C-130 aircraft. The type entered Australian service in December 1958, when 36 Squadron at Sydney’s Richmond Air Force Base accepted the first of twelve C-130A-50-LMs, replacing its venerable Douglas C-47 Dakotas. The…
Film: BREAKER MORANT (1980)
Synopsis Breaker Morant is an Australian war film directed by Bruce Beresford, who also co-wrote the screenplay. Based on Kenneth G. Ross’s eponymous play (1978), the film dramatizes the 1902 court martial of Lts. Harry Morant, Peter Handcock, and George Witton, Australians serving in the British Army during the Second…
The Kempeitai’s Game, 1942–45 – Portuguese East Timor
The SRD operations – one of the greatest intelligence failures in Australian history! In early 1942, as the war situation appeared to become more and more critical, Australia’s government agreed to the establishment of an organisation, the Inter-Allied Services Department (ISD) which later became. Special Operations Australia (SOA) and, in…