About Reality of war

Click here for all items related to: Reality of war Here you will find an emphasis on what war was really like for those who fought it. There is necessarily some overlap with the material under Home front and Aftermath,

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From the Honest History vault: how far from the tree does Murdoch fruit fall?

We first posted this in 2016 and have reposted it since but it is very apt again, speaking as it does to how characteristics are nurtured and passed on, mentors and governments brown-nosed and seduced – and sometimes perhaps controlled

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From the Honest History vault: Afghanistan: The Australian Story 2017 (a documentary)

The War Memorial’s Afghanistan exhibition was opened in 2013 but is now closed during the Memorial’s $550m Big Build, part of the justification for which was to have more space available to show what Australians did in Afghanistan. The previous

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Cashen, Phil: ‘Service and sacrifice’ in the Great War: analysed (as it should be more often)

Phil Cashen ‘”Service and sacrifice” in the Great War: analysed (as it should be more often)’, Shire at War, 30 October 2022; 11 December 2022 Update 17 February 2023: Analysis of the wounded returned men from the Shire of Alberton

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From the Honest History vault: Mythbusting about the Australian involvement in Vietnam

Update 30 August 2023: Our Vietnam War, three-part ABC, Australian government series. Update 18 August 2023: 50th anniversary of departure of last Australian troops from Vietnam: joint media release from Minister and Prime Minister; Prime Minister’s speech. Update 15 August

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Stanley, Peter: Forty questions about The Digger of Kokoda

Peter Stanley* ‘Forty questions about The Digger of Kokoda’, Honest History, 8 August 2022 updated Update 1 September 2022: Peter Stanley on Pearls and Irritations website. Update 15 August 2022: Nicholas Stuart in the Canberra Times (paywall); see also articles

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80 years since Kokoda: lots of brave deeds but not ‘the battle that saved Australia’?: Honest History resources

The Australian War Memorial is today commemorating 80 years since the beginning of the Kokoda campaign in World War II. An AAP piece appears in many newspapers today, including comments from Dr Karl James, War Memorial historian. Whether or not

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From the Honest History vault: The Holocaust at the Australian War Memorial

In December 2016, Honest History published a review by Professor Peter Stanley of the then recently opened Holocaust exhibition at the Australian War Memorial. We added to it later with a 2019 speech from then Memorial Director, Brendan Nelson, to

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Newton, Douglas: Private Ryan and the Lost Peace: A Defiant Soldier and the Struggle against the Great War

Douglas Newton Private Ryan and the Lost Peace: A Defiant Soldier and the Struggle against the Great War, Longueville Media, Sydney, 2021 Imagine the Great War ending early, in 1915, or 1916, or even 1917. Imagine round-table negotiations and a

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Stephens, David: Everyman as soldier: how men in suits in drawing rooms conned the people – and their families – into fighting on

David Stephens* ‘Everyman as soldier: how men in suits in drawing rooms conned the people – and their families – into fighting on’, Honest History, 28 May 2021 David Stephens reviews Douglas Newton’s Private Ryan and the Lost Peace: A

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Baker, Mark: The Emperor’s Grace: Untold Stories of the Australians Enslaved in Japan during World War II

Mark Baker The Emperor’s Grace: Untold Stories of the Australians Enslaved in Japan during World War II, Monash University Publishing, Melbourne, 2021 The Emperor’s Grace is the story of the men of C Force – the first contingent of Australian, British

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Alexander, Kristen: Readable account of Australian POWs in Japan – though it lacks a bit of context

Kristen Alexander* ‘Readable account of Australian POWs in Japan – though it lacks a bit of context’, Honest History, 14 May 2021 Kristen Alexander reviews Mark Baker’s The Emperor’s Grace: Untold Stories of the Australians Enslaved in Japan during World

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Goodwin, Paul with Gordon Goodwin: The Last Navigator

Paul Goodwin with Gordon Goodwin The Last Navigator, Allen & Unwin, Sydney, 2020 Promoted as ‘From the Queensland bush to Bomber Command and Pathfinders … a true story of courage and survival against the odds’. This is the powerful first-hand

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Alexander, Kristen: Defining moments in the skies over Germany and beyond

Kristen Alexander ‘Defining moments in the skies over Germany and beyond’, Honest History, 29 July 2020 Kristen Alexander reviews The Last Navigator by Paul Goodwin with Gordon Goodwin  ‘War was my father’s defining moment’, Paul Goodwin writes. It released Ralph

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Smaal, Yorick & Mark Finnane: Diggers doing time? Australian courts martial 1914-19

Yorick Smaal & Mark Finnane* ‘Diggers doing time? Australian courts martial 1914-19’, Honest History, 30 April 2020 [Note: The authors are seeking help from volunteer citizen historians. See the endnote. HH] From 1916, Anzac Day was commemorated to remember the

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Pegram, Aaron: Surviving the Great War: Australian Prisoners of War on the Western Front 1916–18

Aaron Pegram Surviving the Great War: Australian Prisoners of War on the Western Front 1916–18, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge & Port Melbourne, 2020; electronic version available Between 1916 and 1918, more than 3,800 men of the Australian Imperial Force were

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Alexander, Kristen: They also served: Australians dealing with the challenge of captivity during the Great War

Kristen Alexander* ‘They also served: Australians dealing with the challenge of captivity during the Great War’, Honest History, 13 March 2020 Kristen Alexander reviews Surviving the Great War: Australian Prisoners of War on the Western Front, 1916-18, by Aaron Pegram

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Clarke, Stephen: What nations remember: Martyn Brown on what happened in Crete in 1941

Stephen Clarke* ‘What nations remember: Martyn Brown on what happened in Crete in 1941’, Honest History, 30 November 2019 Stephen Clarke reviews Martyn Brown’s Politics of Forgetting: New Zealand, Greece and Britain at War On 20 May 2011, I was an

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Brown, Martyn: Politics of Forgetting: New Zealand, Greece and Great Britain at War

Martyn Brown Politics of Forgetting: New Zealand, Greece and Great Britain at War, Australian Scholarly Publishing, Melbourne, 2019; electronic version available Greece was a poor country in turmoil and pain during the 1940s. A military dictatorship was followed by invasion

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Featherstone, Nigel: Bodies of Men

Nigel Featherstone Bodies of Men, Hachette Australia, Sydney, 2019; electronic version available A beautifully evocative tale of two men whose lives are brought together in tragedy – for lovers of books by Kevin Powers and Sebastian Barry. There is nothing

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Riseman, Noah: This novel is a worthy read on same-sex relations in the forces during the Second World War

Noah Riseman* ‘This novel is a worthy read on same-sex relations in the forces during the Second World War’, Honest History, 19 June 2019 Noah Riseman reviews Bodies of Men, by Nigel Featherstone Lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex (LGBTI)

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Phelps, Peter: The Bulldog Track: A Grandson’s Story of an Ordinary Man’s War and Survival on the Other Kokoda Trail

Peter Phelps The Bulldog Track: A Grandson’s Story of an Ordinary Man’s War and Survival on the Other Kokoda Trail, Hachette, Sydney, 2018; electronic version available This is the story of Tom Phelps and the “other Kokoda Track”. Seventy-five years

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Pender, Margaret: A family memoir confirms the randomness of wartime outcomes for ordinary people

Margaret Pender* ‘A family memoir confirms the randomness of wartime outcomes for ordinary people’, Honest History, 16 October 2018 Margaret Pender reviews The Bulldog Track: A Grandson’s Story of an Ordinary Man’s War and Survival on the Other Kokoda Trail

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Raffin, Greg: Mutiny on the Western Front: 1918

Greg Raffin Mutiny on the Western Front: 1918, Big Sky Publishing, Newport NSW, 2018 On 21 September 1918, with retreating German forces on their last legs, the 1st Battalion of the AIF was ordered to return to the front just as they

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Stephens, David: Can mutiny sometimes be the most rational act for a soldier?

David Stephens ‘Can mutiny sometimes be the most rational act for a soldier?’ Honest History, 4 October 2018 David Stephens reviews Mutiny on the Western Front: 1918 by Greg Raffin Anything worth doing usually takes a while. Retired history teacher

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Read, John L.: Dear Grandpa, Why? Reflections from Kokoda to Hiroshima

John L. Read Dear Grandpa, Why? Reflections from Kokoda to Hiroshima, Wakefield Press, Adelaide, 2018 Edward Tompson Mobsby, father of twin baby girls, volunteered for war service and was shot down by the Japanese in New Guinea in 1942. John

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Abbott, Derek: Coming to grips with Grandpa, Japan and wars

Derek Abbott[*] ‘Coming to grips with Grandpa, Japan and wars’, Honest History, 18 August 2018 Derek Abbott reviews Dear Grandpa, Why? Reflections from Kokoda to Hiroshima by John L. Read Edward Mobsby, ‘Mobs’ to his mates, enlisted in the RAAF

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FitzSimons, Peter: Monash’s Masterpiece: The Battle of Le Hamel and the 93 Minutes that Changed the World

Peter FitzSimons Monash’s Masterpiece: The Battle of Le Hamel and the 93 Minutes that Changed the World, Hachette, Sydney, 2018; e-book available Peter FitzSimons brings to life the story of the battle of Le Hamel – the Allied triumph masterminded

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Richardson, Andrew: Myths and reality about a small battle on the Western Front in 1918: FitzSimons and Dando-Collins on Hamel

Andrew Richardson[1] ‘Myths and reality about a small battle on the Western Front in 1918: FitzSimons and Dando-Collins on Hamel’, Honest History, 4 July 2018 Andrew Richardson reviews Peter FitzSimons’ Monash’s Masterpiece: The Battle of Le Hamel and the 93

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Dando-Collins, Stephen: Heroes of Hamel: : The Australians and Americans whose WWI Victory Changed Modern Warfare

Stephen Dando-Collins Heroes of Hamel: The Australians and Americans whose WWI Victory Changed Modern Warfare, Vintage & Random House, Melbourne, 2018; e-book available The battle of Hamel was remarkable for its speed, the tactics employed, numerous acts of extreme bravery,

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Hastings, David: Odyssey of the Unknown Anzac

David Hastings Odyssey of the Unknown Anzac, Monash University Publishing, Melbourne, 2018; New Zealand edition published by Auckland University Press In 1928 the Returned Sailors and Soldiers Imperial League of Australia produced 10,000 copies of a poster asking for help

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Spark, Seumas: A victim of the war

Seumas Spark* ‘A victim of the war’, Honest History, 12 June 2018 Seumas Spark reviews David Hastings, Odyssey of the Unknown Anzac Three things stand out about David Hastings’ book Odyssey of the Unknown Anzac. First, it is about a

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May, Catriona: War and trauma: learning the lessons

Catriona May ‘War and trauma: learning the lessons‘, Pursuit (University of Melbourne), 19 April 2018 An apposite post for the Anzac season, the article examines developments in the treatment of post-traumatic stress disorder in armed forces, from diagnosis of ‘shell-shock’

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Divided sunburnt country: Australia 1916-18 (35): As enlistments dwindle, PM Hughes reminds people there is a war on

‘Divided sunburnt country: Australia 1916-18 (35): As enlistments dwindle, PM Hughes reminds people there is a war on’, Honest History, 16 March 2018 The ‘Divided sunburnt country’ series The second conscription referendum in December 1917 may have looked like the

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Twomey, Christina: The Battle Within: POWs in Postwar Australia

Christina Twomey The Battle Within: POWs in Postwar Australia, NewSouth, Sydney, 2018 This landmark and compelling book follows the stories of 15,000 Australian prisoners of war from the moment they were released by the Japanese at the end of World

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Myrtle, John: Ambivalent return: how Australia treated former prisoners of war after 1945

John Myrtle* ‘Ambivalent return: how Australia treated former prisoners of war after 1945’, Honest History, 6 March 2018 John Myrtle reviews The Battle Within: POWs in Postwar Australia, by Christina Twomey Christina Twomey, Professor of History at Monash University, is

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Hyland, Tom: What have I become?

Tom Hyland ‘“What have I become?”‘ Inside Story, 14 December 2017 A review of – and a look at the politics behind – Chris Masters’ just published book No Front Line: Australian Special Forces at War in Afghanistan. Hyland notes

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Perry, Roland: Monash and Chauvel: How Australia’s Two Greatest Generals Changed the Course of World History

Roland Perry Monash and Chauvel: How Australia’s Two Greatest Generals Changed the Course of World History, Allen & Unwin, Sydney, 2017 The book ‘tells the story of the emergence and dominance of these brilliant Australian soldiers, who commanded the two

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Abbott, Derek: Another ripping yarn from Australia’s Great War

Derek Abbott* ‘Another ripping yarn from Australia’s Great War’, Honest History, 16 November 2017 A review of Roland Perry’s Monash and Chauvel: How Australia’s Two Greatest Generals Changed the Course of World History Let’s get it out of the way

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Faber, David: Beersheba, occupation and the mind of God: a reflection on the centenary of the Beersheba charge

David Faber* ‘Beersheba, occupation and the mind of God: a reflection on the centenary of the Beersheba charge‘, Honest History, 8 November 2017 The paper concerns the recent centenary of the Battle of Beersheba and what the author sees as

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Beersheba, occupation and the mind of God: a reflection on the centenary of the Beersheba charge

David Faber* ‘Beersheba, occupation and the mind of God: a reflection on the centenary of the Beersheba charge’, Honest History, 8 November 2017 Can historians know the mind of God? It is a long time since most historians have scrutinised

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Stephens, David: ‘Age shall not weary them’: questioning a Kokoda claim

David Stephens* ‘ “Age shall not weary them”: questioning a Kokoda claim’, Honest History, 3 November 2017 This week’s 75th anniversary of Kokoda has seen repeated claims about the average age of Australian soldiers in the Kokoda campaign. For example,

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Walsh: Nick: Kokoda Track: from the Honest History archives

[Note: this post was originally published in January 2016. Ministerial press release to mark 75th anniversary of Kokoda campaign.] Nick Walsh Kokoda Track, The author, 2nd edition, Melbourne 2012 This little book (70 pages, a dozen photographs, two clear maps) was

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Newton, Douglas: Beersheba and the scramble for the Ottoman Empire – and more on the Beersheba centenary boast

Update 8 November 2017: David Faber writes about the Beersheba centenary and the work of Kelvin Crombie (Gallipoli – The Road to Jerusalem), who has tried to put the Gallipoli campaign into a Christian context. Essentially, Crombie argues that the

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McMullin, Ross: Pompey Elliott at War: In His Own Words

Ross McMullin Pompey Elliott at War: In His Own Words, Scribe, Melbourne, 2017; e-book available The wartime letters and diaries of Pompey Elliott, Australia’s most famous fighting general, are exceptionally forthright. They are also remarkably illuminating about his volatile emotions

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Piggott, Michael: Pompey Elliott’s war reporting, letters and diaries reveal a complex man and soldier

Michael Piggott* ‘Pompey Elliott’s war reporting, letters and diaries reveal a complex man and soldier’, Honest History, 25 October 2017 Michael Piggott reviews Pompey Elliott at War: In His Own Words  Fifteen years ago, Ross McMullin published his massive and

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Alexander, Kristen: Captives of war make a compelling story of World War II

Kristen Alexander* ‘Captives of war make a compelling story of World War II’, Honest History, 22 October 2017 Kristen Alexander reviews Clare Makepeace’s Captives of War: British Prisoners of War in Europe in the Second World War Clare Makepeace’s grandfather

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Makepeace, Clare: Captives of War: British Prisoners of War in Europe in the Second World War

Clare Makepeace Captives of War: British Prisoners of War in Europe in the Second World War, Cambridge University Press, 2017 This book is of Australian interest, as some 8000 Australians were POWs in Europe during World War II, although they

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Stephens, David: What wars do to soldiers: Greg Lockhart’s The Minefield

David Stephens ‘What wars do to soldiers: Greg Lockhart’s The Minefield‘, Honest History, 2 October 2017 updated All wars are different yet all wars are the same. No matter which politicians garner credit or blame, regardless of which officers get

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Stanley, Peter: The Crying Years: Australia’s Great War

Peter Stanley The Crying Years: Australia’s Great War, National Library of Australia, Canberra, 2017 Peter Stanley cleverly weaves his narrative around striking images [from the National Library’s collection]—many never seen before—to create a visual history that immerses the reader in

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Straw, Leigh: After the War: Returned Soldiers and the Mental and Physical Scars of World War I

Leigh Straw After the War: Returned Soldiers and the Mental and Physical Scars of World War I, University of Western Australia Press, Perth, 2017 Of the 330,000 Australian men who enlisted and served in World War I, close to 60,000

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After the war way out in the West (review of Leigh Straw)

‘After the war way out in the West’ (review of Leigh Straw), Honest History, 8 September 2017 John Shield* reviews Leigh Straw’s After the War: Returned Soldiers and the Mental and Physical Scars of World War I  After reading Leigh

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Newton, Douglas: The centenary of the Third Battle of Ypres

Douglas Newton ‘The centenary of the Third Battle of Ypres‘, Pearls and Interpretations, 3 August 2017 The carnage at Ypres and Passchendaele is ‘an object lesson in what happens when an Australian government allows our Allies to dominate in the

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Democratic opposition to war: the 1916-17 anti-conscription campaigns – impacts and legacies

Barry Jones ‘Democratic opposition to war: the 1916-17 anti-conscription campaigns – impacts and legacies (Keynote address, Brunswick-Coburg Anti-Conscription Commemoration Campaign Conference, 20 May 2017)’, Honest History, 13 June 2017 The conscription referendums as a turning point in Australian politics I

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Jones, Barry: Democratic opposition to war: the 1916-17 anti-conscription campaigns – impacts and legacies

Barry Jones ‘Democratic opposition to war: the 1916-17 anti-conscription campaigns – impacts and legacies (Keynote address, Brunswick-Coburg Anti-Conscription Commemoration Campaign Conference, 20 May 2017)’, Honest History, 13 June 2017 This one day conference addressed a number of aspects of the

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Honest History: Second edition of Honest History’s Alternative Guide to the Australian War Memorial

Honest History ‘Second edition of Honest History’s Alternative Guide to the Australian War Memorial‘, Honest History, 13 June 2017 updated Update 1 October 2017: the For Country, For Nation exhibition (discussed in the Alternative Guide) closed in Canberra in September

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Yu, Ouyang: Billy Sing

Ouyang Yu Billy Sing, Transit Lounge, Melbourne, 2017 William “Billy” Sing was born in 1886 to an English mother and Chinese father. He and his two sisters were brought up in Clermont and Proserpine, in rural Queensland. He was one of

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A gun that shoots right through history (review of Ouyang Yu on Billy Sing)

‘A gun that shoots right through history’, Honest History, 27 May 2017 Christina Spittel[*] reviews Ouyang Yu’s novel, Billy Sing Is there anything new to be said about Chinese-Australian sniper Billy Sing, who killed so many Turks at Gallipoli that

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Werskey, Gary: The Anzac Christmas card

Gary Werskey ‘The Anzac Christmas card‘, Honest History, 22 May 2017 Tells the story of the Anzac Christmas card of 1915, produced under the direction of Lady Birdwood, wife of General Birdwood, and illustrated by the Australian artist AH Fullwood,

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Ross, Fiona: Humane and intimate, how the Red Cross helped families trace the fates of WW2 soldiers

Fiona Ross ‘Humane and intimate, how the Red Cross helped families trace the fates of WW2 soldiers‘, The Conversation, 11 May 2017 The University of Melbourne Archives now holds the series ‘Missing, Wounded and Prisoner of War Enquiry Cards’, which

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Moss, Tristan & Tom Richardson, ed.: New Directions in War and History

Tristan Moss & Tom Richardson, ed. New Directions in War and History, Big Sky Publishing, Newport, NSW, 2016 (download full text) Papers from a Canberra conference (February 2016) held by the Australian Centre for the Study of Armed Conflict and

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Three Anzac season stories from the University of Melbourne’s Pursuit research report

The University of Melbourne does a regular report, Pursuit, on research being undertaken at the university. Recently, it posted: Michelle Moo on women doctors who fought to be able to provide medical services during World War I; Phill Cobbin on

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Stephens, David: Anzac and Anzackery: have Australians normalised war?

David Stephens ‘Anzac and Anzackery: have Australians normalised war?’ Daily Review, 30 April 2017 Might we wade through the emotional sludge of Anzackery – the over-the-top, jingoistic bastardisation of the Anzac legend – to address some important questions about ‘our

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Piggott, Michael: Indigenous war service: two exhibitions at the National Archives of Australia

Michael Piggott ‘Indigenous war service: two exhibitions at the National Archives of Australia’, Honest History, 2 May 2017 A review of two exhibitions, Indigenous Australians at War from the Boer War to the Present (touring from the Shrine of Remembrance,

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Indigenous war service: two exhibitions at the National Archives of Australia

Michael Piggott* ‘Indigenous war service: two exhibitions at the National Archives of Australia’, Honest History, 2 May 2017 Showing at the moment in the National Gallery of Australia in Canberra is an exhibition of work by the renowned World War

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Stephens, David: ‘Afghanistan: The Australian Story shows war is about much more than “love and friendship”

David Stephens ‘Afghanistan: The Australian Story shows war is about much more than “love and friendship”’, Honest History, 2 May 2017 A review of Chris Masters’ double DVD for the Australian War Memorial. (Trailer; ABC story.) The DVDs contain footage

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Afghanistan: The Australian Story shows war is about much more than “love and friendship”

David Stephens ‘Afghanistan: The Australian Story shows war is about much more than “love and friendship”’, Honest History, 2 May 2017 Serendipity can be illuminating. This reviewer began to watch Chris Masters’ double DVD, Afghanistan: The Australian Story, on the

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Babkenian, Vicken & Judith Crispin: Australia’s Armenian Story

Vicken Babkenian & Judith Crispin ‘Australia’s Armenian Story‘, Inside Story, 6 April 2017 This is a long extract from chapter 3 of The Honest History Book, published by NewSouth. It deals with the Armenian Genocide, which commenced 24 April 1915

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Townsend, Ian: Line of Fire

Ian Townsend Line of Fire, Harper Collins, Sydney, 2017 The little known and intriguing WWII story of an eleven-year-old Australian schoolboy who was shot by the Japanese in Rabaul in 1942 as a suspected spy – a compelling story of

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Brooding malevolence in Rabaul 1942 (review of Townsend)

‘Brooding malevolence in Rabaul 1942’, Honest History, 7 March 2017 Margaret Pender* reviews Ian Townsend’s book, Line of Fire This is a book about an atrocity, a war crime that occurred in Rabaul, New Guinea, in the early days of

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The bombing of Darwin, 75 years on: some alternative views

Honest History has been interested in the bombing of Darwin almost since we began the website, though our interest has extended to aspects that are not likely to be front and centre this week during the 75th anniversary events. Obviously,

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The Fall of Singapore, 75 years on: some alternative views

Update 20 February 2017: The Strategist has three articles on the Fall of Singapore, from James Goldrick, Joan Beaumont and Hugh White. On Wednesday in Ballarat, Minister Tehan will attend a national service in Ballarat to commemorate the 75th anniversary

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Cashen, Phil: Enlistments in the second half of 1916: background characteristics Part 2 – religion, units and service history

Phil Cashen ‘103. Enlistments in the second half of 1916: background characteristics Part 2 – religion, units and service history‘, Shire at War, 5 February 2017 We have often linked to the sterling work of Phil Cashen of the Shire

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Bown, Sharon: One Woman’s War and Peace

Sharon Bown One Woman’s War and Peace: A Nurse’s Journey in the Royal Australian Air Force, Exisle Publishing, Wollombi, NSW, 2016 In 1999, idealistic 23-year-old Registered Nurse Sharon Bown left her comfortable family life in Tasmania and joined the Royal

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A personal view of war and peace (review of Sharon Bown)

‘A personal view of war and peace’ (review of Sharon Bown), Honest History, 7 February 2017 Pamela Burton* reviews One Woman’s War and Peace: A Nurse’s Journey in the Royal Australian Air Force by Sharon Bown This is an introspective

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Babkenian, Vicken: Gladys Berejiklian, the Great War, Gallipoli and the Armenian Genocide

Vicken Babkenian ‘Gladys Berejiklian, the Great War, Gallipoli and the Armenian Genocide‘, Independent Australia, 30 January 2017 Marks the election of Australia’s first premier of Armenian ethnicity. Ms Berejiklian’s grandparents were among those liberated by Allied forces in 1918, surviving

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McDonald, Neil with Peter Brune: Valiant for Truth: The Life of Chester Wilmot, War Correspondent

Neil McDonald with Peter Brune Valiant for Truth: The Life of Chester Wilmot, War Correspondent, NewSouth, Sydney, 2016 Chester Wilmot (1911–1954) was a renowned Australian war correspondent, broadcaster, journalist and writer. Covering the first triumphant North African battles of Bardia,

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Shield, John: Valiant for Truth: The Life of Chester Wilmot, War Correspondent (review of McDonald with Brune)

‘Valiant for Truth: The Life of Chester Wilmot, War Correspondent‘, Honest History, 12 January 2017 John Shield* reviews Valiant for Truth: The Life of Chester Wilmot, War Correspondent, by Neil McDonald with Peter Brune There is a lovely sequence in

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Stanley, Peter: Review of The Holocaust: Witnesses and Survivors at the Australian War Memorial

Peter Stanley* ‘Review of The Holocaust: Witnesses and Survivors at the Australian War Memorial’, Honest History, 13 December 2016 updated Update 26 February 2020: expanded exhibition opened by the Treasurer. Update 29 April 2019: speech by War Memorial Director Nelson

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Braithwaite, Richard Wallace: Fighting Monsters: An Intimate History of the Sandakan Tragedy

Braithwaite, Richard Wallace Fighting Monsters: An Intimate History of the Sandakan Tragedy, Australian Scholarly Publishing, Melbourne, 2016 Only six escapees survived the Sandakan death marches of 1945 in North Borneo, the worst atrocity ever inflicted on Australian soldiers. 1787 Australian

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At war with the Braithwaites (review of Braithwaite, Fighting Monsters)

‘At war with the Braithwaites’, Honest History, 23 November 2016 Peter Stanley reviews Richard Wallace Braithwaite, Fighting Monsters: An Intimate History of the Sandakan Tragedy Around the end of the 1960s the twenty-year-old Richard Braithwaite, then a university student, wore

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Frances, Raelene & Bruce Scates, ed.: Beyond Gallipoli: New Perspectives on Anzac

Frances, Raelene & Bruce Scates, ed. Beyond Gallipoli: New Perspectives on Anzac, Monash University Publishing, Melbourne, 2016 Much of the scholarship on the Great War, and especially the Dardanelles/Çanakkale campaign, has been viewed through a narrow national prism and focused

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New views from a little way beyond Gallipoli (review of Scates & Frances ed., Beyond Gallipoli)

‘New views from a little way beyond Gallipoli’, Honest History, 21 November 2016 David Stephens reviews Beyond Gallipoli: New Perspectives on Anzac, edited by Raelene Frances and Bruce Scates This book is a collection of 15 papers (plus introduction) from

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Reid, Richard: ‘That famous army of generous men’: some stories and reflections for Remembrance Day

Reid, Richard ‘“That famous army of generous men”: some stories and reflections for Remembrance Day‘, Honest History, 11 November 2016 An extended article about six men who fought in the Great War and the reflections their stories provoked in the

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Two years of commentary on the Australian War Memorial: from the Honest History archives

Rationale Critiquing the Anzac-centred received view of Australian history necessarily involves forensic examination of the work of our premier commemorative institution, the Australian War Memorial. The Memorial – rather surprisingly, in view of its interest in warlike matters – has

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‘That famous army of generous men’: some stories and reflections for Remembrance Day

Richard Reid* ‘”That famous army of generous men”: some stories and reflections for Remembrance Day’, Honest History, 11 November 2016 In early November 1993 I stood at 8.00 am in the misty cold of the Commonwealth War Graves Commission’s Adelaide

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Dando-Collins, Stephen: The Hero Maker: A Biography of Paul Brickhill

Dando-Collins, Stephen The Hero Maker: A Biography of Paul Brickhill, Penguin Random House, Melbourne & Sydney, 2016 In The Hero Maker, award-winning historical author and biographer Stephen Dando-Collins exposes the contradictions of one of Australia’s most successful, but troubled, writers.

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Paul Brickhill: chronicler of bombers, busters and a great escape (review of Dando-Collins biography)

‘Paul Brickhill: chronicler of bombers, busters and a great escape’ (review of Dando-Collins biography), Honest History, 22 September 2016 John Myrtle* reviews The Hero Maker: A Biography of Paul Brickhill by Stephen Dando-Collins In the 1950s Australian-born Paul Brickhill wrote

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Koopman, Catharina: Campo 78 – the WWII Aussie camp in Abruzzo

Catharina Koopman* ‘Campo 78 – the WWII Aussie camp in Abruzzo‘, Dante Alighieri Society, Canberra, 29 June 2016 updated A review of the bilingual book, Campo 78: The Aussie Camp, by Gabriella Di Mattia (Accademia degli Agghiacciati, Sulmona, Italy, 2015).

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Woods, Martin: Where are Our Boys? How Newsmaps Won the Great War

Woods, Martin Where are Our Boys? How Newsmaps Won the Great War, National Library of Australia Publishing, Canberra, 2016 A selection of maps from the National Library’s collection along with detailed explanatory text. The war produced more maps than any

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‘Fighting against the tide?’ (review of Martin Woods on World War I maps), Honest History, 15 September 2016 Peter Stanley reviews Martin Woods, Where are Our Boys? How Newsmaps Won the Great War The National Library of Australia, uniquely now

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Divided sunburnt country: Australia 1916-18 (11): The Case for Universal Service

‘Divided sunburnt country: Australia 1916-18 (11): The Case for Universal Service‘, Honest History, 8 September 2016 The Divided Sunburnt Country series   When Prime Minister WM Hughes announced the first conscription referendum there was already plenty of literature in circulation

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Baker, Mark: Phillip Schuler: The remarkable life of one of Australia’s greatest war correspondents

Baker, Mark Phillip Schuler: The Remarkable Life of One of Australia’s Greatest War Correspondents, Allen & Unwin, Sydney, 2016 A biography of The Age war correspondent, who reported unofficially from Egypt in 1914-15, spent time at Gallipoli, producing two ground-breaking

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Lord Northcliffe (egged on by Keith Murdoch) talks up the Anzacs after Pozieres: Honest History document

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Divided sunburnt country: Australia 1916-18 (10): Prime Minister Hughes announces the first conscription referendum, 100 years ago today

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Divided sunburnt country: Australia 1916-18 (9): Billy Hughes girds his loins for the conscription battle

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From the Honest History archives: People who turn up – nurses in Vietnam (June 2016)

Australia’s Vietnam War – and keeping it in context: others in the series ________________________ This week’s commemoration of Australia’s Vietnam War (hanging off the 50th anniversary of the Battle of Long Tan) underlines that history is made by those who

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Australia’s Vietnam War – and keeping it in context: Honest History series

‘Australia’s Vietnam War – and keeping it in context: an Honest History series’, Honest History, 15 August 2016 updated UPDATE 11.45 am FRIDAY: Still difficulties with access. UPDATE 6.00 AM THURSDAY: Restricted access to be allowed. STOP PRESS: Cancellation of

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Wishart, Alison ‘“As fit as fiddles” and “as weak as kittens”: the importance of food, water and diet to the Anzac campaign at Gallipoli‘, First World War Studies, August 2016 The reasons for the allied defeat at Gallipoli in 1915

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Horrocks, Lucinda: Memories of war: A film and research project in Ballarat

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Memories of war: A film and research project in Ballarat

Lucinda Horrocks ‘Memories of war: A film and research project in Ballarat’, Honest History, 8 August 2016 In 2014 I embarked on a collaborative film and research project to explore the history and impact of World War I in the

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From the Honest History archives: Hiroshima 1945; Managing Hiroshima

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From the Honest History archives: Wounded and damaged soldiers then and now (November 2014)

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Turna, Burak: The Hidden Victory of Anzacs: Gallipoli

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Macedonians in Constantinople, drones over Gaba Tepe (review of Turna)

‘Macedonians in Constantinople, drones over Gaba Tepe’, Honest History, 19 July 2016 Peter Stanley reviews Burak Turna’s The Hidden Victory of Anzacs: Gallipoli. Imagine a world in which all historical sources, archival and published, on World War I have been

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Sharpe, Matthew: Battle of the Somme and the death of martial glory

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Stephens, David: Keepers of the flame: making war memorial councils more representative

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Keepers of the flame: making war memorial councils more representative

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Hill, Anthony: For Love of Country

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For love of country in war and peace (review of Anthony Hill)

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Honest History sends copy of Alternative Guide to Australian War Memorial to every member of Memorial Council

Which word should we use to describe what happened on 25 April 1915: ‘landing’ or ‘invasion’? Why do we refer to dead soldiers as ‘the fallen’? Does the ‘freedom’ we are said to have fought for in our many wars

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Kirby, Tim (dir.): Gallipoli: When Murdoch went to war

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Newton, Douglas: The Centenary of the Great War – and Anzac (five articles)

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Douglas Newton confronts the really important questions about war

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Lockhart, Greg: Gallipoli reckoning (review of Roberts and Uyar)

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Honest History: Honest History’s Alternative Guide to the Australian War Memorial

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Newton, Douglas: Hard questions we should face on Anzac Day 2016

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Cashen, Phil: Soldiers’ farewells 1915

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Smaal, Yorick: Sex, soldiers and the South Pacific

Smaal, Yorick Sex, Soldiers and the South Pacific: Queer Identities in Australia in the Second World War, Palgrave Macmillan, London, 2015 Sex, Soldiers and the South Pacific, 1939-45 explores the queer dynamics of war across the Australia and forward bases

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Sex, soldiers and the South Pacific (review of Smaal)

‘Sex, soldiers and the South Pacific (review of Smaal)’, Honest History, 8 February 2016 Diane Bell* reviews Yorick Smaal’s Sex, Soldiers and the South Pacific, 1939-45: Queer Identities in Australia in the Second World War Note: The cover of the

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Walsh, Nick: Kokoda Track

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FitzSimons, Peter: Fromelles and Pozières: In the Trenches of Hell

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‘The Fitzkrieg reaches Fromelles and Pozières’, Honest History, 11 January 2016 David Stephens reviews Peter FitzSimons’ Fromelles and Pozières: In the Trenches of Hell. This is a better book than this reviewer expected. He edited a trenchant but balanced review

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Scates, Bruce, Rebecca Wheatley & Laura James: 100 Stories

Scates, Bruce, Rebecca Wheatley & Laura James World War One: A History in 100 Stories, Penguin, Melbourne, 2015 A long-awaited product of a complex project to tell the stories of many people affected by the Great War. There is also

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What is history? (review of Scates et al)

‘What is history? An old question; a new answer?’ Honest History, 1 December 2015 Jim Windeyer* reviews World War One: A History in 100 Stories by Bruce Scates, Rebecca Wheatley and Laura James. Another review by David Stephens. Jim Windeyer

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Subversive stories of an old war (review of Scates et al)

‘Subversive stories of an old war’, Honest History, 1 December 2015 David Stephens reviews World War One: A History in 100 Stories, by Bruce Scates, Rebecca Wheatley and Laura James. Another review by Jim Windeyer. __________________________________ This book is sentimental

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Beaumont, Joan, Lachlan Grant & Aaron Pegram; ed.: Beyond surrender: POWs

Beaumont, Joan, Lachlan Grant & Aaron Pegram, ed. Beyond Surrender: Australian Prisoners of War in the Twentieth Century, Melbourne University Press, Carlton Vic. 2015; available electronically Over the twentieth century 35,000 Australians suffered as prisoners of war in conflicts ranging

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Fitting POWs into our skewed Anzac legend (review of Beyond Surrender)

‘Fitting POWs into our skewed Anzac legend’ (review of Beyond Surrender), Honest History, 25 November 2015 Kristen Alexander* reviews Beyond Surrender: Australian Prisoners of War in the Twentieth Century, edited by Joan Beaumont, Lachlan Grant and Aaron Pegram _____________________ As

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Spittel, Christina: Australia in the Great War (review of AWM WWI galleries)

Spittel, Christina* ‘Australia in the Great War‘, reCollections, vol. 10, no. 2, October 2015 This review of the refurbished World War I galleries at the Australian War Memorial was published in the online journal of the National Museum of Australia.

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McKinney, JP: Crucible

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Anonymous (Frank Morton?): new use for Central Australia? (highlights reel)

Anonymous (Frank Morton?) ‘A new use for Central Australia: it’s “potentialities” as a scrapping ground‘, The Triad, 10 March 1917 This semi-humorous piece, apparently just the single page, suggests that Central Australia would provide a more spacious, less cluttered battleground

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Dunera News, No. 95, October 2015 This long-standing publication tracks the progress of a group of men and boys of even longer standing, those who came to Australia in 1940 on the vessel HMT Dunera. They had been rounded up

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Benbow, Heather Merle: emotional meaning of food in wartime

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Taylor, Alan: Syria’s children (photographs)

Taylor, Alan ‘Syria’s children‘, The Atlantic, 27 August 2015 Contains 35 photographs of the effects of the war in Syria on children. It must be a question for countries contemplating involvement whether this will make things on the ground better

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Furst, David, Tomas Munita et al: walking in war’s path

Furst, David, Tomas Munita, Jodi Rudoren, Isabel Kershner, Jon Huang, Sergio Pecanha ‘Walking in war’s path‘, New York Times, 22 August 2015 We don’t normally feature the Gaza Strip on Honest History but this is an exceptional piece of reportage

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Bible House, Constantinople: The Orient, 19 May 2015

Bible House, Constantinople The Orient, 19 May 1915 We continue these insights into expatriate missionary life in the Ottoman Empire of 1915, presenting a different, English-language, view of the Dardanelles campaign. Previous editions: 28 April, 5 May 1915, 12 May

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Reality of war deja vu, including Long Tan 49

We presented these items in our e-Newsletter no. 28 earlier in the month on the 70th anniversary of Hiroshima-Nagasaki (and the 100th anniversary of Lone Pine). We wanted to run them through again. Also, given today’s 49th anniversary of Long

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Pegram, Aaron: Australian politicians in WWI

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Bible House, Constantinople: The Orient, 12 May 1915

Bible House, Constantinople The Orient, 12 May 1915 We continue our presentation of these fascinating insights into expatriate missionary life in the Ottoman Empire of 1915. Previous editions: 28 April, 5 May 1915. Our colleague, Vicken Babkenian, who has sourced

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Cashen, Phil: a soldier ‘missing’ at Lone Pine

Cashen, Phil ‘John Henry Adams‘, Shire at War, 11 August 2015 To further mark the centenary of Lone Pine, another cameo from the Shire at War blog from the Yarram area, Gippsland, Victoria. Adams is interesting because of his divided

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Stanley, Peter, et al: AnzacLive Blog for Lone Pine centenary

Stanley, Peter, et al ‘Speak across the century with the soldiers who fought at Gallipoli’s Battle of Lone Pine‘, News.com.au, 6 August 2015 This blog is over but worth a read. Honest History’s president Peter Stanley, who participated as the

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Hiroshima-Nagasaki and Lone Pine: miscellany

‘Hiroshima-Nagasaki and Lone Pine: miscellany’, Honest History, 4 August 2015 Battle of Lone Pine (Battle of Kanlı Sırt), 6-10 August 1915 Bombing of Hiroshima, 6 August 1945 Bombing of Nagasaki, 9 August 1945 (Images warning) Update 12 August 2015: a

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Great War chaplains after the tumult and shouting

‘Great War chaplains after the tumult and shouting’, Honest History, 4 August 2015 John A. Moses* reviews Linda Parker’s Shellshocked Prophets: Former Anglican Army Chaplains in Inter-War Britain _______________________________________ At a time when all denominations are being pilloried for the

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Parker, Linda: shellshocked prophets

Parker, Linda Shellshocked Prophets: Former Anglican Army Chaplains in Inter-War Britain, Helion (Wolverhampton Military Studies), Solihull, UK, 2015 The Anglican chaplains who served in the Great War were changed by their experience of total war. They returned determined to revitalize

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Bible House, Constantinople: The Orient, 5 May 1915

Bible House, Constantinople The Orient, 5 May 2015 This is the complete edition for the date shown of an English language weekly newsletter published by the American missionaries in Constantinople. The issues from 1915 provide great insight from the ‘other side’

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Cashen, Phil: pressed to enlist, 1915

Cashen, Phil ‘Pressed to enlist in the first half of 1915‘, Shire at War, 1 July 2015 From the excellent Shire at War blog, out of Alberton, Gippsland, Victoria, comes this forensic examination of a war of letters to the

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Broinowski, Alison: Toxic warfare (Agent Orange)

Broinowski, Alison ‘Toxic warfare: Agent Orange revisited‘, Honest History, 16 July 2015 The article comments on the decision by the Australian War Memorial Council to commission a further volume on the medical aspects of the Vietnam War. Also relevant are

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Toxic warfare: revisiting Agent Orange

Alison Broinowski ‘Toxic warfare: revisiting Agent Orange’, Honest History, 16 July 2015 Soon after the Australian War Memorial announced that three new histories of the wars in East Timor, Afghanistan, and Iraq (to 2014) are to be written in the

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Bible House, Constantinople: The Orient, 28 April 1915

Bible House, Constantinople The Orient, 28 April 1915 An unusual post for Honest History but a fascinating one, this is the complete edition for the date shown of an English language weekly newsletter published by the American missionaries in Constantinople. The

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Review note: Australia and the First World War (Australian Historical Studies)

‘Review note: AHS Classics virtual issue “Australia and the First World War” (Australian Historical Studies)’, Honest History, 12 July 2015 This virtual issue ‘reprints’ seven articles with an introductory essay from Bart Ziino. They are all free access until end

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Halloran, Neil: Fallen of World War II

Halloran, Neil ‘The fallen of World War II‘, Vimeo, 4 May 2015 Fifteen minute interactive video illustrating comparative deaths, military and civilian, by country. Comparisons with other wars. Should be compulsory viewing for Australians fixated on our national figures. David

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Review note: WWI in Australia (Journal of Australian Studies)

‘Review note: World War I in Australia (Journal of Australian Studies, virtual special issue, April 2015)’, Honest History, 7 July 2015 We recently noted difficulties of access with some online journals. This issue of the Journal of Australian Studies, published

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Review note: Penleigh Boyd’s Salvage

‘Review note: Penleigh Boyd’s Salvage – sketching and writing on the Western Front’, Honest History, 7 July 2015 Theodore Penleigh Boyd (1890-1923) was a landscape artist and member of the multi-talented Boyd family. The Wikipedia entry is also useful. Bridge

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Sheralyn Rose responds to Honest History

‘Sheralyn Rose responds to Honest History highlights reel’, Honest History, 18 June 2015 Dr Sheralyn Rose, the wife of a Vietnam veteran, has responded to our highlights reel on Vietnam mythbusting. Rather than ask her to provide this material as

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Vietnam Veterans’ Federation responds to Honest History

‘Vietnam Veterans’ Federation responds to Honest History highlights reel’, Honest History, 12 June 2015 The Vietnam Veterans’ Federation through its national research officer, Graham Walker, has responded to our highlights reel on Vietnam mythbusting. Rather than ask Graham Walker to

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Dunbar, Raden: Jeune Barbarine: sexual slavery and prostitution in Egypt circa 1914

Dunbar, Raden ‘“Jeune Barbarine“: sexual slavery and prostitution in Egypt circa 1914‘, Honest History, 9 June 2015 The author of The Secrets of the Anzacs tells of the human costs – and, for the entrepreneurs, the benefits – of prostitution

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Moorehead, Alan: Gallipoli

Moorehead, Alan Gallipoli, Harper Collins, New York, 2002 and many other editions First published nearly 60 years ago, this classic is still in print. It is recalled by Ann Moyal for Honest History. Moorehead’s daughter (and writer) Caroline reminiscences in

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Dapin, Mark: The Nashos’ War

Dapin, Mark The Nashos’ War: Australia’s National Servicemen and Vietnam, Penguin Viking, Melbourne, 2014 [O]ur ideas of national service contain strange contradictions and inaccuracies: that the draft was unpopular but militarily necessary; that the nashos in Vietnam all volunteered to

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Moyal, Ann: Alan Moorehead’s Gallipoli

Ann Moyal ‘Alan Moorehead’s Gallipoli’, Honest History, 9 June 2015 Recalling an Anzac classic, first published in 1956. There have been at least some 70 books by individual authors published under the title Gallipoli in the century since. From the

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Mythbusting about Vietnam: highlights reel

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Jeune Barbarine: sexual slavery and prostitution in Egypt circa 1914

Raden Dunbar ‘”Jeune Barbarine”: sexual slavery and prostitution in Egypt circa 1914′, Honest History, 9 June 2015 This photograph, ‘Jeune Barbarine’, is of a Berber girl from the Barbary Coast of North Africa. It was made in Egypt shortly before

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Edwards, Peter: Australia and the Vietnam War

Edwards, Peter Australia and the Vietnam War, NewSouth and the Australian War Memorial, Sydney, 2014 The Vietnam War was Australia’s longest and most controversial military commitment of the twentieth century, ending in humiliation for the United States and its allies

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Rees, Peter: Bearing witness (CEW Bean)

Peter Rees Bearing Witness: the Remarkable Life of CEW Bean, Australia’s Greatest War Correspondent, Allen & Unwin, Crows Nest, NSW, 2015 A full biography of the man known as CEW Bean – war correspondent and official historian of World War

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Newton, Douglas: Two Anzac speeches 2015

Douglas Newton ‘Two Anzac speeches 2015’, Honest History, 12 May 2015 updated Douglas Newton spoke on 22 April 2015 at Petersham Town Hall, Sydney, to a meeting of the Gallipoli Centenary Peace Campaign, based in Marrickville. The speech covered respect

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Anzac Day talk at Crows Nest Uniting Church (Douglas Newton)

Douglas Newton ‘Anzac Day talk at Crows Nest Uniting Church, 26 April 2015, Honest History, 12 May 2015 (Note: this is one of two related speeches) 1. Respect The Great War was such a sprawling catastrophe that I am sure

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Gallipoli Centenary Peace Campaign Talk (Douglas Newton)

Douglas Newton ‘Gallipoli Centenary Peace Campaign Talk: Petersham Town Hall, 22 April 2015’, Honest History, 12 May 2015 (Note: one of two related speeches) 1. Respect At the outset I should say that I do not presume to tell anyone

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Dunbar, Raden: Secrets of the Anzacs – Great War VD

Dunbar, Raden The Secrets of the Anzacs: the Untold Story of Venereal Disease in the Australian Army, 1914-1919, Scribe, Brunswick, Vic., 2014 During World War I, about 60 000 soldiers of the Australian Imperial Force were treated for venereal diseases,

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La nef des fous: review of Dunbar’s Secrets of the Anzacs

‘La nef des fous: review of Dunbar’s Secrets of the Anzacs‘, Honest History, 12 May 2015 Diane Bell* reviews Raden Dunbar, The Secrets of the ANZACS: the Untold Story of Venereal Disease in the Australian Army, 1914-1919. (La nef des

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Philpott, William: Attrition: Fighting the First World War

Philpott, William Attrition: Fighting the First World War, Little Brown, London, 2014 The First World War was too big to be grasped by its participants. In the retelling of their war in the competing memories of leaders and commanders, and

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War in the long run

‘War in the long run’, Honest History, 12 May 2015 Derek Abbott* reviews William Philpott’s Attrition: Fighting the First World War The historiography of World War I is a bitterly contested area: a necessary war to defeat Prussian militarism; a

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Anderson, Fay: We censor war photography in Australia

Fay Anderson ‘We censor war photography in Australia – more’s the pity‘, The Conversation, 4 May 2015 You may have noticed we recently marked the centenary of Anzac. One hundred years after Gallipoli, we are seeing photographs of telegenic young

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Kent, James (dir.): Testament of Youth

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‘This Testament not silly at all’, Honest History, 3 May 2015 David Stephens reviews Testament of Youth, the movie adaptation of Vera Brittain‘s memoir Peter Stanley’s review of the Russell Crowe Great War movie, The Water Diviner, has been viewed

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Medical Association for Prevention of War: Statement in commemoration of WWI

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Waugh, Maxwell N.: Soldier boys

Waugh, Maxwell N. Soldier Boys: the Militarisation of Australian and New Zealand Schools for World War I, Melbourne Books, Melbourne, 2014 A form of compulsory cadet training was the norm in Australasian schools from 1910, unlike any other part of

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ABC Four Corners: Anzac to Afghanistan

ABC TV ‘Anzac to Afghanistan’, Four Corners, 13 April 2015 Chris Masters intersperses interviews with Gallipoli veterans from 1988 and Afghanistan veterans from recent years, noting the similarities and differences in their experience. Also contributing are James Brown, author of

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Then and now: two sad affairs

Then and now: two sad affairs, Honest History, 15 April 2015 Alison Broinowski reviews the Four Corners episode, ‘Anzac to Afghanistan‘ Fran Kelly is off to join the re-invasion at Gallipoli next week. So the count-down begins and pent-up excitement

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Mutton, Katy: Post War project

Mutton, Katy The Post War Project The Post War Project is a year-long art/research project being undertaken by Australian Visual Artist Katy Mutton over 2015.  It is a year of research and art making based largely around the Australian Soldier Settlement scheme

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Wise, Nathan: Anzac Labour

Wise, Nathan Anzac Labour: Workplace Cultures in the Australian Imperial Force during the First World War, Palgrave Macmillan, London, 2014 Anzac Labour explores the horror, frustration and exhaustion surrounding working life in the Australian Imperial Force during the First World War.

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Anzac Labour reviewed

‘Anzac Labour reviewed’, Honest History, 14 April 2014 Paddy Gourley reviews Nathan Wise’s book Anzac Labour: Workplace Cultures in the Australian Imperial Force during the First World War If most books about the military in war concentrate on the description

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National Portrait Gallery: All That Fall exhibition

National Portrait Gallery All That Fall: Sacrifice, Life and Loss in the First World War The exhibition runs from Friday, 27 March until Sunday, 26 July 2015. Focussing on the wide-ranging theme of loss and absence, this exhibition provides a

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Neuhaus, Susan & Sharon Mascall-Dare: Not for Glory

Neuhaus, Susan & Sharon Mascall-Dare Not for Glory: a Century of Service by Medical Women to the Australian Army and its Allies, Boolarong Press, Brisbane, 2014 From the trenches of the Western Front to the ricefields and jungles of South-east

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Medical women at war: Not for Glory reviewed

‘Medical women in war’, Honest History, 14 April 2015 Carolyn Holbrook reviews Susan J. Neuhaus and Sharon Mascall-Dare, Not for Glory: a Century of Service by Medical Women to the Australian Army and its Allies When Dr Agnes Bennett tried

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Broadbent, Harvey: Defending Gallipoli: Turkish story

Broadbent, Harvey Defending Gallipoli: the Turkish Story, Melbourne University Press, Carlton, Vic., 2015; electronic version available Based on exclusive access to Turkish archives, Defending Gallipoli reveals how the Turks reacted and defended Gallipoli. Author and Turkish-language expert Harvey Broadbent spent five years

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Stanley, Peter: Broadbent’s Defending Gallipoli reviewed

Stanley, Peter ‘Defending Gallipoli review: how the Turks reacted to the Anzac landings‘, Sydney Morning Herald, 11 April 2015 The review compliments Broadbent for undertaking the massive task of translating and using disorganised Turkish archives to produce not just Defending

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Moses, John A.: Conflict endemic to the human condition?

Moses, John A. ‘Conflict endemic to the human condition? A note‘, Honest History, 8 April 2015 The author discusses German war aims in the decades leading up to 1914, in passing comparing the analysis of Fritz Fischer with those of

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Conflict endemic to the human condition?

John A. Moses ‘Conflict endemic to the human condition? A note’, Honest History, 8 April 2015 The ancient Greek philosopher Heraclitus (c. 535-475 BC) commented on war as follows: ‘We must know that war is common to all, and strife

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Grey, Jeffrey, ed.: Great War centenary history

Grey, Jeffrey, ed. The Centenary History of Australia and the Great War, Oxford University Press, South Melbourne, 2014-16 Five volume set, including Australia and the War in the Air (Volume 1) by Michael Molkentin, reviewed by Kristen Alexander, The War

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Stevens, David: In all respects ready: Australia’s navy in World War One

Stevens, David In All Respects Ready: Australia’s Navy in World War One, Oxford University Press, South Melbourne, 2014 When the newly built Australian fleet sailed into Sydney for the first time in October 1913, it was portrayed as a sign

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Great War navy

‘Great War navy’, Honest History, 27 March 2015 Alan Stephens* reviews In All Respects Ready: Australia’s Navy in World War One, by David Stevens Late last year Australia embarked on an extraordinarily extensive and costly five-year commemoration of ‘100 Years

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Perkins, Cathy: A spoonful of blood

Perkins, Cathy ‘A spoonful of blood‘, Meanjin, 13 March 2015 On the life and work of Zora Cross (1890-1964), an Australian poet active during and after the Great War. Her poetry collection Songs of Love and Life was a publishing event, with

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Jones, Peter: It’s also brave to stand for peace

Jones, Peter ‘Talking point: it’s also brave to stand for peace‘, Mercury (Hobart) , 28 February 2015 Discusses Australian conscientious objection during World War I, as set out in an exhibition in Hobart. As Henry Reynolds told his audience at

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Gallipoli episodes 6 and 7 reviewed by Peter Stanley

‘Generations passing away*’, Honest History, 10 March 2015 Peter Stanley** reviews Gallipoli (Channel 9) episodes 6 and 7. Earlier reviews: episode 1, episode 2; episode 3; episode 4 and 5. (Caution: this review contains minor spoilers, notably that the Australians

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Featherstone, Don (dir.): The War that Changed Us

Featherstone, Don (dir.) The War that Changed Us, Electric Pictures, 2014 Documentary (four parts) about Australia during World War I, produced by Andrew Ogilvie and scripted by Clare Wright and the director. It follows the stories of six people, who

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McKernan, Michael: WWI: Love & Sorrow

McKernan, Michael ‘WWI: Love & sorrow‘, reCollections (National Museum of Australia), 10, 1, 2015 Review of this exhibition, which is at the Melbourne Museum until November 2018. This is an exhibition [says McKernan] that openly and deliberately works on the

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Gallipoli episodes 4 and 5 reviewed by Peter Stanley

‘Scars breaking out on the Peninsh*’, Honest History, 5 March 2015 Peter Stanley** reviews episodes 4 and 5 of Gallipoli (Channel 9). Reviews of episode 1, episode 2, episode 3, episodes 6 and 7. Channel 9’s decision to ‘raise the

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Stephens, David: Another look at the Australian War Memorial’s WWI galleries

David Stephens ‘Is this “our story”? Another look at the Australian War Memorial’s refurbished World War I galleries’, Honest History, 3 March 2015 Update 20 November 2015: a review from Christina Spittel of UNSW Canberra in the National Museum’s reCollections

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Is this ‘our story’? AWM’s refurbished WWI galleries

‘Is this “our story”? Another look at the Australian War Memorial’s refurbished World War I galleries’, Honest History, 3 March 2015 David Stephens takes a further look at the new galleries. There are launches and launches. The Australian War Memorial

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Laugesen, Amanda: Furphies and Whizz-bangs

Laugesen, Amanda Furphies and Whizz-bangs: Anzac Slang from the Great War, Oxford University Press, South Melbourne, 2014 Furphies and Whizz-bangs: Anzac Slang from the Great War tells the story of the First World War through an examination of the slang used

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Words in the trenches: Anzac slang reviewed

‘Words in the trenches: Anzac slang reviewed’, Honest History, 3 March 2015 Paul Daley, author and journalist with Guardian Australia, reviews Furphies and Whizz-bangs: Anzac Slang from the Great War, by Amanda Laugesen ‘Mate, I’m tellin’ yer the point blank

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Ivin, Glendyn (dir.): Gallipoli

Ivin, Glendyn (director) Gallipoli, Endemol Australia, 2015 Directed by Glendyn Ivin, based on Les Carlyon’s Gallipoli, in seven episodes. Reviewed for Honest History by Professor Peter Stanley, Honest History President, and military-social historian from the University of New South Wales,

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Gallipoli episode 3 reviewed by Peter Stanley

‘Men alone at the Dardanelles’, Honest History, 24 February 2015 Peter Stanley* reviews episode 3 of Gallipoli (Channel 9), ‘A man alone’. Other episodes reviewed: episode 1; episode 2; episodes 4 and 5; episodes 6 and 7. Episode 3 of

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Gallipoli episode 2 reviewed by Peter Stanley

‘Settling in for the long haul at Gallipoli’, Honest History, 22 February 2015 Peter Stanley* reviews episode 2 of Gallipoli (Channel 9), ‘My friend, the enemy’. Episode 1 reviewed. Episode 3. Episodes 4 and 5. Episodes 6 and 7. The

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Gallipoli episode 1 reviewed by Peter Stanley

‘Good in parts at Gallipoli’, Honest History, 12 February 2015 Peter Stanley* reviews Gallipoli (Channel 9), Episode 1, ‘The First Day’. Episode 2 reviewed. Episode 3. Episodes 4 and 5. Episodes 6 and 7. Channel 9’s mini-series Gallipoli is trumpeted

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Stephens, David: Two views of World War I: War Memorial and National Library

David Stephens ‘Two views of World War I: sight-bites and Keepsakes‘, Honest History, 3 February 2015 The article is a review of the refurbished World War I galleries of the Australian War Memorial and the temporary Keepsakes exhibition at the

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Two views of World War I: War Memorial and National Library

‘Two views of World War I: sight-bites and Keepsakes‘, Honest History, 3 February 2015 David Stephens reviews the refurbished World War I galleries at the Australian War Memorial and the Keepsakes exhibition at the National Library of Australia. (A further

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FitzSimons, Peter: Gallipoli

FitzSimons, Peter Gallipoli, Random House, North Sydney, 2014; also in hardback, published by Heinemann, and electronically The author has written more than 20 books and is Australia’s largest selling non-fiction writer in the last decade. This book ‘recreates the disaster

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Peter FitzSimons’ Gallipoli reviewed

‘Over the top with Fitz’, Honest History, 3 February 2015 Michael Piggott reviews Gallipoli by Peter Fitzsimons In opening his April 2013 review of Chris Roberts’ The Landing at Anzac, 1915, Harvey Broadbent said this: The Gallipoli industry moves inexorably

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Walsh, Chris: Cowardice: a Brief History

Walsh, Chris Cowardice: a Brief History, Princeton University Press, Princeton NJ, 2014; electronic version available Coward. It’s a grave insult, likely to provoke anger, shame, even violence. But what exactly is cowardice? When terrorists are called cowards, does it mean

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Chris Walsh’s Cowardice reviewed

‘”Manning-up” in America the Brave: Chris Walsh’s Cowardice reviewed’, Honest History, 3 February 2015 Diane Bell* reviews Cowardice: A Brief History by Chris Walsh Too afraid to finish a book on cowardice? Sounds Pythonesque, but in an article on ‘intellectual

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Newton’s Hell-Bent reviewed

Rod Olsen reviews Douglas Newton’s Hell-Bent: Australia’s Leap into the Great War ‘War is nothing but a continuation of politics with the admixture of other means.’ (Clausewitz) ‘War is unlike life … It’s a denial of everything you learn life

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Where you stand

I wish I wouldn’t have to live in a world where people who are willing to kill others are called “heroes” and people who don’t want to kill others are called “cowards”. In a way, this little morsel of language convention sums

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Standing stones

The grave marker of Private WL Rae (killed 8 August 1918, aged 24) in the Villers Bretonneux cemetery reads, ‘Another life lost, hearts broken, for what’. This sentiment on Great War graves is unusually frank but not unique. Australian War Memorial

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Stephens, David: ADFA presentation on teaching children about war

David Stephens ‘Top down, bottom up, or bit by bit? Teaching children about war: paper to ADFA Summer School, 21 January 2015‘, Honest History, 21 January 2015 These are notes of a presentation to the UNSW Canberra ADFA Summer School

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West, Lindy: American Sniper

West, Lindy ‘The real American Sniper was a hate-filled killer. Why are simplistic patriots treating him as a hero?‘ The Guardian, 7 January 2015 (updated) Of interest not so much for its remarks about Clint Eastwood’s movie but about what

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Daley, Paul: Anzackery, crowdsourcing and nationalism

Daley, Paul ‘Crowdsourcing is our latest weapon against nationalism and “Anzackery”‘, Guardian Australia, 29 December 2014 Daley quotes the coiner of the term ‘Anzackery’, Geoffrey Serle, writing in 1967, and goes on: Anzackery. What a word … Anzackery. Is there

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Honest History dialogue: thoughts provoked by an epitaph

‘Honest History dialogue: thoughts provoked by an epitaph’, Honest History, 21 December 2014 Our monthly Honest History e-newsletters include Whizzbangs, miscellaneous thought-provoking paragraphs, sometimes with a connection to events of the day. A Whizzbang in our 2 December newsletter ran

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Hochschild, Adam: No-one remembers the peacemakers

Hochschild, Adam ‘Why no one remembers the peacemakers: celebrating war over and over and peace once‘, TomDispatch, 9 December 2014 and updated Describes the commemoration of the Christmas Truce of 1914 and notes that such commemorations are selective and have

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Newton, Douglas: Hell-Bent: Australia’s Leap into the Great War

Douglas Newton Hell-Bent: Australia’s Leap into the Great War, Scribe, Brunswick, Vic, 2014 Most histories of Australia’s Great War rush their readers into the trenches. This history is very different. For the first time, it examines events closely, even hour-by-hour,

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Faber, David & Robert Henry: Remembrance duet

Faber, David & Robert Henry ‘Remembrance duet‘, Honest History, 2 December 2014 These two pieces, David Faber’s story of the Dardanelles cenotaph in Adelaide and Robert Henry’s poem ‘The valley’, illustrate how people at home tried to come to grips

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Remembrance duet

David Faber and Robert Henry ‘Remembrance duet’, Honest History, 2 December 2014 ‘The Dardanelles cenotaph: our unknown war memorial’ by David Faber © A war memorial stands unobtrusively in Adelaide’s South Parklands. Life flows quietly around this cenotaph and little attention

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Wounded and damaged soldiers then and now: Honest History Factsheet

This small collection highlights the trauma that is associated with all wars in all eras in all countries. It was provoked by an article in The Independent highlighting the photographs made by Bryan Adams of wounded British soldiers from Afghanistan.

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Stanley, Peter: Honest History: possible, desirable, necessary?

Stanley, Peter ‘Honest History: possible, desirable, necessary? Eldershaw Memorial Lecture to Tasmanian Historical Research Association, Hobart, 12 August 2014′, Honest History, 4 November 2014 Professor Stanley, president of Honest History, outlines the history of Honest History, while interweaving elements of

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Honest History: possible, desirable, necessary?

Peter Stanley ‘Honest History: possible, desirable, necessary? Eldershaw Memorial Lecture to Tasmanian Historical Research Association, Hobart, 12 August 2014’, Honest History, 4 November 2014 Good evening ladies and gentlemen, colleagues, friends, and especially members of Peter Eldershaw’s family. I thank

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Department of Veterans’ Affairs: Schooling, Service and the Great War

Veterans’ Affairs, Department of Schooling, Service and the Great War, The Department, Canberra, 2014 A secondary (Year 9) education resource, put together by DVA’s Commemoration Branch and Dr Rosalie Triolo of Monash University. This educational resource investigates the diverse experiences

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Those who teach, fight

‘Those who teach, fight’*, Honest History, 4 November 2014 David Stephens reviews a recent publication by the Department of Veterans’ Affairs, Schooling, Service and the Great War. _____________________________________________ The educational materials offered by the Department of Veterans’ Affairs (DVA) have

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Cashen, Phil: Blogging the Great War

Cashen, Phil ‘Blogging the Great War from Gippsland‘, Honest History, 4 November 2014 Retired school principal and historian, Phil Cashen, writes about how he set up a blog, Shireatwar.com, on the story of the Shire of Alberton, Victoria, during the

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Blogging the Great War from Gippsland

Phil Cashen ‘Blogging the Great War from Gippsland’, Honest History, 4 November 2014 The genesis for the blog, Shireatwar.com, came from family history. My wife’s family came from the Shire of Alberton in Gippsland. They were dairy farmers. In World

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Pedersen, Peter: Anzac Treasures

Peter Pedersen Anzac Treasures: The Gallipoli Collection of the Australian War Memorial, Murdoch Books, Sydney, 2014 This landmark publication commemorates the centenary of the Great War’s Gallipoli campaign, 25 April 1915 to 9 January 1916. ANZAC Treasures approaches the subject of

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Stephens, David: Anzac Treasures follows a well-worn track

David Stephens ‘The well-worn track of commemoration’, Honest History, 23 October 2014 David Stephens reviews Peter Pedersen’s, Anzac Treasures: The Gallipoli Collection of the Australian War Memorial Anzac Treasures is a great big, complex book, just as the Australian War

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Columbans: Way of Peace materials

St Columbans Mission Society The Way of Peace: Anzac Centenary Edition (1915-2015) A set of discussion and action sheets enabling Christian reflection and response during the Anzac centenary and beyond. The materials cover growing a culture of peace, power and

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Reid, Richard: Faraway experience

Reid, Richard ‘That faraway experience: some thoughts on family history and the Western Front‘, Honest History, 7 October 2014 This article is based on a talk given to launch Family History Month at the National Archives of Australia head office,

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That faraway experience: family history and the Western Front

Reid, Richard ‘That faraway experience: some thoughts on family history and the Western Front’, Honest History, 7 October 2014 I had an uncle, John Holmes Wherry, my mother’s eldest brother in a family of six, who fought on the Western

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Lest We Forget collection reviewed

‘Lest We Forget comes out of the West’, Honest History, 7 October 2014 Paddy Gourley* reviews Bobbie Oliver & Sue Summers, ed., Lest We Forget? Marginalised Aspects of Australia at War and Peace, Black Swan Press, Curtin University, Perth, WA,

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Lessons in the sand

The Australian Army has commenced ‘a significant study of Army’s institutional lessons of the past 15 years … Learning from operational experience and encoding in the force the key elements of those lessons is a core function for any professional

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Fear sells

Politicians and media populists are expert at the manipulation of fears to exercise control and ratchet up their approval ratings. And we are conditioned to respond. Fear sells – and it gets governments elected. (Carmen Lawrence, 2006)

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Soldier’s faith?

[T]he faith is true and adorable which leads a soldier to throw away his life in obedience to a blindly accepted duty, in a cause which he little understands, in a plan of campaign of which he has little notion,

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Mayhew, Emily: Wounded

Mayhew, Emily Wounded: The Long Journey Home from the Great War, Random House, North Sydney, 2014; first published The Bodley Head, 2013; electronic version available; UK edition subtitled From Battlefield to Blighty 1914-1918 Wounded is the story of a journey:

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Sydney Great War exhibition looks at both sides

State Records of New South Wales has announced a number of initiatives which promise to give a reasonably balanced view of the state during the years 1914-18. The New South Wales Anzac Centenary website is in three parts: In Service –

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Going home: The War that Changed Us, ep. 4

‘Going Home’, the final episode of The War that Changed Us, mostly covers 1918 and the first year of peace but otherwise continues the approach of earlier episodes, interweaving the experiences of its six lead characters in Europe and Australia.

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Things come apart: The War that Changed Us, ep. 3

By episode 3 of The War that Changed Us, we’ve fully adjusted to its dramatised documentary approach, its repeated home front-front line segues, its six main actors’ role types, the expert commentators, colourised footage and stills, narrating voice-over hinting at

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Laugesen, Amanda: Language, soldiers, Great War

Laugesen, Amanda ‘Language, Australian soldiers, and the First World War’, Honest History, 1 September 2014 The illustrated text of a lecture at Manning Clark House, Canberra, 21 July 2014, on the language experience of ordinary people caught up in war.

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Honest History list: wartime spin

One hundred years ago today, 1 September 1914, this item appeared in The Brisbane Courier: THE BRITISH FORCES. OFFICIAL V. OTHER REPORTS. A REASSURING STATEMENT. LONDON, Sunday Night The Government Press Bureau states that its account of the fortunes of

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The War that Changed Us (Ep. 2): euphoria becomes hard slog

We were a bit late catching up with this week’s episode but this is what we thought. Episode 2 of The War that Changed Us grasps how quickly the mood changed in World War I, both among the men who

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Buch, Neville: Fighting the Great War

Buch, Neville ‘Why this war in this way? A note on the Great War’, Honest History, 28 August 2014 The question of whether World War I can be justified, either at the time, or looking back now, has overshadowed the

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The War that Changed Us not rose-tinted

There is lots of Anzac nostalgia television in the offing, with Anzac Girls notably underway already, leaving a somewhat frothy impression, though it is apparently based on diaries at the time. The nurses seem awfully young and fetching, the soldiers

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Stillman, Sarah: Hiroshima and the inheritance of trauma

Sarah Stillman ‘Hiroshima and the inheritance of trauma‘, New Yorker, 12 August 2014 In recent years, a public-health hypothesis has emerged that one of the world’s most poorly understood pandemics isn’t a conventional virus—like H1N1, say, or some hemorrhagic fever.

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Claven, Jim: Greek Anzac

Claven, Jim ‘From Asia Minor to Anzac Cove: the Odyssey of Peter Rados‘, Neos Kosmos, 11 August 2014 Story of an Anzac born in Ottoman Asia Minor, a member of Sydney’s Greek community. Landed at Gallipoli, 25 April 1915; killed

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Retracing Kokoda: in defence of historical revisionism

Anthony Cooper ‘Retracing Kokoda: in defence of historical revisionism’, Honest History, 4 August 2014 Somehow, ‘revisionism’ in military history has been turned by some people into a dirty word. Since when did the self-evidently rational process of ‘revising’ or ‘reviewing’

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Making war acceptable in the UK

The Ministry of Defence in the United Kingdom has been advising the government there about ways in which war can be made more palatable to the general public, including by reducing the ‘profile’ of repatriation ceremonies (code for returning the

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General racket

An exotic in the US Army was Major General Smedley Butler, who served in the Marines from 1898 to 1931 and was highly decorated. Having retired, he described his service as being ‘a gangster for capitalism’, wrote a book called

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General Morrison at the UN

Some time before the Chief of Army fixed the camera with a steely gaze to condemn misogyny in the Australian Army he gave a speech at the United Nations in New York. The occasion was International Women’s Day and the

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Woodrow Wilson wonders what he has done

Woodrow Wilson was puzzled at the exultant reaction to his April 1917 speech to Congress asking for a declaration of war. ‘My message tonight was a message of death for our young men… How strange it seems to applaud that.’

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Universal soldier

I was at the front for thirteen months, and by the end of that time … [t]he war had become an everyday affair; life in the line a matter of routine; instead of heroes there were only victims … [T]here

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Real soldiers, real lives

While never denying the achievement of D-Day, or the bravery of the soldiers who took part, What Soldiers Do reminds us that history is always more useful when it is most honest, and when it goes beyond the burnished beauty

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Fear beats reason, since 1756

No passion so effectually robs the mind of all its powers of acting and reasoning as fear. Edmund Burke, On the Sublime and the Beautiful (1756).

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Afghanistan at Australian War Memorial

The Australian War Memorial has mounted a new exhibition, Afghanistan: the Australian story. Director Brendan Nelson has recognised the need to get the balance right between depicting past and current wars and this exhibition delivers on that commitment. The exhibition,

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Whizzbangs what, why, when

This is to explain our section ‘Choice Whizzbangs‘. Whizzbangs first appear in our regular newsletters and we then reload most of them as Choice Whizzbangs. If you need the source for a particular Whizzbang you can usually find it by

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Review note: August guns

‘Review note: August guns’, Honest History, 8 August 2014 In the week that marked the centenary of the beginning of the Great War (as well as the 70th anniversary of the Cowra Breakout and the 69th anniversary of Hiroshima) it

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The cornerstone

Military history provides the foundation for Army training, education, esprit de corps, and decisionmaking. The lessons of the past form the doctrines of the future. These lessons are not based on poorly recorded or understood events. History is a way

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Senghor, Leopold Sedar: Senegalese sharpshooters

Senghor, Leopold Sedar ‘To Senegalese sharpshooters who died for France‘, No Glory in War 1914-1918 Senghor, one of Africa’s most noted poets and statesmen, wrote this poem in 1938-40. It is included here for three reasons: to remind us that

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Mackie, Chris: Gallipoli beautiful city

Mackie, Chris ‘Long read: Gallipoli, the beautiful city‘, The Conversation, 1 August 2014 A detailed analysis of the classical aspects of the Anzac story, relevant partly because the war historian, CEW Bean, and many of his contemporaries had received a

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Cooper, Anthony: Kokoda revised

Anthony Cooper ‘Retracing Kokoda: in defence of historical revisionism‘, Honest History, 4 August 2014 Critics of revisionism in history, including military history, assume that there is only one version of the story. But historians should interpret evidence and new evidence

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A Jauncey writes to the Prime Minister 1920 (4 August 2014)

In 1917 GEM (Eric) Jauncey was a victim of war paranoia in his employment at the University of Missouri. The security services of the Hughes Government in Australia had been in touch with their American counterparts who paid a visit

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Anzac Day Reflections

Reflections on an Anzac Day service Doug Hynd* The first Anzac Day of the millennium saw me make the substantial sacrifice of the several hours sleep required if I was to get up in time for the Dawn Service in

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Review note: centenary war and peace stories for children

‘Review note: centenary war and peace stories for children’, Honest History, 24 June 2014 updated He had killed a man not six hours before. He had killed six men during the past month – or was it a year? –

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Noonan, David: recounting WWI casualties

Noonan, David Those We Forget: Recounting Australian Casualties of the First World War, Melbourne University Publishing, Carlton, Vic., 2014 The book argues that ‘official Australian casualty statistics suffered by the men of the Australian Imperial Force in the First World

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General Morrison speaks against sexual violence in war

Chief of Army LT GEN David Morrison was a featured speaker at the Global Summit to end Sexual Violence in Conflict. He noted that at the heart of the issue of sexual violence committed by men in uniform ‘stands the

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Oliver, Bobbie & Sue Summers, ed.: marginalised remembrance

Oliver, Bobbie & Sue Summers, ed. Lest We Forget? Marginalised Aspects of Australia at War and Peace, Black Swan Press, Curtin University, Perth, WA, 2014 The book asks what is being remembered and what is being forgotten within our war

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Bowers, Mike: Battlefields photographs

Bowers, Mike Battlefields of France and Palestine: a portfolio of photographs, 2009 and 2011   Maltzkorn Farm crucifix near Trones Wood, The Somme, France. Maltzkorn Farm was destroyed by the fierce battles which took place here 1 July-5 August 1916

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Daley, Paul & Mike Bowers: Battlefields

Daley, Paul (with illustrations by Mike Bowers) ‘Battlefields’, Honest History, 12 June 2014 Battlefields of France and Palestine, 2009 and 2011: a portfolio of photographs by Mike Bowers Paul Daley, columnist for the Guardian Australia, has written a number of

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Neale, Kerry: facial wounds of the Great War

Neale, Kerry “Poor devils without noses and jaws”: facial wounds of the Great War: Honest History lecture, Manning Clark House, Canberra, 26 May 2014 The author has completed a Ph D at the Australian Defence Force Academy and works at

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Routley, Nicholas: Mahabharata

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Stanley, Peter Honest History’s President, Professor Peter Stanley, reviews and reflects on James Brown’s new book, Anzac’s Long Shadow. James Brown, Anzac’s Long Shadow: The Cost of Our National Obsession, Black Inc, Melbourne, 2014, $19.99; also available electronically James Brown,

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Stanley, Peter: Anzac’s Long Shadow highlights a national obsession

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