The Royal Australian Engineers, 1919 to 1945

The Royal Australian Engineers, 1919 to 1945 PDF Author: Ronald McNicoll
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Australia
Languages : en
Pages : 510

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Book Description

The Royal Australian Engineers, 1919 to 1945

The Royal Australian Engineers, 1919 to 1945 PDF Author: Ronald McNicoll
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Australia
Languages : en
Pages : 510

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Book Description


The Hard Slog

The Hard Slog PDF Author: Karl James
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1107017327
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 335

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Book Description
The first major study since 1963 to examine the historic Australian military campaign of 1944-1945 at Bougainville in the South Pacific.

Australian Dictionary of Biography, 1981-1990

Australian Dictionary of Biography, 1981-1990 PDF Author: Diane Langmore
Publisher: The Miegunyah Press
ISBN: 052285382X
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 695

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Book Description
Volume 17 of the Australian Dictionary of Biography contains 658 biographies of individuals who died between 1981 and 1990. The first of two volumes for the decade, it presents a colourful mosaic of twentieth-century Australian life. It contains biographies of well-known identities such as Sir Henry Bolte, Sir Robert Askin, Sir Reginald Ansett, Sir Macfarlane Burnet, Sir Raphael and Lady Cilento, Sir Arthur Coles, Robert Holmes-O-Court, Sir Warwick Fairfax, Sir Edmund Herring, Albert Facey, Donald Friend, Sir Roy Grounds, Sir Bernard Heinze and Sir Robert Helpmann. Eminent Australian women in the volume include Dame Elizabeth Couchman, Dame Kate Campbell, Dame Doris Fitton, Dame Zara Holt and Lady (Maie) Casey. Although many of the women achieved prominence in those professions conventionally regarded as the preserve of women, othersandmdash;such as Ruby Boye-Jones, coast-watcher; Ellen Cashman, union organiser; Elsie Chauvel, film-maker; Dorothy Crawford, radio producer; Ruth Dobson, diplomat; Mary Hodgkin, anthropologist; Margaret Kelly, restaurateur; and Patricia Jarrett, journalistandmdash;demonstrate that some women at least were breaking free of the constraints of traditional expectations. The lives of fifteen Indigenous Australians are included, as are those of a number of immigrants who fled from persecution in Europe to establish a new life in Australia.

The Backroom Boys

The Backroom Boys PDF Author: Graeme Sligo
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1922132543
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 312

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Book Description
The Backroom Boys is the remarkable, but little known, story of how a varied group of talented intellectuals, drafted into the Australian Army in the dark days of 1942, provided high-level policy advice to Australia’s most senior soldier, General Blamey, and through him to the Government for the remainder of the war and beyond. This band of academics, lawyers and New Guinea patrol officers formed a unique military unit, the Directorate of Research and Civil Affairs, under the command of an eccentric and masterful string-puller, Alf Conlon. The Directorate has been depicted as a haven for underemployed poets or meddlesome soldier-politicians. Based on wide-ranging research, this book reveals a fuller and more fascinating picture. The fierce conflicts in the wartime bureaucracy between public servants and soldiers, in which the Directorate provided critical support to Blamey, went to the heart of military command, accountability and the profession of arms. The Directorate was a pioneer in developing approaches to military government in areas liberated by the combat troops, as demonstrated by the Australian Army in New Guinea, and Borneo in 1945-46. It is an issue of enduring importance. The Directorate established the Australian School of Pacific Administration, and had an important role in founding the Australian National University. Its influence extended into post war Australia. The Backroom Boys emphasises the personality of Colonel Alf Conlon, as well as the talented men and women he recruited. Above all, this book shows how, unexpectedly, the Australian Army fostered a group of men and women who made a lasting contribution to the development of Australia in the decades after the war.

Gona's Gone!

Gona's Gone! PDF Author: David W. Cameron
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1922896632
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 515

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Book Description
With the Australian troops crossing of the Kumusi River in mid-November 1942, after pushing the Japanese back along the Kokoda Track to the north coast of Papua New Guinea, the time had come to face the entrenched Japanese at their beachheads at Gona, Sanananda and Buna. The Japanese were determined to fight to the last man in the defence of these critical positions. The first beach to be captured by the Australians was Gona, which fell on 9 December after bitter fighting. This, however, was not the end of the fighting around this beachhead as just west of Gona, on the opposite side of Gona Creek a larger Japanese Force had been landed which was intent on not only reinforcing Gona, but also Sanananda and Buna, both located east of Gona. The fighting west of Gona Creek would be just a brutal and deadly as the fighting to take the Gona Beachhead. Even so, after this fighting Australian and American troops, operating together for the first time in the Pacific War, were still bogged down in the battles to take Sanananda and Buna, the fighting at these beachheads would continue into January 1943.

Australian Dictionary of Biography, Volume 19

Australian Dictionary of Biography, Volume 19 PDF Author: Melanie Nolan
Publisher: ANU Press
ISBN: 1760464139
Category : Reference
Languages : en
Pages : 970

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Book Description
Volume 19 of the Australian Dictionary of Biography (ADB) contains concise biographies of individuals who died between 1991 and 1995. The first of two volumes for the 1990s, it presents a colourful montage of late twentieth-century Australian life, containing the biographies of significant and representative Australians. The volume is still in the shadow of World War II with servicemen and women who enlisted young appearing, but these influences are dimming and there are now increasing numbers of non-white, non-male, non-privileged and non-straight subjects. The 680 individuals recorded in volume 19 of the ADB include Wiradjuri midwife and Ngunnawal Elder Violet Bulger; Aboriginal rights activist, poet, playwright and artist Kevin Gilbert; and Torres Strait Islander community leader and land rights campaigner Eddie Mabo. HIV/AIDS child activists Tony Lovegrove and Eve Van Grafhorst have entries, as does conductor Stuart Challender, ‘the first Australian celebrity to go public’ about his HIV/AIDS condition in 1991. The arts are, as always, well-represented, including writers Frank Hardy, Mary Durack and Nene Gare, actors Frank Thring and Leonard Teale and arts patron Ian Potter. We are beginning to see the effects of the steep rise in postwar immigration flow through to the ADB. Artist Joseph Stanislaw Ostoja-Kotkowski was born in Poland. Pilar Moreno de Otaegui, co-founded the Spanish Club of Sydney. Chinese restaurateur and community leader Ming Poon (Dick) Low migrated to Victoria in 1953. Often we have a dearth of information about the domestic lives of our subjects; politician Olive Zakharov, however, bravely disclosed at the Victorian launch of the federal government’s campaign to Stop Violence Against Women in 1993 that she was a survivor of domestic violence in her second marriage. Take a dip into the many fascinating lives of the Australian Dictionary of Biography.

Britain's Greatest Defeat

Britain's Greatest Defeat PDF Author: Alan Warren
Publisher: A&C Black
ISBN: 9781852855970
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 408

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Book Description
New in paperback, The pre-eminent history of a military disaster. A masterful analysis of events.

Bloody Buna

Bloody Buna PDF Author: David W. Cameron
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1923004719
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 483

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Book Description
With the Australian troops crossing of the Kumusi River in mid-November, after pushing the Japanese back along the Kokoda Track, the time had come to face the entrenched Japanese at their beachhead at Gona, Sanananda and Buna. The end of the Kokoda Campaign in mid-November 1942 marked a turning point for the Australians, but the fighting was far from over. Within days, the battles for the three Japanese beachheads would commence. These battles where the first combined large-scale operation between Australian and American troops against the Japanese and would prove to be among the fiercest of the Pacific War. At Buna, the final battles to take 'New' and 'Old' air strips by the Australians, along with the ongoing American attacks to take the infamous 'Triangle,' proved to be a brutal and deadly bloodbath for all concerned. Amidst the crocodile-infested swamps and lowland jungle with dozens of Japanese bunkers and pillboxes with supporting artillery, the Australians who fought at all three beachheads faced an unprecedented toll, suffering more killed or wounded than in any other campaign of the Pacific war. In the face of relentless combat, the Allied forces at Buna suffered staggering casualties, with 2817 men lost at Buna. The American 32nd Division sustained 1954 casualties, including 353 killed (18%), 1508 wounded, and 93 missing amounting to around 40 per cent casualties over a six week period. The Australian 18th Infantry Brigade and supporting elements suffered 863 casualties, with 267 killed (31%), 557 wounded, and 39 missing amounting to around 60 per cent casualties over just three weeks of fighting. As the battle raged on, the Japanese suffered significant losses, with a minimum of 1390 men killed at Buna. The true number of their dead, lost in history, is likely much higher, with conservative estimates suggesting around 3000 fatalities. “Bloody Buna" sheds light on the untold sacrifices and heroism displayed by the Australian and American troops as they clashed with the Japanese in one of the most vicious chapters of the Pacific War.

Airborne Landing to Air Assault

Airborne Landing to Air Assault PDF Author: Nikolaos Theotokis
Publisher: Pen and Sword Military
ISBN: 1526747022
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 322

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Book Description
Many books have been written about military parachuting, in particular about famous parachute operations like Crete and Arnhem in the Second World War and notable parachute units like the British Parachute Regiment and the US 101st Airborne Division, but no previous book has covered the entire history of the use of the parachute in warfare. That is why Nikolaos Theotokis’s study is so valuable. He traces in vivid detail the development of parachuting over the last hundred years and describes how it became a standard tactic in twentieth-century conflicts. As well as depicting a series of historic parachute operations all over the world, he recognizes the role of airmen in the story, for they were the first to use the parachute in warfare when they jumped from crippled aeroplanes in combat conditions Adapting the parachute for military purposes occurred with extraordinary speed during the First World War and, by the time of the Second World War, it had become an established technique for special operations and offensive actions on a large scale. The range of parachute drops and parachute-led attacks was remarkable, and all the most dramatic examples from the world wars and lesser conflicts are recounted in this graphic and detailed study. The role played by parachute troops as elite infantry is also a vital part of the narrative, as is the way in which techniques of air assault have evolved since the 1970s.

Australian Dictionary of Biography: 1940-1980, Kem-Pie

Australian Dictionary of Biography: 1940-1980, Kem-Pie PDF Author: Douglas Pike
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Australia
Languages : en
Pages : 672

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Book Description
Vol 17 of the Australian Dictionary of Biography is the first of the two to deal with the period 1981-1990, recording the lives of Australians whom many of us remember from the recent past.