Lockheed Hudson – Turret Structure Trial Fit
23 January 2012 by Jamie Croker.
No comments
Collection,Conservation
After months of work treating and reproducing induvidual pieces, the complex structure which supports the Boulton Paul turret has been trial fitted. It was great to see all the seperate items come together. These parts, after final undercoating, will now be rivetted into the airframe permanately. Rear fuselage skins can then be rolled, and the Boulton Paul turret fitted.
Boulto Paul turret support structureDreaming of sponge cake in Yokohama
19 January 2012 by Emma Campbell.
No comments
News
Fried shrimps and scallops, ham “a la King” and lemon sponge: these were the dishes that six Australian Army nurses would dream of while they were held captive in Japan during the Second World War.
Instead, the prisoners received a monotonous diet consisting mostly of rice and soya bean soup, and stew with questionable pieces of meat. On the eighth day of each month – known as “degradation” or “humiliation” day – the meagre vegetables that were issued were thrown into a cesspit and the women made to retrieve them; occasionally they were made to eat scraps from a pig bucket.
The nurses’ ordeal, which was to last three years and seven months, began 70 years ago when they surrendered to the Japanese after the invasion of Rabaul on 23 January 1942. Rabaul was the administrative capital of Australia’s Mandated Territory of New Guinea. It had a strategically important, deep-water harbour and airfields that were well-positioned for reconnaissance and bombing sorties over the Japanese naval bases in the Caroline Islands. But few resources were allocated to the protection of the garrison, and the men who tried gallantly to protect it from attack were overwhelmed by a much larger invading force.
The Australian army nurses were mostly country girls who had sailed from Sydney on the converted troopship Zealandia in April 1941. The nurses were the only servicewomen on the island and served with the 2/10th Field Ambulance, which consisted of two doctors and 20 male orderlies.
The army hospital in Rabaul had been evacuated on 22 January and transferred to the Roman Catholic mission at Vunapope. The army doctors didn’t stay on and took with them the ambulances, most of the medical supplies and the orderlies. The head nurse, Sister Kathleen Parker, and an Anglican chaplain surrendered on behalf of the hospital when the Japanese arrived.
The nurses were made to stand for hours in the blazing sun with Japanese machine-guns trained on them. That day the Japanese killed about 20 patients, as well as the chaplain. The army nurses expected to be killed too; instead they were imprisoned in a convent within the mission until July 1942, along with a small number of missionary and administrative nurses and one civilian woman. Some Australian soldiers were also imprisoned in the mission.
In early July the nurses and other internees – including the Australian soldiers — were taken by ship to Yokohama, Japan. The women spent most of the next two years under guard in the Yokohama Amateur Rowing Club, not allowed to write to their families. At first, the conditions were tolerable: they had clean toilets and cold showers were always available; hot baths were occasionally allowed. There were ping-pong sets, badminton and cards, and during the warmer months they swam in the club pool. But conditions declined after the first year in captivity: the women were regularly slapped and occasionally they were lined up at gunpoint. Red Cross officials were stopped from visiting them. They suffered greatly in the extreme cold of the winter months: their bed coverings were flimsy and heating within the building was poor or non-existent, so to stay warm they slept two to a bed.
Food was always on their minds, and a recipe book compiled by Sister Eileen Callaghan and held at the Australian War Memorial reveals just what they desired: cheese dishes, hearty roasts, fresh salads, luscious desserts, and cakes.
Nurse Daisy Keast recalled that after her release, her first letter home to her parents demanded that her first meal when she arrived home be roast pork and steamed date pudding.
“That’s all we thought about and talked about,” she said. “My family said we never talked to them at all, all we talked about was food.”
The women were moved in April 1944 to a farmhouse at Totsuka, about 50 kilometres from Yokohama and with a view of Mount Fuji. The house had no heating or showers so they washed from buckets. They were made dig air-raid trenches for the Japanese, and in winter had to shovel paths in the snow. They grew weaker from hunger and suffered deficiency diseases such as beri-beri.
The women had scant news from the outside world, but by 1945 they could tell the war was going badly for the Japanese. They watched the bombing raids over Yokohama and Tokyo. On 17 August, 1945, the internees were told that peace had been declared. The women were free, but afraid of reprisals, they remained in the compound. Food suddenly improved, a doctor visited and gave them medicine, and they also received coats to cover their tattered nurses’ uniforms.
On 31 August, after three years and seven months of imprisonment, two of the army nurses intercepted an American convoy and were finally rescued from Totsuka. They were flown to Okinawa Island and then to Manila. They were among the first prisoners of war to arrive home, most of them arriving in Australia on 13 September 1945. Sister Callaghan, who had contracted tuberculosis and received no treatment, arrived back in Australia one month later. She died in March 1954 from continuing problems related to the disease.
The nurses had survived because of a determination to not let the Japanese defeat them. “If we had given up we wouldn’t have come back, it’s as simple as that,” said Sister Marjory Anderson. “If we gave up hope we’d have just died.”
Sources and further reading
Catherine Kenny, Captives : Australian army nurses in Japanese prison camps (University of Queensland Press, 1986)
Second World War Official Histories, Volume VI – The New Guinea Offensives (1st edition, 1961)
Rupert Goodman, Our War Nurses: The History of the Royal Australian Army Nursing Corps 1902-1988 (Boolarong Publications, 1988)
Mike Coleridge, Australian Vietnam War photographer, 1933-2012
13 January 2012 by Ian Affleck.
8 Comments
News,Personal Stories
Michael (Mike) Coleridge will always be remembered for the photograph he took on 26 August 1967 of a group of soldiers of 5 Platoon, B Company, 7RAR, waiting for an Iroquois helicopter to land and take them back to Nui Dat at the end of Operation Ulmarra. This photograph has become an Australian icon of the Vietnam War and is graphically featured on the Vietnam National Memorial on ANZAC Parade in Canberra. But this is just one of 558 still photographs and 54 films taken in Vietnam by Mike Coleridge in the Australian War Memorial’s collection.
Canberra’s Summer Bonus Card
20 December 2011 by krikra.
No comments
News
Get the most out of summer in the national capital with blockbuster exhibitions and family programs at
From 1 January to 1 February 2012 look for the Summer Bonus Card brochure at selected cultural institutions, Canberra Centre and the Canberra Visitor and Information Centre.
Detach the card from the brochure, slip it into your wallet and enjoy bonus benefits wherever you go.
Simply present your card at each attraction for great rewards, such as two-for-one offers, free posters, recipe booklets and parking vouchers, and special offers at the Canberra Centre,
while stocks last.
Stinking Farm Trench Sign
06 December 2011 by Dianne Rutherford.
2 Comments
Collection,From the collection, Battles, First World War, Heraldry, Western Front
My name is Romy Turner. I am a work experience student from Canberra Girls Grammar School at the Memorial for this week. As part of my work experience I had to research an item, a trench sign, from the Memorial’s collection.
RELAWM06263 Trench sign to Stinking FarmThe trench sign ‘To Stinking Farm & Currie Ave’ was collected during the First World War by Lieutenant Colonel John Basil St. Vincent Welch, whilst he was serving as part of the 13thField Ambulance in Belgium. Welch arrived in Marseilles on 13 July 1916 as a member of the Australian Field Ambulance. He was appointed the commanding officer of the 13thField Ambulance and was stationed around the village of Messines, which would be the site of the Battle of Messines 11 months later. Stationed at Kandahar Farm, Welch assisted in this battle, tending to the wounded as they came back from the front and organising the transportation of the men further back the line to the field hospitals. read on
Hospital Tent at Rest Gully Gallipoli
02 December 2011 by Dianne Rutherford.
2 Comments
Collection,From the collection, First World War, Gallipoli, Gallipoli Mission, Heraldry, hospital
My name’s Sean Limn, and I’ve been doing work experience at the War Memorial for the past week. One of my tasks whilst at the Memorial was to research a collection item, a piece of an old tent found at Gallipoli in 1919. The tent piece was found at Rest Gully, and is from a hospital tent left during the evacuation in December 1915. The tent was left behind as part of the ruse to prevent the Turks from realising that an evacuation was taking place.
RELAWM00433 Remains of Hospital tent from Rest GullyLockheed Hudson – Boulton Paul Turret Build
02 December 2011 by Jamie Croker.
1 Comment
Collection,Conservation
The Boulton Paul Turret was the first of the major componemts to undergo restoration, with work commencing in late 2009 on a large pile of turret pieces. Over an eight month period, the parts were individually treated, and the turret slowly took shape. The frame is a complex assembly, with literally hundreds of small brackets, all rivited together to make up the cupola, or frame.
One of several piles of BP Turret components used to construct the turretTobruk diaries: The siege comes to an end
28 November 2011 by Carlie Walker.
No comments
1941, Tobruk,Tobruk diaries, Siege, Tobruk
The last battalion to be evacuated from Tobruk was Bryant’s battalion, the 2/13th in December 1941. Finally, German General Erwin Rommel and his Afrikakorps were forced to abandon the Siege, falling back towards Tripoli.
The Australians had courageously and collectively defended the town for 8 months and established themselves in the annals of Australia’s military history.
During the campaign, 832 Australians were killed, 2,177 were wounded and 941 were taken prisoner.
For more information, go to: http://www.awm.gov.au/wartime/54/james-great-siege/
Edmund Crawford Lecky
Edmund Crawford Lecky was promoted to Captain on 24 July 1942, then to Major on 27 May 1944. He was awarded the MBE (Member of the Order of the British Empire) on 9 March 1945 for his work in communications at the landing of Finschafen in Papua New Guinea, 1943.
For more information on Finschafen go to:
http://ajrp.awm.gov.au/ajrp/ajrp2.nsf/pages/NT00007E8E?openDocument
Edmund Crawford Lecky died on 2 May 1981.
Arthur Francis Bryant
Arthur Francis Bryant returned to Australia after the war, where he married Peggy, the love of his life. Together, the couple started a family and opened and ran a sandwich shop, first in Sydney and later in Cremorne.
After retiring late in life, Arthur suffered from constant strokes and was cared for by his wife for the last 10 years of his life. His daughter describes him as ‘a very gentle man’.
Bryant, Lecky, Cosgriff and the other ‘Rats of Tobruk’ were, this year honoured in a dedicatory exhibition entitled Rats of Tobruk, 1941. The next exhibition, Nurses: from Zululand to Afghanistan, which tells the story of military nurses and their unique contribution in wartime, will open on 2 December 2011.
In the collection: Conflict T-shirts
25 November 2011 by Sue Ducker.
No comments
Collection,Collection Highlights,From the collection,News
The Australian War Memorial holds T-shirts from the numerous Peace Keeping missions in which Australians have served. A usually inexpensive and useful type of souvenir, the T-shirts are often humorous and visually creative. They are an example of how soldiers have adapted a civilian item of clothing to a deployment context.
The Memorial is interested in making contact with anyone who contributed to the designs printed on the three T-shirts below. If you can provide more information on these items please contact sue.ducker@awm.gov.au.
MOvember MOtivation
23 November 2011 by Lauren Hewitt.
No comments
From the collection,News
We know that some of you out there are neglecting your razors in the name of raising money for a good cause, even some of the good men here at the War Memorial have put their hand up to cultivate magnificent moustaches. So we thought we’d bring you some MOtivational photos from our archives, to show you that competitive MO growing has been going on for decades!
During the Second World War, naval ships such as the HMAS Perth and Shropshire held beard growing competitions. Above, a champion beard grower, Able Bodied Seaman Cooper, shows off his award winning crop aboard the Perth; and on the Shropshire, Able Seaman Evans has his beard trimmed by fellow champion growers.
In other forces, where beards were perhaps not allowed, we start to see some imaginative moustache examples. This one below is an example of one of the longest, grown in Japan in 1946.
KAITAICHI, JAPAN. 1946-12-25. A MEMBER OF THE BCOF AUSTRALIAN MILITARY FORCES WORKSHOPS UNIT, WHO HAS THE LONGEST MOUSTACHE IN JAPAN. 132411
Studio portrait of Warrant Officer Class 1 (WO1) Henry Thomas 'Jack' Harwood, the Regimental Sergeant Major (RSM) of the 3rd Battalion, The Royal Australian Regiment (3RAR), (previously the 67th Battalion). DUKJ3662
During the Korean War, soldiers took great pride in the cultivation of their moustaches, waxing them especially for the occasion of having their portraits taken. Official Photographer, Phillip J Hobson, took a series of portraits of men and their moustaches.
Private Moore, seen below receiving a haircut from a Korean barber, worries about the fate of his moustache, which, when waxed, is an impressive 6 inches from tip to tip.
Happy Mo growing!
