Shot in Iraq in April 2006, the film explores the isolation and routines of Australian soliders, and the long periods of waiting they endure before the inevitable moments of extreme action.

“No Dramas” will screen as part of the Canberra International Film Festival on the evening of Saturday 7 November.

For further details see the CIFF website  http://www.canberrafilmfestival.com.au/2009/10/05/no-dramas

HMAS Parramatta (author's collection)

The Australian War Memorial faces unique challenges presented by the modern age to its collection development for recent conflicts, including Iraq and Afghanistan. With email, phones and internet communicative tools largely replacing traditional keepsakes such as diaries and letters, this has made identifying and retaining objects of the ADF experience in modern conflict rather difficult. Furthermore, given that the number of ADF personnel serving overseas is far less than those who saw service in such conflicts as the World Wars, this also limits the amount of material representing recent conflicts and therefore what will shape the Memorial’s collections in the future.

One attempt to address this issue involved a representative from the Memorial being sent, in late 2008 to accompany Australian forces in Iraq. Mal Booth, former Head of the Memorial’s Research Centre, was fortunate enough spend time with Australian forces in Iraq and was able to identify and target items which would be of interest to the Memorial. Some of this material was identified on the industrious HMAS Parramatta, which was at that time conducting its second tour of the Gulf as part of Operation CATALYST. Mal travelled with the ship on his journey and found that the vessel and its crew provided extensive opportunities for proactive collecting.

In September 2009, the Memorial returned to HMAS Parramatta in order to gather further material…

read on

Mr Ray Hasler accepts a Lone Pine tree seedling from senior historian Peter Burness on the 75th anniversary of the tree planting

It has been 75 years since the Duke of Gloucester planted a tree in the grounds of the Australian War Memorial , in memory of all those who fought and died at the Battle of Lone Pine on the Gallipoli Peninsula on 6 August, 1915.

Men dressed in top hats and Boy Scouts from Braidwood, NSW, were among the crowd that attended the planting that warm Spring day on 24 October, 1934. The formal proceedings began at Parliament House, where a ceremony was held to mark the solemn occasion. The crowd then marched slowly through the valley and across the Molonglo River – there was no lake back then – to the site where the War Memorial was to be built, and watched on quiet and dignified as the Duke planted the tree.     

Ray Hasler, a 13-year-old Scout, was part of that historic day. He returned to the Australian War Memorial last Friday to commemorate the anniversary of the tree planting and reflect on the many history-making events that have happened since that day.

Mr Hasler, now of Queanbeyan NSW, served in the RAAF during the Second World War. He was part of the aircraft ground crew stationed in the South Pacific.

He remembers well the day the tree was planted: “[There were] lots of people about, thousands actually. And not a tree in sight, bare as a paddock.”

“It was rather dignified, everybody stood to attention when the Duke moved and when he finished   [planting the tree] they all doffed their hats.”

The tree itself was “about as thick as your thumb, and up to about knee height”. Today, the Lone Pine stands at more than 20metres.  

The tree was propagated from a pine cone that was sent to Australia by Lance Corporal Benjamin Smith, whose brother was killed in the battle for Lone Pine Ridge. Smith’s mother grew two seedlings, one of which was planted at the Australian War Memorial in honour of her own and others’ sons who fell at Lone Pine.

Cuttings from the Lone Pine are now propagated and available from Yarralumla Nursery in Canberra.

Mr Hasler had planned to visit the tree on its anniversary with a mate, Jack Whitfield, who was also a Scout present at the time of the planting. Sadly Mr Whitfield died just weeks before the anniversary.

Australian War Memorial senior historian Peter Burness presented Mr Hasler with a seedling from the Lone Pine, which he accepted on Mr Whitfield’s behalf, and said that he would likely plant it in Braidwood.

“I hope one day, when it’s gone, like we all will be gone, they cut a section out of the butt of this tree and nominate what happened on each ring, each ring suggests a year of growth,” he said.

“There’s 75 rings therein and they all tell a story, and it would be nice to read them.”

Around Australia racing excitement is reaching fever pitch in anticipation of next week’s Melbourne Cup. That day full of champagne, sunlight glinting or raindrops sploshing on the jockeys’ colours, the smell of clods of turf being turned up as the horses pound along …

Back in 1945 a “Pony Race Meeting” to be held on June 16 in Dutch New Guinea was similarly anticipated. It was scheduled to begin at 1330 hours, with eight races followed by a screening of “The Man Who Came To Dinner” starring Bette Davis and Monty Woolley.

Corporal Errol Coates, 82 Wireless Section, had started preparations weeks before. He had trained a Timor pony for the event. These were small ponies about 12 hands high (just over 48 inches or 122 cm). Coates fed his pony on crushed army biscuits for protein. Coates was to ride on the day and like the other jockeys he pulled together his “colours” from borrowed uniform items. An air force or army shirt overlain with someone else’s singlet, with another person’s hat constituted a jockey’s “colours”.

NX140970 Corporal Errol Coates. (Portrait courtesy of family)

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The Australia-Japan Research Project website has been updated with new contents. 

1. Japanese Midget Submarine attack on Sydney Harbour and its aftermath
The AJRP has conducted a study on the aftermath of the Japanese midget submarine attack in Sydney Harbour in 1942 and the research outcome has been added to our website. Dr Tamura, the AJRP project manager, carried out archival and field research in Australia and Japan to collect material and interview some family members of the submariners. The result is an extensive coverage of the series of incidents in Australia and Japan since the submarine attack up to present. We hope you enjoy exploring this issue on our website, which is primarily in English, but there are some bilingual pages in English and Japanese.

The site has sound and moving image files related to the submarine attack as follows: read on

To celebrate the arrival of ‘Masterpieces from Paris: Van Gogh, Gauguin, Cezanne and beyond,’ teachers passionate about art are being invited to participate in a special learning day in Canberra.

This one day program also includes an opportunity to explore collections in two of the National Capital’s premier institutions – The Australian War Memorial and the National Portrait Gallery.

The meet-up will be in the form of a projection onto – or within – the participating institution’s building at night (or suitable day-time location) using a slideshow of content from the Commons on Flickr accounts curated by the community.

There are over 400 images in the set, and they are an amazing selection.  There are sad photos, funny ones, cute ones, one that make you think, ones that you will not expect.  Some are in colour, many are black and white.  Some show ordinary people doing ordinary things, some will make you gasp.  They demonstrate not only the differences between the collections from which they are drawn, but also the things that are the same, the common ground. 

Here at the Australian War Memorial, the images will projected on the large screen in our orientation gallery over the weekend.  The Powerhouse Museum and the State Library of New South Wales are joining forces in Sydney, and the State Libraryof Queensland is also taking part. 

In the Northern Hemisphere, the meet-up is on at George Eastman House, State Library and Archives of Florida, the Oregon State University Archives ,  Brooklyn Museum and the New York Public Library and the Swedish National Heritage Board

Read more about the Commons on Flickr, see the Memorial’s images on the Commons, or read more about the Common Ground event in the Collections Australia Network blog.

Update:  If you missed the event, you can still see the images in this slide show on Flickr Commons and read the Common Ground wrap-up on the indicommons blog.

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Those who regularly read the AWM blog might remember the Valentine’s Day blog post about a mysterious love letter from a young French woman to her soldier sweetheart.

This letter, and the mystery that surrounds it, created lots of interest. With the help of an enthusiastic member of the public, and her wonderfully helpful relative in France, we have since found a few more details about Marthe and her letter.

Marthe and her family were evacuated from Armentières, on the French/Belgian border, to Saint-Sulpice-Les-Feuilles during the First World War. Armentières was destroyed during the war and rebuilt afterwards.

It was in Saint-Sulpice-Les-Feuilles that Marthe met her sweetheart. However, the identity of Marthe’s sweetheart and his fate remain a mystery. The two never married as he rejoined his battalion and never came back to her. Marthe’s nephew heard the story from his father but the family cannot recall his name after all these years. However, enquires continue and I’ll do another blog post if any more information turns up.

Marthe’s letter will be on public display as part of the Memorial’s Of Love and War exhibition opening in December.

The Australian War Memorial will join other institutions, including the New York Public Library and the Brooklyn Museum, for the worldwide exhibition Common Ground.

 Voting for Common Ground closes on 16 September, so now is the last chance to vote for photographs, including those shared on Flickr by the Australian War Memorial.

 Voting is open to everyone with a Flickr account, for all images from Commons on Flickr. The most ‘favourited’ images, as voted by the public, will be simultaneously projected around the world by participating institutions on the weekend of 2 and 3 October.

 The Australian War Memorial is pleased to be participating, with the projection screening in the Orientation Gallery on 2 and 3 October.

 Vote now for the Australian War Memorial at http://commonground.eastmanhouse.org/ 

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Further information:
http://www.awm.gov.au/flickrcommons/meetup.asp

http://www.flickr.com/groups/flickrcommons

9 September 2009