Military History Section Staff Biographies

Peter Pedersen

Dr Peter Pedersen joined the Military History Section as a Senior Historian in 2008. He has written
six books on World War I, as well as numerous articles on campaigns from the Second World War and the Vietnam War, and on battlefields and military and aviation museums worldwide.

Peter's military history is informed by professional knowledge of his field. He is a graduate of the Royal Military College, Duntroon, the Australian Command and Staff College and the University of New South Wales, where he undertook his doctoral thesis. He commanded the 5th/7th Battalion, the Royal Australian Regiment, and was a political/strategic analyst in the Australian Office of National
Assessments.

In 1990 Peter guided Prime Ministers Thatcher and Hawke over the Gallipoli Peninsula as part of the 75th anniversary commemoration of the Gallipoli campaign. He has appeared on Australian television and radio and spoken at military history seminars around the world. He has also led many tours to the Western Front and to other battlefields in Europe and Asia, which included organising and leading the first British tour to Dien Bien Phu in Vietnam.

Books

The Anzacs: Gallipoli to the Western Front. Penguin/Viking, Melbourne, 2007

Villers-Bretonneux. Leo Cooper, Barnsley, 2004

Fromelles. Leo Cooper, Barnsley, 2004

Hamel. Leo Cooper, Barnsley, 2003

Images of Gallipoli. Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1988

Monash as a Military Commander. Melbourne University Press, Melbourne, 1985

Contributions to other books

‘The Defence of Australia’ in D.M. Horner (ed.), Duty First. A History of the Royal Australian Regiment. Allen & Unwin, Melbourne, 1990

‘The AIF on the Western Front’ in M. Browne and M. McKernan (eds.), Australia: Two Centuries of War and Peace. Australian War Memorial/Allen & Unwin, Canberra, 1988

‘Sir John Monash’ in D.M. Horner (ed.), The Commanders. Allen & Unwin, Melbourne, 1984

Introduction to C.E.W. Bean, Official History of Australia in the War of 1914-18. III. The AIF in France in 1916. Queensland University Press, St. Lucia, 1982

Articles

‘The AIF. As Good as the Legend Says’, The Sydney Papers, Vol. 19, No. 2, Autumn 2007

‘Diggers’ Learning Curve Swift and Steep’, The Australian, 25 April 2007

‘Defeat into Victory. The 15th Brigade AIF at Fromelles and Villers-Bretonneux’ and ‘The Finnish Air Force Museum’, Battlefields Review Annual, 2004

‘Sotamuseo. The Military Museum of Finland’, Battlefields Review, No. 28, November 2003

‘Bringing the Past to Life. Fromelles 1916’, Battlefields Review, No. 25, May 2003

‘Khe Sanh. Vietnam 1968’, Battlefields Review, No. 24, March 2003

‘Fire from the Sky. The Battle of the Red River Delta January–May 1951’, Battlefields Review, No. 23, January 2003

‘Monash’s Masterly Touch’, The Quarterly Journal of Military History, Vol. 14, No. 2, Winter 2002

‘On the Trail of the Bomb. The A-Bomb and the Manhattan Project 1945’, ‘New Mexico’s Atomic Heritage’ and ‘And So It Ends. New Australian Memorial at Pozières’, Battlefields Review, No 20, July 2002

‘Dien Bien Phu. The Cauldron of Courage’ and ‘The Troubled Peace of Oradour-sur-Glane’, Battlefields Review, No. 19, May 2002

‘The Debacle in Malaya’, Battlefields Review, No. 17, January 2002

‘The South African National Museum of Military History’, Battlefields Review, No. 16, November 2001

‘Remembering Pearl Harbour’, ‘USS Arizona. One Moment in Time’, ‘Battleship Missouri. The Mighty Mo’, ‘Pearl Harbour. The Day of Infamy Today’ and ‘Cassino and San Pietro’, Battlefields Review, No 15, September 2001

‘Crop of Iron’ and ‘Getting into Colditz’, Battlefields Review, No. 12, March 2001

‘Remembering Elands River’, Battlefields Review, No. 11, January 2001

‘The Sands of Iwo Jima Fifty-Five Years On’ and ‘Unquiet Graves’, Battlefields Review, No. 8, July 2000

‘When Old Soldiers Didn’t Fade Away. The 75th Anniversary Gallipoli Pilgrimage’, Battlefields Review, No. 5, January 2000

‘Ghosts of War. Vietnam’s Battlefields Today’, Journal of the Royal United Services Institute for Defence Studies, Vol. 144, No. 2, April–May, 1999

‘Dien Bien Phu. The Valley of Tears’, South China Morning Post, 10 May 1997

‘General Sir John Monash. Master at Arms’, The Australian Weekend Magazine, 7–8 August 1993

‘The Ghosts of Anzac’, Journal of the Australian War Memorial, No. 2, April 1983

‘The Prewar Military Career of Sir John Monash’, Journal of the Royal Australian Historical Society, Vol 67, December 1981

‘Albert Cooke’ and ‘David Emmet Coyne’ in G. Serle and B. Nairn (eds.), Australian Dictionary of Biography, VIII, Melbourne University Press, Melbourne, 1981

Contributions to television and radio documentaries

Advised on and appeared in ABC television documentary John Monash. The Forgotten Anzac, to appear in late 2008.

Advised on and appeared in ABC television documentary Gallipoli: the Fatal Shore. 1988.

Participated in ABC radio documentary on Kemal Ataturk, Australian Broadcasting Commission. 1982.