Peter Pedersen

Dr Peter Pedersen joined the Military History Section as a Senior Historian in 2008. He has written seven books on World War I, as well as numerous articles on campaigns of 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; they include organising and leading the first British tour to Dien Bien Phu in Vietnam.

Books

Anzacs at War, Allen & Unwin, Sydney, 2010.

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

Villers-Bretonneux, Barnsley, UK, Leo Cooper, 2004

Fromelles, Barnsley, UK, Leo Cooper, 2004

Hamel, Barnsley, UK, Leo Cooper, 2003

Images of Gallipoli, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1988

Monash as a military commander, Melbourne, Melbourne University Press, 1985

Contributions to other books

“Maintaining the advance: Monash, battle procedure and the Australian Corps in 1918” in A. Ekins (ed.), 1918: Year of Victory—the end of the Great War and the shaping of history. Exisle Publishing, Wollombi, 2010

“The defence of Australia” in D.M. Horner (ed.), Duty first: a history of the Royal Australian Regiment, Melbourne, Allen and Unwin, 1990

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

“Sir John Monash” in D.M. Horner (ed.), The commanders, Melbourne, Allen and Unwin, 1984

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

Articles

“Burning Bridges. Was the 1st Australian Division’s first commander a good general or a dud?”, Wartime, No. 50, 2010

“From Howse to Donaldson: winning the Victoria Cross” and “Recock and refigure: Trooper Mark Donaldson VC speaks”, Wartime, 46, 2009

“Fromelles: reflections on a battlefield”, Wartime, 44, 2008

“The AIF: as good as the legend says”, The Sydney Papers, 19, 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, 28, 2003

“Bringing the past to life: Fromelles 1916”, Battlefields Review, 25, 2003

“Khe Sanh: Vietnam 1968”, Battlefields Review, 24, 2003

“Fire from the sky: the battle of the Red River Delta January – May 1951”, Battlefields Review, 23, 2003

“Monash’s Masterly Touch”, The Quarterly Journal of Military History, 14, 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, 20, 2002

“Dien Bien Phu: the cauldron of courage” and “The troubled peace of Oradour-sur-Glane”, Battlefields Review, 19, 2002

“The debacle in Malaya”, Battlefields Review, 17, 2002

“The South African National Museum of Military History”, Battlefields Review, 16, 2001

“Remembering Pearl Harbor”, “USS Arizona: one moment in time”, “Battleship Missouri: the Mighty Mo”, “Pearl Harbor. the day of infamy today” and “Cassino and San Pietro”, Battlefields Review, 15, 2001

“Crop of iron” and “Getting into Colditz”, Battlefields Review, 12, 2001

“Remembering Elands River”, Battlefields Review, 11, 2001

“The sands of Iwo Jima fifty-five years on” and “Unquiet graves”, Battlefields Review, 8, 2000

“When old soldiers didn’t fade away: the 75th anniversary Gallipoli pilgrimage”, Battlefields Review, 5, 2000

“Ghosts of War. Vietnam’s battlefields today”, Journal of the Royal United Services Institute for Defence Studies, 144, 2, 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, 2, 1983

“The prewar military career of Sir John Monash”, Journal of the Royal Australian Historical Society, 67, 1981

“Albert Cooke” and “David Emmet Coyne” in G. Serle and B. Nairn (eds.), Australian Dictionary of Biography, vol. 8, Melbourne, Melbourne University Press, 1981

Public talks and conference papers delivered

“The Korean War”, presentation to Friends of the Australian War Memorial, Australian War Memorial, 27 February 2010 

“Australia and the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan”, presentation to Department of Veterans’ Affairs, Woden, 25 February 2010 

“The Gallipoli Campaign”, presentation to Friends of the Australian War Memorial, Australian War Memorial, 13 February 2010 

“Australia and the Korean War, the Malayan Emergency and Confrontation”, presentation to Department of Veterans’ Affairs, Woden, 4 February 2010

“Australia and the war in Europe, 1939-42”, presentation to Department of Veterans’ Affairs, Woden, 19 November 2009

“Changing fortunes: the battles of Villers-Bretonneux re-examined”, public talk, Australian War Memorial, 23 August 2009

“ANZAC Day and what it means” Anzac Eve Dinner Oration, Woden Valley RSL, Woden, 24 April 2009  

 “Gallipoli. Courage, Controversy, Catastrophe”, public talk, Australian War Memorial, 5 April 2009

“The Meaning of Anzac Day”, presentation to Australian War Memorial staff, Australian War Memorial, 2 April 2009

“The Japanese attack on Sydney Harbour”, talk given to the National Judicial College of Australia, Australian War Memorial, 2 March 2009

“Maintaining the advance: Monash, battle procedure and the Australian Corps”, paper delivered at international conference Advancing to Victory 1918, convened at the Australian War Memorial, Canberra, 28 November 2008

“Monash and fallibilty: an oxymoron?”, presentation to Australian War Memorial voluntary guides, Telstra Theatre, Australian War Memorial, 1 October 2008

“Australia and the Southwest Pacific Theatre”, lecture to first year midshipmen, US Naval Academy, Annapolis, 20 November 2007

“The Manhattan Project”, presentation to voluntary guides, National Museum of the United States, Air Force, Dayton, Ohio, 31 October 2007

“The First AIF”, presentation to staff at the Museum of Flight, Seattle, 23 October 2007

“The development of the AIF”, talk given to Rotary Club, Chatswood Branch, Sydney, 16 May 2007

“The First AIF: as good as the legend says?”, paper presented at the Sydney Institute, 16 April 2007

“How the Australians Became Masters of War by 1918”, talk given to the Union, University and Schools Club of Sydney, 10 April 2007

“Thou shalt not kill: the death penalty in the AIF 1914–18”, paper delivered at international conference, Unquiet Graves, convened at the In Flanders Fields Museum, Ypres, 20 May 2000

Contributions to television and radio documentaries

“Over the Front”, extensive interview for ABC television programme, The Collectors, broadcast 23 April 2010.

Historical adviser, and recorded extensive interview for Sky commissioned documentary film, “For Valour”, by Michael Tear, broadcast on The History Channel, 25 April 2009

Historical adviser, contributed to script development and recorded extensive interview for documentary Monash: the forgotten ANZAC, ABC Television, 11 November 2008

"Second battle of Bullecourt remembered”, interview for Lateline, ABC Television, 25 April 2007

Historical adviser, and recorded interview for ABC Television documentary Gallipoli: the fatal shore, April 1988

Interviewed for ABC Radio documentary on Kemal Ataturk, March 1982