Wartime Magazine Issue 27

July 2004

• In search of The Cowra Breakout by Anne-Marie Condé. August 2004 marks the 60th anniversary of the mass breakout of Japanese prisoners-of-war and internees’ camp at Cowra.
• Fighting to the death by Brad Manera. Machine gunners, Privates Ben  Hardy and  Ralph Jones were posthumously awarded the George Cross for bravery on the night of the Cowra Breakout.
• Australians in “Overlord” by John Jackson. As D-Day was being planned, 13 Australians were selected for attachment to the British army.
• The butcher of Fromelles by Ross McMullin. Blustering incompetence was no barrier to promotion for the commander  of the British XI Corps, Lieutenant General Sir Richard Haking.
• Soldiers snaps on the Western Front. A photo essay by Peter Cochrane.
• Rebirth of a city damned by Carolyne Carter. The British Commonwealth Occupation Force (BCOF) in Hiroshima was appalled at the obliteration that had happen.
• The Mesopotamian half flight by Ian Hodges. Early last century the first Australian airmen were fighting and dying in the skies above what is now southern Iraq.
• A chateau in France by Peter Burness. After surviving the centuries, many grand homes were on the front line in the Great War.
• A ‘great piece of Artillery’ by Steve Gower and Mike Cecil
  The post-Second World War Yeramba was Australia’s only self-propelled field gun.
• Tragedy at An Nhut by Elizabeth Stewart. A concealed mine delivered a painful blow to C Company when three men were killed in Vietnam.
• A war artist before his war by Craig Wilcox. In London before the Great War, Australian painter Arthur Streeton looked forward to war with Germany.
• The Greater ‘truth’ by Laura Back. An exchange of letters offers an insight into how works of commemorative art are produced.
• First in Action by Colin Jones. Australia’s first warship in the Maori wars started a tradition that survives today.
• Observer at large by Peter Londey. United Nations observers on occasions become part of the action, discovered Keith Howard, an Australian officer in UNTSO.
• Reflections on Rwanda by Garth Pratten. Mick Rice and Robyn Wilkin, veterans of Australia’s mission to Rwanda recall their service on the 10th anniversary.
• The path to Gallipoli. Ralph Berryman, of Hawthorn, Victoria, was 22 when he joined up as a driver in 1914. He left Melbourne the following October as a member of the 2^nd Field Artillery Brigade, No. 6 Battery, AIF. These letters home show a clear sence of belonging to the British empire.
• Soft cover, fully illustrated, 73 pages.