Dr Aaron Pegram

Senior Historian

Dr Aaron Pegram is a senior historian at the Australian War Memorial with 15 years’ experience in museums and exhibition development. A member of the Military History Section, he is currently attached to the Memorial's Gallery Development team, working on a new permanent display on Australia's involvement in the Gulf War (1990-91), Iraq (2003-11, 2014-20) and Afghanistan (2001-20) as a concept developer. As well as working on a number of permanent and temporary exhibitions at the Memorial and other cultural institutions, Aaron is the editor, co-author and author of Both Sides of the Wire: the Memoir of an Australian officer Captured on the Western Front (2011), Beyond Surrender: Australian Prisoners of War in the Twentieth Century (with Joan Beaumont and Lachlan Grant, 2015), For Valour: Australians awarded the Victoria Cross (with Craig Blanch, 2018) and Surviving the Great War: Australian Prisoners of War on the Western Front, 1916-18 (2020). He is the recipient of the C.E.W. Bean Prize in Military History (2018), has a BA (Hons) from Charles Sturt University, and a PhD in History from the Australian National University.

Books

Surviving the Great War: Australian Prisoners of War on the Western Front, Cambridge University Press, 2020
With Craig Blanch, For Valour: Australians Awarded the Victoria Cross, NewSouth Publishing, 2018
With Joan Beaumont and Lachlan Grant (ed.), Beyond Surrender: Australian Prisoners of War in the Twentieth Century, Melbourne University Press, 2015
William Cull, Both sides of the wire: the memoir of an Australian officer captured during the Great War, ed. Aaron Pegram, Allen and Unwin, 2011

Selected publications

With Kate Ariotti, ‘Australian POWs of the First World War: Responding to the Challenges of Captivity and Return’, History Australia, Vol. 15, Issue 3
Start of Great War’s End, The Australian, 8 August 2018
Monash: the ‘Outsider’ who won the war? Britain at War, August 2018, pp. 44-51
Hamel: the Orchestrated Battle, 4 July 1918, The Strategist, 3 July 2018
Defending Amiens: The Australian Imperial Force during the German Spring Offensive, March-April 1918’, Stand To! The Journal of the Western Front Association, No. 111
‘Charles Bean’, in in U. Daniel, P. Fatrell, O. Janz, H. Jones, J. Keene, A, Kramer & B. Nassom (ed.), 1914-1918-online. International Encyclopedia of the First World War, Freie Universität Berlin, Germany, 2016.
Under the Kaiser’s Crescent Moon, Wartime, Issue 76, 32-37
‘Remembering Fromelles: A Brutal Initiation to Australia’s Campaign on the Western Front’, Sydney Morning Herald (online) and The Canberra Times (print), 18 July 2016.
‘The Carnage of the Somme’, The Age (online) and The Canberra Times (print), 22 April 2016
The Missing Mortars of Bridoux, Wartime, Issue 73, pp. 36-41
Review of "World War I in 100 Stories" by Bruce Scates, Rebecca Wheatley and Laura James, Wartime, Issue 73, pp. 68-69
‘Politicians at War: The Experiences of Australian Parliamentarians in the First World War’, Papers on Parliament, Number 63, July 2015, pp. 95-108
"Australian Prisoners of the First World War, 1915-1918", in U. Daniel, P. Fatrell, O. Janz, H. Jones, J. Keene, A, Kramer & B. Nassom (ed.), 1914-1918-online. International Encyclopedia of the First World War, Freie Universität Berlin, Germany, 2015 (forthcoming)
With Joan Beaumont and Lachlan Grant, ‘Remembering and Rethinking Captivity’ in Beyond Surrender: Australian Prisoners of War in the Twentieth Century, Melbourne University Press, 2015, pp. 1-17
‘Bold Bids for Freedom: Escape and Australian prisoners in Germany, 1916-1918’, in Beyond Surrender: Australian Prisoners of War in the Twentieth Century, Melbourne University Press, 2015, pp. 18-39
"The first to fall", Wartime, 67, 2014
"An Australian at First Ypres", Stand to! Journal of the Western Front Association, No. 100, Issue 2, 2014, pages 78-79
Review of “Raiding on the Western Front” by Anthony Saunders, Wartime, 62, 2013
“Informing the enemy: Australian prisoners and German intelligence on the Western Front, 1916-1918”, Journal of First World War Studies, Vol 4, Issue 2, 2013, pages: 167-184
“‘The Bosches seem to have done pretty much what they intended to do'": I ANZAC Corps and the German raid on the Bridoux Salient, 5/6 May 1916’, Stand To! Journal of the Western Front Association, No. 97 pp 4-7
“Gallantry in Afghanistan”, Wartime, 61, 2013
"Men of Colditz" in Nola Anderson, Australian War Memorial: treasures from a centenary of collecting (Millers Point: Murdoch Books, 2012): 316-319
“Giving the game away”, Wartime, 57, 2011
Review of Fighting Nineteenth, by Wayne Matthews and David Wilson, Wartime, 56, 2011
Review of The battle of Fromelles 1916, by Roger Lee, Wartime, 53, 2010
“Bold bids for freedom”, Wartime, 52, 2010
“There will be no live VCs for 8 Group”, Wartime, 51, 2010
Review of Don’t forget me cobber: the battle of Fromelles, by Robin Corfield, Wartime, 50, 2010
Review of The Wolf, by Richard Guilliatt and Peter Hohnen, Wartime, 48, 2009
“Shots from along the trail”, Wartime, 48, 2009
“The spirit of the bayonet”, Wartime, 47, 2009
“A shot in the dark”, Wartime, 47, 2009
Review of Aussie Soldier: Prisoner of war, ed. Dennie Neave and Craig Smith, Wartime, 47, 2009
“The arms of black melancholy”, Wartime, 46, 2009
Review of In action with the SAS, by David Horner with Neil Thomas, Wartime, 46, 2009
Review of The war behind the wire, ed. Michael Caulfield, Wartime, 45, 2009
“Australia’s Fromelles prisoners”, Wartime, 44, 2008
“McDougall’s stand at Dernancourt”, Wartime, 42, 2008
“German offensive tactics”, Wartime, 42, 2008

Conference papers and seminars

‘“In the Hands of the Hun”: the German treatment of British prisoners on the Western Front’, 1916: The Cost of Attrition conference, BAE Systems Theatre, Australian War Memorial, 20 July 2016
“The Holzminden Illusion: Australian prisoners in Germany and the realities of escape in the Great War, 1916-1918”, Prisoners of war: a conference on the Australian experience of captivity in the 20th Century, Department of Veterans’ Affairs in conjunction with the Australian National University and the Australian War Memorial, Finkel Lecture Theatre, Australian National University, 5 June 2013
“Caged Birds: the capture and imprisonment of Australian Flying Corps airmen, 1915-1918”, By the seat of their pants: Australian airmen and their machines 1915-1918, Military History and Heritage Victoria conference, RAAF Museum, Point Cook, 12 November 2012
“Giving the game away: Australian prisoners, German intelligence, and the war on the Western Front, 1916-18”, the Military Historical Society of Australia biennial conference, Hellenic Club Civic, Canberra, 9 September 2012
“Black bread, barbed wire: Australians and the German spring reprisals of 1917”, Estaminet: Canberra’s First World War study group, National Museum of Australia, 25 November 2011
“In the bag: Australian prisoners in German captivity during the First World War, 1916–1918”, Constructing the Past,Australian Historical Association Conference, University of the Sunshine Coast, 30 June – 3 July 2009
“The bounds of silence: the capture of Australian prisoners on the Western Front, 1916–1918”, Research School of Humanities first-year students’ conference, Australian National University, 25–26 August 2008
“Polygon Wood: battlefield, mythical place, site of mourning”, the Australian Society of Archivists, National Museum of Australia, 13 November 2007
“Men from Snowy River: a First World War recruitment march”, 90th anniversary commemorations of the Men from Snowy River recruitment march, Delegate Town Hall, 16 January 2006