The RAAF at Sea before World War Two
In the 1920s, when the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) came into being, the concept of the Australian government’s national defence was based predominantly on a maritime strategy led by […]
Low Number – High Endeavour, The story of one Anzac’s contribution to World War I
‘Are you sure you’ve got the right number? It seems a remarkably low one to me.’ ‘He always claimed to be Number 3 of the Australian Army’, was my reply. […]
Oswald Watt: the leader the RAAF never had
Accounts of the period when command arrangements for the Royal Australian Air Force were decided prior to its formation, on 31 March 1921, have usually focused on the competing claims […]
‘Joe’ Maude – the Last Allied Soldier to Evacuate the Gallipoli Peninsula.
We have a reasonably good idea who the first men to land on the Gallipoli Peninsula on the 25th April 1915 were. They were Queenslanders, part of the 9th Battalion, […]
The Australian Air Corps
On its formation on 31 March 1921, the RAAF was the second independent air force in the world—after the Royal Air Force (RAF). But another distinct “air force” flew aircraft, […]
Lieutenant George Pinnock Merz, MD, MiD (1891-1915)
George Pinnock Merz was born at Prahran on 10 October 1891. A graduate (1914) in Medicine at the University of Melbourne, he was commissioned (1913) second lieutenant in the Melbourne […]
The Bahia Castillo affair – 1919
During research for ‘An Industrial Invasion’, I came across the story of about 6000 Australian civilian men who volunteered to go and work in British factories during WWI an effort […]
The Real Sullivans
Surely you remember the television series The Sullivans? If you do you may not realize that the name was based on two real life characters. A close look at Dave […]
