Calendar of Events

The speed of Imperial Japan's occupation of British Malaya in 1941–42 caught the Allies off-guard and without substantial intelligence assets. The Allied Intelligence Bureau (AIB) was formed to mitigate the intelligence shortfalls. The Australian section of the AIB may also have been used by its MI6 representative to support Britain’s position in the region after […]

In late 1918, thousands of Australian soldiers, exhausted and scarred from the conflict in Europe, began to head home to loved ones down under. However, one ANZAC headed the wrong way, toward more conflict and risk in vast and frozen Siberia. This is the story of Ernest Latchford, told through his articulate, observant letters home […]

Wednesday 8 September 2021 @ 7:00pm to 8:00pm (Australian Eastern Standard Time)   The presentation March 1945. A handful of young Allied operatives are parachuted into the remote jungled heart of the Japanese-occupied island of Borneo, east of Singapore, there to recruit the island’s indigenous Dayak peoples to fight the Japanese. Yet most have barely […]

This webinar explores the psychological, emotional, and moral dimensions of aggression, violence, and coercive behaviour in the post-war lives of former Australian airmen prisoners of war (POWs). It indicates that, in some cases, physical and emotional abuse were expressions of captivity trauma. Former POWs rarely articulated narratives of perpetration. Accordingly, this webinar also explores the […]

The Military History Society of NSW presents: An online presentation by Phillip Bradley 11:00AM AEST Saturday 2 October 2021 via Google Meet Philip Bradley’s latest book tells the extraordinary story of the Australian campaign against the Japanese in New Guinea's Finisterre mountains in 1943-44. One of Australia’s leading battlefield historians, he has written an enlightening […]

The Military History & Heritage Victoria Annual General Meeting will be held online, via Zoom, on 13 October 2021. For AGM Documents, Committee Nomination Forms, Agenda and Zoom meeting link please contact MHH Secretary, Jason McGregor, via info@mhhv.org.au or call on 0419 256 681.   Election of Office Bearers and Ordinary Committee Members for 2021/22 […]

The RAAF base at Point Cook has been the site of many of Australia’s aviation ‘firsts’. It was the birthplace our county’s military aviation in 1914 and the first operational base of the Royal Australian Air Force when it was founded a century ago in 1921. Cultural historian Dr Steve Campbell-Wright will give us a […]

Military hygiene is an essential component of any war effort. In the severe tropical climate of the Second World War’s Pacific theatre, disease disabled and killed more Australian troops than the enemy did. Dr Cecil Evelyn Aufrere Cook (1897-1985) CBE, MD, DTMH, DPH, RACGP, ACMA joined the Commonwealth’s Military Reserve as an honorary captain in […]

In March 1946, the war was over. The Italian prisoners of war who had been captured several years earlier in northern Africa were interned in camps around Australia and were waiting to be returned home. One Saturday evening, the commandant of the Rowville internment camp, Captain Waterston, shot and killed a prisoner, Rodolfo Bartoli, who […]

In partnership with the National Archives of Australia and the Genealogical Society of Victoria, the RHSV presents a seminar on defence service records. Service photo of Private Albert Edward Kemp, who served in France + Belgium in World War 1 and was killed in action in 1917. Courtesy of Museums Victoria website. In this seminar, […]

In light of the recent AUKUS pact between Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States, Professor John Blaxland from the Strategic and Defence Studies Centre at ANU will explore the unreconciled dialectic in Australian consciousness between our geography, history and a lingering fear of entrapment. Professor Blaxland's talk will probe such issues as: - […]

Wednesday 10 November 2021 7:00PM-8:00PM (Australian Eastern Standard Time) The presentation General Blamey is a controversial figure in Australian military history. This presentation describes a consummate military leader at the top of his game fighting for his country in a time of deep crisis. ‘Never trust foreign generals with the Diggers’ was Blamey’s cast iron […]