Category: Battles and Campaigns
First civilians arrive back in Rabaul: Gladys Baker
This December 2011 marks the 70th anniversary since evacuations prior to WWII. It was to be five years before those evacuated were able to return to rebuild new homes and new lives. Gladys Baker...
Wartime relic—USAF P47 Thunderbolt: Peter Worsley
In early 1963, I was a Patrol Officer based in Lae and carried out patrols both along the coast and also into the Wain and Naba areas in the mountains to the north of...
Gallipoli veterans lost on Montevideo Maru: Don Hook
The sinking of the Japanese prisoner transport ship Montevideo Maru 73 years ago remains Australia’s greatest maritime disaster, and there is a tragic link with Gallipoli. Recent research revealed that 15 of the civilian...
Rudy Buckley and the Montevideo Maru: Maxwell R Hayes
Rudy Buckley in NGVR/PNGVR Ex-Members Association parade dress. Photo by T. Dowling One of the most incredible discoveries to come to light confirming the departure of the Montevideo Maru1 from Rabaul with captive service...
Glimmer of hope: Bob Piper
An RAAF Douglas C-47 transport aircraft with nineteen on board, which disappeared minutes after takeoff from Milne Bay in New Guinea in September 1945, may have been re-located. An Australian tour boat operator, as...
Lark Force trek: Tol memorial: Frazer Harry
Over the Anzac Day period in April this year, a group trekked from Rabaul to the South Coast of East New Britain, following in the steps of many of the soldiers of 2/22 Battalion...
The war on Kitava: Caroline L Cameron
“Japanese Grave”. The words on the map record in stark simplicity a man’s lonely resting-place on an obscure island in the Solomon Sea. The Japanese was a pilot who had run out of fuel,...
Private Stokie’s war in the jungle: Don Hook
One of the more extraordinary stories to come out of WW2 involves John Stokie, a New Guinea planter and one-time private in the NGVR, who ended the war as a decorated coastwatcher and guerilla...
Edward (Ted) Kenna, VC: Charles Betteridge
Edward (Ted) Kenna was born in Hamilton, Victoria, on 6 July 1919. He died there on 8 July 2009, aged 90 years and two days. He was the last surviving Australian Victoria Cross winner...
Ted Kenna, VC: Reg Yates
Rob and Alan Kenna, sons of the late Ted Kenna, VC, and their brother-in-law Ian Day visited Wewak, Dagua and the Sepik River during 28 March-8 April 2012 with Reg Yates of “Kokoda Historical”...
Timperley’s rescue voyage
This article was first published in Milne Bay 1942 and is now reprinted with permission from Clive Baker and War Book Shop It was during March that Lt Alan Timperley (ANGAU), was ordered to...
Kokoda 70 years on: Charlie Lynn
Kokoda is a powerful word. According to the Orokaiva koko means place of skulls, da is village. The combination of syllables conjures up “adventure” in the minds of sedentary beings. It makes sense. Many...
Merry Christmas be blowed: The lorry is calling for you in an hour: Pat Murray (neé Stanfield)
This long letter that Patricia Murray (neé Stanfield) wrote from Sydney in February 1942 to her older brother, Jim Stanfield, then serving with the RAF in Britain, recalls the hardships faced by very many...
More wartime recollections: Bob Emery
(As recorded on tape in October 1996 and published in Una Voce, March 1997, page 35. An edited version is contained in Tales of Papua New Guinea, page 70) Our membership records show that...
