A happy wartime memory of Kabakaul: Frazer Harry
There is something attractive about the idea of enjoying a cold beer at the end of a hot tropical day, particularly if it’s with a group of great mates, with a view of palm...
Category: World Wars
William Manning Edwards, CMG, MBE, MID: Phil Ainsworth
Edwards, William Manning CMG MBE MID, Colonel, NGX455: the story of an Australian Private soldier who stormed Gallipoli on 25 April 1915 and became the CO of NGVR, 1 NGIB & PIR during WW2...
Australian Naval and Military Expeditionary Force (AN&MEF) Nurses: Patrick Bourke
The Australian Naval and Military Expeditionary Force (AN&MEF) was a volunteer force of approximately 2,000 men, raised in Australia shortly after the outbreak of the First World War to seize and destroy German wireless...
70th anniversary, Cape Wom: Charles Betteridge
This year, 2015, is the 70th Anniversary of the end of World War II. It was a war that stunned the world in its ferocity and swiftness, and there was not a living soul...
Leslie Hore’s WWI pictures: Patrick Bourke
Like many Australian ex-service men, Lt Colonel Leslie FS Hore, MC, MID, went to the former German colony of New Guinea after WWI. When he died in 1935 he owned a plantation on the...
The aftermath of war: Charles Betteridge
About 8 pm on 10 September 1945, three Japanese soldiers and an orderly arrived at the area of the 2/7th Battalion at Kairiru near Maprik. They carried a message from General Adachi. They were...
Final Japanese surrender in PNG: Don Hook
The final Japanese surrender in PNG came one month after VP Day on 15 August 1945. It marked the end of the war against Japan in the Pacific and the end of World War...
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...
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,...
The story behind the picture: John Phillips
Eric Johns writes about ‘that’ photograph: I thought I knew something about that iconic photograph of Raphael Oimbari and George Whittington, until I met fellow PNGAA member John Phillips on 28 April at the...
Recollections of ANGAU: Tom Grahamslaw
Tom Grahamslaw, who died at the age of 73 in 1973, spent 45 years with the old Papua and Papua New Guinea administrations, retiring in 1960 as PNG’s Chief Collector of Customs and a...
The evacuation of Samarai, Boxing Day 1941: Rosalie Thacker (neé Skelly)
This is a record of the last days our family (mother Lillian, sisters Zelma, Dawn, Leonie and myself and others) experienced prior to, and after, the evacuation. My father, Clarence, remained in Samarai with...
