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...
Category: World Wars
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...
Montevideo Maru—New evidence on Austrealia’s greatest maritime loss: Rod Miller
In 1941, with war against Japan threatening, the Menzies government dispatched “Lark Force”, (nearly 1500 men) to garrison Rabaul, in the Australian Protectorate of New Guinea. On 1 July 1942, around 800 of these...
The dedication of the Australian Services Nurses National Memorial
(Described by Pat Johnson – Una Voce No. 4, December 1999) Dedicated on Saturday, 2 October 1999, on Anzac Parade in Canberra, was the Australian Service Nurses National Memorial. A competition for the design...
Let’s recall what Bert really wrote in “Fuzzy Wuzzy Angels (and other verses)”: Stuart Inder
Fuzzy Wuzzy AngelsDedicated to Sapper Victor Cooke, 2/22nd Field Coy, R.A.E. Many a mother in Australia, When the busy day is done, Sends a prayer to the Almighty For the keeping of her...
Graves of Gallipoli survivors at Kavieng: Jim Ridges
25 April 2015 marks the 100 years anniversary of the unsuccessful, but often heroic, troop landings, and eventual withdrawal, at Gallipoli in Turkey in the 1914-18 World War. The shared experiences and losses gave...
An inadeqquate force: Neville Threlfall
Much has been written lately about the fall of Rabaul in January 1942 and the consequent tragic loss of life when over a thousand prisoners went down in the prison ship Montevideo Maru. These...
Ballarat memorials to the Australian POWs and the Montevideo Maru
The commemoration of both the Australian Prisoner-of War Memorial (6 February 2004) and the Memorial for those who died on board the Montevideo Maru (7 February 2004) was attended by a number of PNGAA...
Tropical force and the Kavieng graves: Greg Knight
Kavieng is the principal town of Papua New Guinea’s New Ireland and less than three degrees south of the equator. Present day Nusa Parade runs along Kavieng’s sleepy waterfront with large tropical trees forming...
When the Japanese bombed Magang: Bob Emery
(As recorded on tape on 1 May 1996 and published Una Voce, September 1996, page 13. An edited version is contained in Tales of Papua New Guinea, page 56). Bob Emery, a long-time member...
