© 2018 Greg & Sylvia RAY

Militaria

Read more about the article He survived the Voyager tragedy
Des Corrigan, aged 17, at the time he joined Voyager. The middle image shows an unofficial medal struck for Voyager survivors.

He survived the Voyager tragedy

Des Corrigan likes to tell people that, in his career in the Royal Australian Navy: "I sank a ship, paid one off and commissioned another". He has scores of anecdotes from his eventful life at sea and ashore, but the sinking of HMAS Voyager in February 1964 looms largest. It is also the one he has spoken least about. For the first four years of their long marriage even his wife, Robyn, didn't know Des had been on the Voyager. Now he's about to turn 80 and has decided to break his long silence. Des with…

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Read more about the article Gallipoli, oil and history
The Dardanelles, as depicted in a WW1 copy of The Graphic magazine.

Gallipoli, oil and history

Some historians assert that access to oil was a factor in Britain's decision to try to force the Dardanelles in 1915. Others disagree. Still, nobody doubts that the Middle East's oil was emerging as a major geopolitical factor at the time, and many of the military decisions in the area were deeply rooted in concern about controlling this critical resource. Persia (Iran), Mesopotamia (Iraq) and all the other names that still resound in our daily news feeds were already central to global empire planning. And here we are today: a blockaded strait, a naval stand-off and…

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Read more about the article Radioactive bomber at RAAF Williamtown
A Lincoln bomber at an airshow at Williamtown RAAF base. This is presumably not the same plane as the one referred to in this article.

Radioactive bomber at RAAF Williamtown

In the 1950s Britain was upset that the USA wouldn't share its atomic bomb secrets. The Brits decided to build their own bombs and they chose to test them in Australia. Nobody will ever know how much sickness and premature death of Australians in the years that followed can be attributed to exposure to radiation and to lingering fallout from the tests. Much negligence and carelessness appears to have surrounded the exercise. The story of RAAF and other aircraft deliberately flown through radioactive mushroom clouds immediately after the atomic explosions is just one example. Sometime in…

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