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Militaria

Read more about the article Alexander Galloway, Hunter photographer and composer

Alexander Galloway, Hunter photographer and composer

The entrepreneurial Alexander Galloway was a prolific photographer and amateur musician who composed some popular pieces of music in the early years of last century. He left an impressive legacy of photographic images of the Hunter Region's Coalfields district, a large number of which were recovered in 2010, in the form of hundreds of glass plate negatives, from beneath a house in Weston. Rescued by the diligent volunteers at the Edgeworth David Museum, these plates have been scanned and are now available through the University of Newcastle's online database. Alexander, Amy and William Galloway. Born on…

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Read more about the article The Wellen: Soviet ship in Newcastle, NSW, 1942

The Wellen: Soviet ship in Newcastle, NSW, 1942

A slowly evolving story, with some plot holes remaining to be filled. Why was the Wellen in Australian waters? And what about the Minsk, whose officers apparently visited the damaged Wellen in Newcastle? Why is information about that ship so hard to find? In May 1942 Japan and Russia were not at war. And yet in the opening salvos of Japan's submarine war against merchant shipping in Australian waters, it carelessly managed to attack a Soviet ship. This was the freighter Wellen, an elderly vessel of 5000 tons. It was apparently built in Britain, taken over…

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Read more about the article Before email there was V-Mail

Before email there was V-Mail

In World War 2, Allied troops sent and received a lot of mail. So much mail it became a headache for military authorities to handle the huge quantities. But nobody wanted to impose overly strict limits on mail, since being able to communicate with loved ones at home was a massive prop to the morale of troops. In 1941 the British came up with a solution. The idea was to photograph letters, send the negatives to an area close to the intended recipients and then print them out again. The reduced-size negatives took up a lot…

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