© 2018 Greg & Sylvia RAY

An uncensored letter from wartime New Guinea

To beat the official censors who read mail sent by Australians serving in New Guinea in World War 2, those servicemen sometimes got their mates going home on leave to carry letters and post them in Australia. It was a simple and effective way to evade the prying eyes of officialdom, whose job it was to make sure that important military details didn't accidentally fall into enemy hands and that the people at home didn't hear too much about the grim reality of the war. Accounts I have read by servicemen suggest that mail from home…

Continue ReadingAn uncensored letter from wartime New Guinea

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…

Continue ReadingAlexander Galloway, Hunter photographer and composer

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…

Continue ReadingThe Wellen: Soviet ship in Newcastle, NSW, 1942
×
×

Cart