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Militaria

Read more about the article Some of Australia’s Great War “trophy guns”
German trophy gun and Boer War memorial at St Kilda, Victoria, January 20, 1937. Photo by Bevis Platt.

Some of Australia’s Great War “trophy guns”

With assistance from David Pearson, of the Australian War Memorial As The Great War of 1914-1918 ground to its end on the European continent, many countries decided they’d like to collect and take home officially captured trophies of their victory. That’s not surprising, considering the enthusiasm with which many individual soldiers had collected unofficial souvenirs of various kinds throughout the entire war. Many German prisoners, for example, complained bitterly of being forced to hand over personal belongings to some of their captors. Watches, field glasses and similar items were particularly at risk of being “souvenired” and…

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Read more about the article Ice cream treat saved them from fighter crash
Aerial view of the crash site. A truck is parked outside Mona Bradley's house at 60 Glebe Road, where the doomed pilot's body landed.

Ice cream treat saved them from fighter crash

Mona Bradley hardly ever splashed out on treats for her grandsons. Having lived through The Great Depression and World War 2, she was one of a frugal generation. So it was unusual when, on August 16, 1966, she took the two boys, Peter and Richard, across the road from her house to a nearby ice cream parlour. Richard Bradley remembers the night of the Sabre crash, August 16, 1966. Mona's house was at the back of a converted former cycle shop at 60 Glebe Road, The Junction, an inner suburb of the industrial city of Newcastle,…

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Read more about the article The first Australia Day, July 30, 1915

The first Australia Day, July 30, 1915

At the time of The Great War, the modern conception of Australia Day did not exist. Australia as a nation had only been born in 1901, and even after that a very large proportion of the people who lived in Australia considered themselves to be British, first and foremost. January 26 was celebrated in NSW as "Foundation Day", and the other former colonies had days of commemoration for their own colonial beginnings. During the war, the idea of a national “Australia Day” was introduced as part of a wider fundraising effort where money was raised by…

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