© 2018 Greg & Sylvia RAY

Militaria

Read more about the article Donald Friedman, overland cyclist and bad soldier
One of Donald Friedman's postcards. As a soldier he was a great cyclist.

Donald Friedman, overland cyclist and bad soldier

He enlisted in the Australian Imperial Force twice during The Great War, under different names, and was drummed out both times, actually earning a seven-year sentence for desertion. Postwar he turned to "overland cycling", chasing money to exploit a gold deposit he claimed he'd found near Darwin. He was found dead on a lonely outback road in 1938. The postcard proclaims the cyclist pictured to be Donald Friedman, an "original Anzac" and a member of the 9th Battalion. This transcontinental traveller funded his journeying through the sale of such cards, and by appealing, in newspaper interviews,…

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Read more about the article Fatal Meteor jet crash at Williamtown, NSW, 1957
Gloster Meteor jet fighters on service with the RAAF in Korea.

Fatal Meteor jet crash at Williamtown, NSW, 1957

Recently, while I was visiting old acquaintances Doug and Peggy Paton, Doug mentioned a terrible plane crash he said he witnessed while he was a member of the Royal Australian Air Force, working at Williamtown fighter base north of Newcastle. Doug said the plane crashed while landing at the base, and he feared at one point that it might have smashed into the building where he was working. It was around meal time, he said, and there were few people around. Doug Paton in his RAAF uniform in the 1950s. He showed me some photos he…

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Read more about the article Waterloo, the day after the battle
The Battle of Waterloo, by William Sadler II

Waterloo, the day after the battle

From time to time, in my reading, I encounter excerpts of descriptive writing that strike me so forcibly that I feel moved to share them. The following anonymous piece comes from a book titled With Fife and Drum, True Stories of Military Life and Adventure in Camp and Field, Told at First hand by Officers, Privates and Other Eyewitnesses, edited by Alfred H. Miles and published by Hutchinson and Co of London, perhaps around 1890. I'm not certain that every word of it is true. The ending, in particular, seems a little implausible, but the description…

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