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Read more about the article Great War treasures of Newcastle’s Christ Church Cathedral
Newcastle's Christ Church Cathedral in June 1979. Photo by Doug Brown

Great War treasures of Newcastle’s Christ Church Cathedral

From our book, The Hunter Region in The Great War The Church of England played an important role in Australia and no less in Newcastle at the time of the Great War of 1914-1918. People turned to their church leaders to help them see and understand moral dimensions to great events and they gathered as congregations to share good times and bad.While many churches across the Hunter retain relics of the Great War, the collection in Newcastle’s Christ Church Cathedral is almost certainly the most significant. Part of The Warrior's Chapel. Photo by Sylvia Ray The…

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Read more about the article The riddle of the Ku-ring-gai Sphinx

The riddle of the Ku-ring-gai Sphinx

One of the strangest memorials to the fallen of The Great War in Australia is the peculiar sculpture of the Sphinx, in Ku-ring-gai Chase National Park. The sculpture, a one-eighth replica of the famous Egyptian monument, is flanked by two small carved pyramids and forms part of a wider memorial walk in the national park. Stonemason and former WWI digger, William Shirley. The Ku-ring-gai Sphinx was created by a dying Great War digger, William Shirley, who served in the AIF's 13th Battalion. Shirley was relatively elderly (40 years old) and had perhaps been unknowingly sick with…

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Read more about the article Shot down over North Korea: Ron Guthrie’s story
Ron Guthrie in a Meteor in Korea

Shot down over North Korea: Ron Guthrie’s story

THE Royal Australian Air Force was just cutting its teeth on jet fighters when the Korean War broke out. Ron Guthrie was one of a handful of Australian pilots with experience flying Vampire jets out of Williamtown RAAF base - near Newcastle, NSW - so he was an obvious choice to join the United Nations campaign against North Korea. It was a fateful posting that led to the young warrant officer becoming the first Australian jet fighter pilot to be shot down in the Korean War. Ron Guthrie, fighter pilot Guthrie had joined the RAAF in 1943 at…

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