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World War 2

Read more about the article Planespotters on the job in World War 2

Planespotters on the job in World War 2

ONE of Australia's military problems in World War 2 was trying to keep track of the movements of large numbers of aircraft over the giant land-mass. Planes, both friendly and hostile, crossed the skies at all hours, and it was important to try to keep tabs on as many of them as possible. A big part of the solution was the Volunteer Air Observers Corps, an organisation of thousands of civilian men, women and children who spent untold hours in observation posts they built on top of houses, on handyman-created towers in backyards, in the middle…

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Read more about the article Plane wreck a monument to a war hero and an ill-starred venture

Plane wreck a monument to a war hero and an ill-starred venture

Stand by your glasses steady, for each man who takes off and flies. Here’s to the dead already; three cheers for the next man who dies. Toast proposed by British World War 2 aircrew following the death of a comrade. Doug Swain DFC at Camden in about 1948. Photo by John Laming. In the foothills of the Barrington Tops, in NSW, pieces of a wrecked Lockheed Hudson aircraft are a lonely monument to the three men who died in the 1954 crash, including World War 2 bomber pilot Doug Swain DFC. The wreckage is also a…

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Read more about the article The wartime US invasion of Port Stephens
US troops practice landing at Port Stephens, NSW, during World War 2.

The wartime US invasion of Port Stephens

At the peak of the Allied Pacific campaign in World War 2, more than 14,000 American and British troops were based in the Shoal Bay area of Port Stephens. Shoal Bay's famous country club was requisitioned to become a headquarters for part of the amphibious warfare training area known as JOOTS (Joint Overseas Operations Training Services). The Royal Australian Navy called its training establishment HMAS Assault, and the ships HMAS Westralia, HMAS Manoora, HMAS Kanimbla and USS Henry T. Allen were frequently in the port, along with more than 130 other vessels of varying sizes. The…

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