Military

Bruce Stewart. Many hundreds of people gathered the other day at the Epsom/Huntly showgrounds on the outskirts of Bendigo in anticipation of a visit from the Roulettes – the Royal Australian Air Force’s formation aerobatic display team. Our patience was rewarded as right on schedule I spied six rapidly moving black dots coming in from the north east.

It’s a time of major events: Donald Trump has again been elected President of the USA and its biggest foreign spy base Pine Gap features in the movie Twilight Time to be screened in Alice Springs ... For decades “the base” has been described as a prime nuclear target. Does that worry the town? Apparently not.

Exercise Wallaby is set to begin with the arrival of one of the world’s largest cargo aircraft, the Antonov AN-124 at Rockhampton Airport. The 402-tonne Antonov AN-124 plays a pivotal role in the transport of smaller aircraft, including Apache helicopters, between Australia and Singapore as well as other military hardware and assets required for the exercise.

RAAF Base Wagga hosted the Learning and Walking Together program, a collaborative initiative between the Defence Work Experience Program (DWEP) and Riverina Pathways Engagement Officer Kyle Breust. This innovative overnight program provided 16 students from the Riverina region, including Narrandera, with an immersive experience in military life, career exploration within the Defence Force, and local cultural enrichment.

Leaders from multiple agencies across the Shire of Derby/West Kimberley met with senior Australian Army personnel ... ahead of a major local training exercise. The ADF’s Exercise Austral Shield kicks off over the coming days and will see hundreds of soldiers and their armoured and heavy vehicles moving around town for the next week as they fight a fictitious enemy role-played by other Army soldiers.

Keigan Gunther. A recent joint operation between the Australian Defence Force and emergency services led to six unexploded World War II-era munitions being destroyed on a commercial farm in Two Rocks. An ADF spokeswoman said the potentially lethal relics, unearthed by a civilian contractor during routine grid searches, dated back to the 1940s when the area served as a training ground for artillery, mortars, anti-tank weaponry and aerial bombing.

Former Cohuna lad, Corporal Adam Randall has been featured by the Australian Army as one of their most experienced soldiers working on the Army’s newest light protected mobility vehicle, the Hawkei. Corporal Randall has more than 10 years’ experience in the Army ... the Hawkei, made by Thales in Bendigo, is a highly protected and deployable light vehicle ...

He was only 19 when he enlisted in the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) ... Now aged 91 and living at Whiddon Grafton, lifelong Clarence Valley resident Samuel Darke was finally recognised for his contributions during his country’s war history on April 24 when Member for Clarence Richie Williamson presented him with the Nuclear Test Medal ...

Nhill’s ANZAC Day dawn service was well attended with over 300 in attendance at the Cenotaph in Goldsworthy Park to commemorate those who have served in the armed forces for Australia and New Zealand, many giving the ultimate sacrifice.

As an Australian military history nut, I like to think I know at least something about most of our major military actions since the late 1800s ... So what better opportunity to fill in that missing piece of my history puzzle for myself than to try and explain to you what it was all about? So here we go, the Malayan Emergency.

Lower Clarence residents will hear the sound of Royal Australian Air Force supersonic fighter jets in the skies over the next two months as squadrons conduct training exercises from the Evans Head Air Weapons Range. The training of pilots in the Number 1 Squadron and the Number 2 Operational Conversion Unit involved training flights and air-to-ground bombing training in both F/A -18F Super Hornets and F-35A Lightning II jets during April and May.

Shaun Hollis. A decorated RAAF officer who commissioned a painting to commemorate the moment which inspired his naming of the iconic Boeing E-7A Wedgetail defence force aeroplane said he could not be happier with the result. The painting, by Minlaton artist Mark Short, depicts a wedge-tailed eagle taking flight.

So in the last two articles we’ve covered the role the Royal Australian Navy had played around the periphery of the war, the action in Rabaul right at the start of things, escorting the first convoy, involvement in the Gallipoli campaign and the patrolling undertaken by the HMAS Psyche. But, just as it was on the land, the only real chance of bringing the war to a successful conclusion was to directly target the German forces in Europe.

Peter Jones and Guy Knox. Vice Admiral Ian Knox died in Sydney on 14 January after a long illness. Ian Warren Knox was born in Wilcannia on the Darling River in western NSW on 9 February 1933 ... He was promoted Vice Admiral in July 1987 and became Vice Chief of the Defence Force ... He regularly returned to Wilcannia during his retirement and in 2016 attended its annual Field Fun Day, as one of its famous sons.

Why do both sides of federal politics continue to think we need to have a shipbuilding industry as part of our naval defence sector? Every year we spend billions of dollars trying to build ships in Australia when the most cost effective thing to do is import them off the shelf from our allies.

In 1938, during the Munich Crisis, British Prime Minister, Neville Chamberlain expressed his distaste for making war preparations over "a quarrel in a faraway land between people of which we know nothing" ... Like Neville Chamberlain, our Prime Minister shows no interest in getting involved in a quarrel between people of whom he has no interest; yet anyone with the slightest awareness of international relations would know that there is no longer such a thing as a faraway land of which we can afford to have no interest ... Yemen is en route for the ships that take our grain and livestock to key markets such as Egypt and Israel.

Just over six months after it was destroyed by a car, the Cambooya War Memorial has been reconstructed and again stands prominently at the end of Eton Street.

Although it does not have an RSL, Westbrook nevertheless ensures that days such as Remembrance Day are honoured. Last Saturday, at 11am on the 11th of November, people gathered at the Westbrook War Memorial, next to the Westbrook Hall, for the annual service.

The 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month marks the anniversary of the Armistice Agreement which ended the First World War. At the Allora Memorial Park on Saturday 11 November service personnel and members of the public paused in silence to remember those men and women who have died or suffered in all wars, conflicts and peace operations.

Kadina Memorial School unveiled its new commemorative tribute to past and present Australian Defence Force service personnel at its Remembrance Day ceremony on Friday, November 10.

Corryong College teacher, Stephen Learmonth ... has undertaken his own project to record the biographies of other servicemen from the region and the Corryong Courier will be printing a selection of these stories in the lead up to Remembrance Day this year on November 11 ... Frank Leslie Butler was born on the 13th of April, 1919 at Tallangatta, Victoria.