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Showing posts from August, 2020

Proposal for Randwick Council's project for second monument on Anzac Parade

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Email: president@militaryhistorynsw.com.au Telephone: 0419 698 783 MILITARY HISTORY SOCIETY OF NSW PROPOSAL FOR RANDWICK CITY COUNCIL’S HERITAGE REVIEW OF ANZAC PARADE Randwick City Council in Sydney is conducting an Anzac Parade Heritage Study to investigate the potential heritage significance of Anzac Parade and has revived a long-forgotten vision to complement the Anzac Parade Memorial Obelisk near Moore Park Road with a memorial at the Parade’s southern end at La Perouse. The Council has invited stakeholders to participate and we are grateful for this opportunity to make a contribution. Historical background Anzac Parade, named Randwick Road before 1917, is particularly significant in the military history of New South Wales since it was the parade route used by Australian soldiers on their way to embarkation for various theatres of the First World War. Surrounded by cheering crowds, on 18 August 1914 troops of the Australian Naval and Military Expeditionary Force (ANMEF) marc

Prisoners of War from New South Wales at Campo 106, Italy, 1943

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By Katrina Kittel In the course of researching my book Shooting Through: Campo 106 Escaped POWs after the Italian Armistice , archival sources helped me to identify approximately 790 Australians who had been transferred from Italy’s Campo 57 to Campo 106 in April 1943. These prisoners of war (POWs) worked rice and maize farms scattered on the Piedmont plain of northern Italy, between Turin and Milan.   POW group at a Campo 106 farm mid-1943 The NSW-raised cohort of Campo 106 POWs comprised about 135 men from city and regional areas of the state. They were from various military units: 32 from 2/13 Battalion, 9 from 2/17 Battalion; 43 from 2/3 Anti-tank Regiment; 16 from 2/3 Pioneer Battalion; 5 from 2/32 Battalion; and 29 from other units.   These NSW men found opportunities to escape - or simply walk out - from Campo 106 farms during their five-month stint as farm workers. Most ‘shot through’ following the 8 September 1943 promulgation of the Italian Armistice. Most headed north; so