Reconnaissance Magazine Summer 2022 Issue

                                   
Reconnaissance is the quarterly magazine of the Military History Society of New South Wales.

From the Editor                                          

Welcome to the Summer 2022 issue of Reconnaissance.

For a long time Australians had a sketchy awareness of the largest single military attack on their soil, the 19 February 1942 Japanese bombing attack on Darwin. In large part because the Australian Government kept the events of that dramatic day under wraps for the duration of the war and well into the post-war era. Today more people know that the local authorities responded poorly in some respects and a degree of civilian panic and military indiscipline took hold. Government concerns about public morale and possibly a sense of shame contributed to a conspiracy of silence. Things have moved on, however, and in recent times some excellent military historians have dragged the episode into the light of day. We are fortunate to have one of them, Dr Tom Lewis, author of The Empire Strikes South, contributing a cover feature article focusing on one tragic aspect of the disaster.

While some 236 people were killed in the raid, 88 of those weren’t Australians at all but crew of the American destroyer USS Peary. With the benefit of new evidence in the form of newly discovered propellors from the vessel, Dr Lewis embarks on a painstaking investigation of the evidence to reconstruct the doomed destroyer’s final hours. The propellers are the key, he concludes, to uncovering why, amongst the several other warships in Darwin Harbour that morning, Peary was the only one to suffer the fate of being sunk.  

Again in this issue of Reconnaissance, Lieutenant-Colonel (retd) Steve Hart brings his customary clarity to a historic clash which set the stage for twenty years of upheaval in Vietnam. In this article, Steve explores the social, political and military prelude to the historic Battle of Dien Bien Phu in 1954, delving into the injustices of French colonial rule and the brutal military repression which spurred a revolutionary movement. Steve’s account comes in the wake of David Wilson’s stimulating lecture on Dien Bien Phu to the Society’s September 2022 meeting.

Since we are obliged whenever possible to chronicle our state’s military history, this issue presents two interesting stories from New South Wales. Dr Andrew Wilson profiles Victor Sylvander hailing from remote Hay in the far south west, an aviation pioneer credited with building a glider and then the town’s first biplane in 1915. In 1916 Victor enlisted in the AIF and served on the Western Front with the 2nd Australian Division Signals.

We also have a profile by Dr John Haken of two New South Wales Colonial naval officers of the 1870s to 1890s who made a switch to the colonial army. Colonel Edward Charles Cracknell started off as commander of the NSW Naval Brigade’s Torpedo Company and ended up as Commandant as the Army Torpedo and Signalling Corps, while Lieutenant Colonel John Henry Lee went from the NSW Naval Artillery Volunteers to Commanding Officer of Permanent Submarine Miners within the NSW Engineers. Both were influential figures in the Colony’s fledgling defence establishment.

Finally, I thank for their fine book reviews Dr David Martin on Klaus Schmider’s Hitler’s Fatal Miscalculation, John Hall on Rod Miller’s Lost Women of Rabaul and John Hitchen on Gary McKay’s After the Blood Cools. There is also a review by myself of John Walter’s Voices of Snipers.

I hope you enjoy the magazine and please feel welcome to contact me if you are interested in contributing either an article or review to future issues.

Editor, Reconnaissance

Current issues of Reconnaissance are available to members of the Military History Society of NSW while back issues are available for general access on Trove.

The Society's main website is here: https://militaryhistorynsw.com.au/