The Military History Society of NSW

On Saturday 7th October 2023, The Military History Society of New South Wales held a One Day Conference at the Auditorium, Anzac Memorial Hyde Park, Sydney with the title New South Wales At War: Heroes And Tragedies Of A State In Three Conflicts . The Auditorium was full to capacity and attendees enjoyed four outstanding military history talks as well as a special guided tour of the Memorial including back of house areas. We are pleased to present the following photo album of the day's events. Video recordings of the day's proceedings can also be viewed on our YouTube channel . Why not join the Society? Our main website is here: www.militaryhistorynsw.com.au

William Malcolm Chisholm, circa 1911 ( Sydney Grammar School archives ) This blog post presents items about  Lieutenant William Malcolm Chisholm of Sydney, who has been officially recognised by the Australian War Memorial as t he first Australian to be killed in the First World War. This occurred belatedly on 9 July 2014 when his name was finally added to the Memorial's Commemorative Roll. Lt Chisholm was not serving in Australian uniform but as a commissioned officer of the British Army's 1st Battalion, East Lancashire Regiment. He  was wounded at the Battle of Le Cateau on 26 August 1914, just three days after arriving in France, and died the next day. He was 22 years of age and is buried in Ligny-en-Cambresis cemetery, where his headstone bears the inscription "Elder son of Dr. & Mrs William Chisholm of Sydney, New South Wales". Lt Chisholm was born in Sydney in 1892, the eldest son of an eminent Macquarie Street surgeon.  He grew up on Macquarie Street and att...

Hadrian’s Wall once marked the boundary between Roman Britain and the unconquered lands of Caledonia to the north. The term ‘Hadrian’s Wall’ refers not only to the physical wall itself, but all the towers, milecastles, fortlets and nearby large garrison forts that supported the legions and auxiliary troops who manned it. But why was the Wall built? Construction commenced in AD 122 at the direction of the Emperor Hadrian. He wanted a recognizable limit to his empire and was concerned about keeping out the constantly troublesome Pictish tribes from what we now call Scotland. The Wall remained in use in various forms until around AD 410 when the Romans abandoned the Province of Britannia. This lecture will address the political and military aspects of the need for such a massive defensive structure at the edge of the Roman Empire. In military terms it facilitated control of the local populations on both sides; it was a tool to strike fear into the enemies of Rome, then the most powerful e...

  This talk will present a general history of the Rhodesian Bush War focusing on its military aspects, covering strategy, tactics, equipment and weaponry during the war’s final phase starting around 1972 to 1980. The conflict was a civil war in the unrecognised country of Rhodesia which pitted three forces against one another: the Rhodesian government under Ian Smith, and guerilla forces of the Zimbabwe African National Liberation Army led by Robert Mugabe and the Zimbabwe People’s Revolutionary Army under Joshua Nkomo. In 1980 Zimbabwe was granted independence and majority black rule under Mugabe, which brought the war to a close. Fabian Cohnen lived in Rhodesia and was called up for National Service in 1979 like most other school leavers. He underwent basic infantry training in Bulawayo and transferred to the Rhodesian Light Infantry Training Troop in Salisbury, following which he went to officer selection in Gwelo. Fabian graduated in the last R...

  Admission is free of charge with morning tea, lunch and afternoon tea provided, but please register your interest as follows: email: president@militaryhistorynsw.com.au or call: 0419 698 783 our website: www.militaryhistorynsw.com.au More about our speakers Autographed copies of speakers' books will be available for purchase on the day Major General the Hon Justice Brereton AM RFD  is an Army Reservist who holds the rank of Major General. He has served as Second-in-Command Sydney University Regiment (1994-6), Commanding Officer 4th/3rd Battalion, the Royal New South Wales Regiment (1997-99), Chief of Staff 5th Brigade (2004-5), Assistant Chief of Staff Land Headquarters (2006-7), and Commander 5th Brigade (2008-10). From 2011 to 2013 he was Head of Cadet, Reserve and Employer Support Division. He holds honorary appointments as Colonel Commandant of the Royal NSW Regiment and the University of NSW Regiment. He sat as a member of the Defence Force Discipline Appeals Tribunal a...

From the Editor Winter 2023 Issue of Reconnaissance , the quarterly magazine of The Military History Society of New South Wales  Welcome to the Winter 2023 issue of Reconnaissance . At the end of this year’s Anzac Day season David Martin presented a lecture to our Society’s May meeting on the topic: “The British Army’s Steep and Bloody ‘Learning Curve’: which facilitated the AIF becoming such an effective fighting force on the Western Front in 1918”. This addresses the most contentious question emerging from World War I studies over recent decades. Lined up on opposing sides of the question are those who insist that Britain’s conduct of the war was a bloody saga of incompetence ended by American intervention and those who argue that by dint of persistence and ingenuity the British ultimately prevailed over unprecedented difficulties to fashion a formidable war machine capable of crushing the German Army. For this issue of Reconnaissance , Dr Martin returns to the central questi...

Since before Federation, the Bismarck Archipelago and the Solomon Islands have occupied an important place is Australian strategic thinking. On the outbreak of war in 1914, Australia moved swiftly to secure the German possessions in the Bismarck Archipelago through the AN&MEF. In 1942, the ill-fated Lark Force was deployed to defend Rabaul. Following the Japanese seizure of Tulagi and Guadacanal, fierce battles were waged on land, at sea and in the air to recapture the Solomon Islands, Bougainville, and New Britain. More recently in the 2000s, Australian military forces were deployed to the Solomons for over a decade. After five years of ethnic tensions and a coup in 2000, the Solomons faced serious problems: law and order had broken down, corruption was widespread, the institutions of government had ceased to function, and basic services were not being delivered to the people. In response to a request from the Government of the Solomon Islands in 2003, the Regional Assistance ...