RECONNAISSANCE Winter Issue 2026
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This is the "From the Editor" column of the Winter 2026 Issue of Reconnaissance, the quarterly magazine of the Military History Society of New South Wales.
Earlier in the twentieth
century, the Anzac Legend naturally centered on those grinding struggles across
the shores and heights of Gallipoli. Only some decades later did the country’s
attention turn to the Western Front in France and Belgium, where our soldiers
displayed even more heroism and made an undeniable contribution to the victory
of 1918. But the Western Front was a universe of warfare embroiling teeming
millions of men over long stretches of terrain while absorbing vast resources churned
out by the world’s most advanced industrial empires and nations. In some
respects, we are still ignorant of many features and dimensions of Australia’s
role in that complex upheaval.
This issue of Reconnaissance
presents a version of Lt-Col David Deasey’s April 2026 lecture shedding light
on a little known but important aspect of Australian presence on the Western
Front − the staffing, operation and maintenance of railway locomotive companies
transporting supplies and men from Channel Ports or rear areas to the frontline
trenches. These railway units were in no way part of Australia’s initial offer
of forces at the outbreak of war. The British planned to leave railway
infrastructure in the hands of the French. But by 1916 Britain was in the grips
of a severe domestic fuel crisis which forced war planners to ramp up non
internal combustion forms of mobility at the front. The French network was
simultaneously buckling under the strain. In response the British appointed a
railway supremo, Sir Eric Geddes, to coordinate a new centralised transport
system, equipped and staffed by elements of the British Expeditionary Force
(BEF), including Australians. This presented a problem for a reluctant Australian
Government which from the start was determined to ensure that AIF troops served
at all times in designated Australian units under Australian control. Yet they
eventually succumbed to the pleas of their British counterparts and raised five
railway units in Australia to British specifications. Recruitment standards
back home were relaxed to attract the necessary members who were deployed to
companies integrated with the British Royal Engineers in France. Horrified by
the carnage at Passchendaele in 1917, however, the British Cabinet later pushed
through changes at Sir Douglas Haig’s headquarters which included
decentralisation of the transport system, enabling the AIF’s senior command to
rename and take back control of Australian manned railway companies until the
armistice.
Next Dr John Haken
provides a brief snapshot of how the First World War played out in the Pacific
theatre and then Kevin Driscoll recounts the RAAF’s experience with the 3-inch
rocket, an advanced air-to-ground ordinance of the World War II and post-war eras
which was both manufactured in Australia and fitted to ten types of RAAF
aircraft.
Dr Andrew Wilson’s
militaria feature is about Patrick Kelly of Banagher, Ireland, who served
mostly with the British 68th Regiment of Foot during the Napoleonic Peninsular
War, the Crimean War and the New Zealand Maori Wars for which he was awarded
the Crimean Medal, a Turkish Crimean Medal and the New Zealand Medal. Following
this we present Alexander Muscat’s intriguing account of the so-called Kitos
Revolt of 115-117AD when descendants of Jewish Zealots who survived the
destruction of Jerusalem in 70AD launched an ill-fated rebellion against
Emperor Trajan in Libya, Cyprus and Mesopotamia.
Finally, I am grateful for
fine book reviews from Dr Tom Lewis on Discovering Hitler’s Fuhrerbunker:
Secrets Beneath Berlin, John Hall on Against the Rising Sun:
An Australian POW’s Survival From Changi to Nagasaki and John Hitchen on Dogs
of War: Guardians of the Battlefield True Stories of Loyalty and Bravery.
Editor, Reconnaissance
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