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 the 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 A ..read more

  'We used our knees and our rifle butts and our blades. For a while we stopped being ordinary blokes and became blood-lusted creatures.'  March, 1941: 40,000 Australian and New Zealand troops are rushed to Greece in a desperate attempt to stop the Wehrmacht overrunning the country. Most of them overseas for the first time in their lives, they seek excitement and adventure. What they get are experiences they could never have imagined.  The operation is doomed to fail, but not before the Aussies and Kiwis succeed in holding up the German advance and evacuating thousands, mainly ..read more

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 i ..read more

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 ..read more

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 questio ..read more

  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 independen ..read more

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 ..read more

  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 Regime ..read more

  One of the contentious issues in Australian military history is the use of American troops in operations during World War I. Many Australian historians have taken their lead from a comment by Australia’s Official War Historian, Charles Bean, that Monash expected too much from two very fine divisions and they accuse Monash at least of misusing the Americans if not implying that he had no authority to have them at all. Author Les Carlyon, in his work The Great War, titles his chapter on the Hindenburg Line ‘An American Tragedy’ and writes of the handling of the American troops: Here was p ..read more

                                    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 ..read more