[Cross-posted at Airplay.] Australia is a long way from anywhere, even from itself. It nearly always takes a long time to get to where you want to go. Historian Geoffrey Blainey famously popularised the idea that this remoteness has shaped Australian history and culture in the title of his 1966 book, The Tyranny of Distance. […]
NAA: MP1049/1, 1918/066, page 416 is a report from Lieutenant Commander George D. Warren RANR, commanding officer, HMAS Coogee, a civilian coastal steamship requistioned by the Navy for use as a minesweeper. Warren is reporting on the results of his investigation of an aeroplane seen from a naval lookout on the northern end of King
The lost Gotha of New Farm Park is lost in two senses. Firstly, because I’m fairly sure that it no longer exists. Secondly, because I’m quite sure that it never existed. Chris O’Regan pointed out on Twitter that ‘there used to be a captured German plane in New Farm Park’ in Brisbane. This was easy
My article, ‘The militarisation of aerial theatre: air displays and airmindedness in Britain and Australia between the World Wars’, is available on Contempory British History‘s website. It seems like only yesterday that I uploaded the self-archived version — in fact it was only 5 weeks ago! While the formal and final version of the article
The first real air raid on Australia was against Darwin on 19 February 1942. I don’t know when the first fake air raid on Australia was, but there was one against Melbourne on 14 October 1929: An aerial attack was made on Melbourne to-day by a group of seagull [sic] machines, which had been sent
My article, ‘The militarisation of aerial theatre: air displays and airmindedness in Britain and Australia between the World Wars’, has just been accepted for publication in Contemporary British History. It will be part of a special issue edited by Andrekos Varnava and Michael J. K. Walsh on ‘The production of popular culture and its relationship
It’s been nearly four weeks since I farewelled my friends and left Armidale, which somehow seems both very recent and very distant. Before I left, I’d planned to post some of my favourite photos of the town, but in the press of events didn’t manage to. And after, I found it difficult to decide which
In two weeks from today I’ll be leaving Armidale for good, and heading back to Melbourne, my hometown. It’s mostly for excellent personal reasons, but in part it’s also because of the usual early-career academic story of precarious employment. My colleagues at the University of New England have supported me as much they could, but
NAA: MP1049/1, 1918/066, page 836 is a report by Senior Constable P. J. Connolly regarding ‘an aeroplane flying in a Westerly direction’ seen at 9pm the previous evening at Charlton, in the Mallee region of Victoria, by William Bannon and no less than ‘eight other farmers’, who all saw the machine together: One bright white
NAA: MP1049/1, 1918/066, page 529 is a statement by Captain T. J. Wilson, master of the SS Koolonga, a merchant vessel plying the Newcastle–Port Pirie route. At 8.15pm on 26 May 1918, Koolonga was off Cape Willoughby, Kangaroo Island, South Australia; Wilson was on the bridge when, ‘Casually looking aloft, he saw a dark square
