The Kelly Gang reborn: The first Australian mounted unit to see active service in the Second World War

In the pre-dawn chill the sentries shifted in their positions and stared at the rocky hills and mountains beyond their position. The camp stirred to the familiar smell of horse feed and the jingle of a bridle as the men, adorned in their distinctive slouch hats, prepared for their early morning patrol. Before them lay the vast expanse of the Middle East. The desert, rock and sands of Syria. The Middle East; desert, sand, horses and slouch hats invokes the images of the triumphant Australian Light Horse of World War One. It brings to mind images and memories such as the charge at Beersheba and the ride to Damascus. But this was not 1918, but 1941. Most of the men who mounted these steady beasts had not been born as the Light Horse had conducted the last great mounted campaign in military history. In the intervening years the horse had given way to sounds and throbs of diesel engines, to armoured plate and the crack of high velocity cannon. So what were these Australian horsemen doing in Syria, a generation on from the Light Horse and light years on in technology? The “Kelly Gang” as this Light Horse troop came to be known was the first mounted Australian unit to see active service in the Second World War. They formed part of the 7th Australian Division AIF (2 Brigades) under the command of Major-General John Lavarack who were responsible for the coastal and central sectors of the British invasion of Vichy French held Syria. Although vastly outnumbered and outgunned by the opposing Vichy French forces the operations that commenced on 6 June, 1941 were initially successful. By the 14 June the Australians had reached the line of Sidon –Jezzine- Merdajayoun. The French command reacted by assembling their superior armoured forces to counter-attack the advancing Australian units. The coastal thrust was brought to a standstill and Merdajayoun recaptured. \u27The Kelly Gang Reborn: The first Australian mounted unit to see active service in the Second World War\u27, has been published as

A reluctant hero: L-Cpl Patrick Goggin MM: The story of one man’s war on the Western Front 1916-1918

For Patrick (Paddy) Goggin there was no rush for glory. There was no thirst to enlist for King or country. In fact, it could be argued that he had no interest in the business of war at all. August 1914 came and went, so did the first Anzac day and later the Australian withdrawal from Gallipoli. Still Paddy did not stir from his life in Yass in the New South Wales countryside. We will never really know what persuaded Paddy to join up. Given his strong Irish bloodlines, loyalty to the crown was unlikely to dig at his conscience. More than likely he enlisted for the same reasons that motivated thousands of young Australians; because it seemed the right thing to do at the time, a bit of adventure in a lacklustre time

The Aparri Operation – The AIF plan for the invasion of Luzon 1944-1945

During 1943 Australian forces made their most significant contribution to the war in the Pacific. The ‘Reconquest’ operations in New Guinea were the largest ever Australian military operations. Some twenty-five Australian infantry battalions participated in these operations, the most to see action simultaneously since the battle in the Somme Valley in 1918, and they were provided with naval, logistic and air support that was immensely greater than anything provided to Australians during the First World War. Following these highly successful operations US forces in the South West Pacific Area (SWPA) took over major operations against the Japanese, while the Australian forces were either used to garrison New Guinea and the surrounding islands or withdraw to rest and retain for further operations. As the battlelines in the SWPA moved closer to the Philippines the Australian government provided General Douglas MacArthur with the I Australian Corps to use in his offensive. MacArthur’s initial planning for the invasion of the main Philippine island of Luzon called for this corps to play a critical role in the campaign through a landing at Aparri to establish an airfield and to drive on the central highlands on the island. Despite the initial planning in which this operation was to play a vital role in the overall the reconquest of Luzon, it was never carried out. Instead of being involved in the major offensive in the Philippines campaign the I Australian Corps was shunted off to invade the strategically insignificant region of Borneo in operations that would have no bearing on the outcome of the war. The landing at Aparri represented the only significant opportunity for Australian troops to once again be at the forefront of operations in the Pacific. This paper will assess the viability of the Aparri operation and detail the complicated strategic and political reasons why it was not carried out. It will argue that this operation would have made a major contribution to the Allied victory in the Philippines and that while the reasons for its cancellation may have been valid in the eyes of MacArthur’s planning staff they represented a major failing in intelligence operations in the SWPA

Recent scholarship in military history and the ANZAC legend: Down under 2010

On 25 April every year Australians and New Zealanders pause to remember the anniversary of the landings at Gallipoli in 1915. ANZAC Day1 is named after the acronym for the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps and has developed into Australia\u27s national day. For outsiders, it is a somewhat difficult concept to grasp. We remember a generation of young Australian males that died so as to give birth to the nation. This came about during a defeat, not a victory, and it happened not in Australia, but in a country on the other side of the globe – Turkey. It leaves most non-Aussies or non-Kiwis scratching their heads. For instance, in order to provide some cultural signposts to the U.S. Study Abroad students who take my introduction to Australian history course each year I explain that ANZAC Day is akin to 4th of July celebrations mashed together with Veterans Day, but in a uniquely Australian context – we gained independence from the British, but not by fighting against them, rather we fought with them, blamed them (largely in an attempt to absolve ourselves and prove we are better ) for the loss at Gallipoli, and came to realize that while culturally we were of British stock, we were not actually British, but rather uniquely different. We did, however, still remain connected to the mother country for decades to come and to many Australians the bonds and affinity to Great Britain remain (except, of course, on the sporting field)

Commemoration, memory, and forgotten histories: The complexity and limitations of Australian Army biography

Military biography in Australia raises questions about the specific historiography more generally, and about the commemorative and celebratory tendencies in Australian military writing. Recent advances in the field illustrate the continuing tensions within the writing of military history in Australia, and reflect some of the same tendencies elsewhere in the English speaking world

What\u27s Wrong with Anzac? [Book Review]

National myths are important for all countries. They are part of the social fabric that binds us together as a nation and helps us to form our national identity. The Anzac myth is one of the most important and powerful in the Australian national story. We have all heard it, a lot of us participate in the rituals and activities (formal and informal) that help to constitute and reinforce it, a number of us have family or personal connections with it and some of us even claim to understand it. But no matter what interaction any of us may have with it individually it is the national story that takes prominence. This article is a review of: Lake, M., and Reynolds, H., with McKenna, M., and Damousi, J. (2010). What\u27s wrong with Anzac?: the militarisation of Australian history, Sydney, University of New South Wales

Man of might: Brigadier Berryman and the battles of Merdjayoun and Jezzine, Syria, 1941

As the afternoon of the 14 June 1941 drew to a close Major John Wilton, 7th Division, Australian Imperial Force (AIF), sat beneath a beautiful fig tree in the town of Jezzine, Syria, and consumed “the most delicious figs [he’d] ever eaten”. Apart from a few other scant occasions, this was the first opportunity to relax since beginning of the Allied invasion of Vichy French Syria. Wilton looked over to his commanding officer and mentor Brigadier Frank Berryman, whom he greatly respected. Here was a man, thought Wilton, whose fearless and sometimes unorthodox leadership had been instrumental in the recent allied successes. Over the past week alone Berryman had planned a number of major attacks, conducted reconnaissances beyond the front line, accompanied the infantry in their assaults on two major strategic towns, captured prisoners, and had almost ambushed ”friendly” tanks with nothing more than a revolver. \u27Man of Might: Brigadier Berryman and the battles of Merdjayoun and Jezzine, Syria, 1941\u27, has been published as

Amphibious Operations and the Evolution of Australian Defense Policy

“The tyranny of dissonance” among Australia’s geography, history, values, and political interests has begun to recede, and amphibious capability, long marginal in the nation’s defense strategy, will be playing a critical role

The effects of recent mortgage refinancing

Rising home prices and generally falling interest rates in recent years, together with a desire to convert the accumulated equity in their homes into spendable funds, have prompted many homeowners to refinance their mortgages. In the spring of 1999, the Federal Reserve surveyed consumers to determine the extent of refinancing, the extent to which refinancing homeowners "cashed-out" some of their equity when they refinanced, how much equity they took out, and how they spent the funds. Survey results suggest that cash-out refinancings in 1998 and early 1999 likely boosted consumption spending a bit, may have had a larger effect on home improvement spending, and may have moderated the growth of consumer credit during that period.Mortgages ; Housing - Finance ; Interest rates

Langevin processes, agent models and socio-economic systems

We review some approaches to the understanding of fluctuations in some models used to describe socio and economic systems. Our approach builds on the development of a simple Langevin equation that characterises stochastic processes. This provides a unifying approach that allows first a straightforward description of the early approaches of Bachelier. We generalise the approach to stochastic equations that model interacting agents. Using a simple change of variable, we show that the peer pressure model of Marsilli and the wealth dynamics model of Solomon are closely related. The methods are further shown to be consistent with a global free energy functional that invokes an entropy term based on the Boltzmann formula. A more recent approach by Michael and Johnson maximised a Tsallis entropy function subject to simple constraints. We show how this approach can be developed from an agent model where the simple Langevin process is now conditioned by local rather than global noise. The approach yields a BBGKY type hierarchy of equations for the system correlation functions. Of especial interest is that the results can be obtained from a new free energy functional similar to that mentioned above except that a Tsallis like entropy term replaces the Boltzmann entropy term. A mean field approximation yields the results of Michael and Johnson. We show how personal income data for Brazil, the US, Germany and the UK, analysed recently by Borgas can be qualitatively understood by this approach.Comment: 1 figur