I Was Only Doing My Job: Australia's Military History

1-JANUARY 1916 While Serving with 3 Australian General Hospital Squadron Principal Matron Grace Margaret Wilson in Lemnos, Greece would coordinate the nursing care of wounded Australian Soldiers from the Gallipoli Campaign and in doing so would also fight for recognition and proper treatment of the nurses under her charge. a Professional Nurse before the Great War, she would go on to be Matron-in-...

During the First World War, 27 men of the Australian Customs Service answered the call of King and Country. Since the early 2000s, I Was Only Doing My Job background researcher Laurie Favelle has been obsessed with finding and preserving the life service and legacies of each of these 27 men. They were, or are, humble human beings who, for a great many current Australians, are family. Yet now for m...

16-OCTOBER-1942 While Serving with No. 452 Squadron, Royal Australian Air Force, Squadron Leader Keith William "Bluey" Truscott in Europe would lead an attack on an evacuating Kreigsmarine Fleet and successfully damaged a German Destroyer. A famous athlete, before the war he played VFL for the Melbourne Demons, and deciding to forgo a successful sporting career decided to fly for King an...

23-OCTOBER-1915. While serving as a trooper in the 5th Australian Light Horse Regiment, Australian Imperial Force, Chinese-Australian Trooper William Edward "Billy" Sing DCM has been picked to take the solitary role as being a sniper on Gallipoli where he has a unique record of between 150 and 300 confirmed Ottoman kills during the eight-month campaign. Even with that legacy he also grew up in a t...

17-AUGUST-1917. While serving as one of the Australian Official War Photographers, Honorary Captain James Francis "Frank" Hurley OBE was an Australian photographer and adventurer. He participated in several expeditions to Antarctica, under Sir Douglas Mawson and Sir Ernest Shackleton and served as an official photographer with Australian forces during both world wars. His artistic style...

I sat down with Preston Stewart and Seyer Payne of War Stories to talk about Australia's involvement in the Pacific Campaign of the Second World War. This was recorded over Zoom, and the video version of this episode is available on the I Was Only Doing My Job Youtube Channel.  The conversation starts with the Fall of Singapore and ends with the Japanese surrender and even the start of the Ko...

7-MAY-1915. While serving as an engineer with the 3rd Field Company Engineers, Australian Imperial Force, Captain Edward Bage was instructed to map out new trench locations on Gallipoli, and as a result would be killed 14 days after landing on the Pennisula, but his legacy is not one of the battlefield, but of Antarctic Exploration, when he spent two years mapping Antarctica alongside Sir Douglas...

CW: Sexual Assault- This episode contains a discussion of the murder of women and allegations of sexual assault in war. The sexual assault is isolated to the end of the episode, with a warning just prior. the discussion of the Bangka Island Massacre will begin at 5:16 to 8:06 This is a Special reupload to mark the 80th Anniversary of the Bangka Island Massacre 16-FEBRUARY-1942. Serving as a Staff...

17-AUGUST-1915. While serving as a soldier with the 17th Australian Infantry Battalion, Australian Imperial Force, Lieutenant Leslie George Fussell, unimpressed with the quality of the bomb-throwing of the men under his command, took a tin of Bully Beef and threw it into the Turkish Trenches. This act resulted in a temporary cease-fire on Gallipoli. He would go on to serve on the Western Front and...

2-NOVEMBER-1932.  While serving as a professional soldier in the post-war Permanent  Military Force of the Commonwealth Military Forces Honourary Brigadier  General Gwynydd Purves Wynne-Aubrey Meredith served for 47 years  continuously, and in doing so served in the Permanent Military Force,  the First World War, the Second War and the Korean War, but he is most  know...

2-NOVEMBER-1932.  While serving as a professional soldier in the post-war Permanent  Military Force of the Commonwealth Military Forces Honourary Brigadier  General Gwynydd Purves Wynne-Aubrey Meredith served for 47 years  continuously, and in doing so served in the Permanent Military Force,  the First World War, the Second War and the Korean War, but he is most  know...

2-NOVEMBER-1932. While serving as a professional soldier in the post-war Permanent Military Force of the Commonwealth Military Forces Honourary Brigadier General Gwynydd Purves Wynne-Aubrey Meredith served for 47 years continuously, and in doing so served in the Permanent Military Force, the First World War, the Second War and the Korean War, but he is most known as Major G P W Meredith, the Offic...

19-NOVEMBER-1941, While serving in the Royal Australian Navy as a submarine detector, Able Seamen Thomas Welsby Clark served aboard the Light Cruiser HMAS Sydney II in the Second World War, when the Sydney was sunk by the German commerce raider HSK Kormoran with the loss of all hands. three months later, the unidentified remains of an Australian sailor in a Carley Float would wash ashore on Christ...

18-AUGUST-1917. While serving in the Serbian Army as an Ambulance Driver, Sgt Olive May Kelso King, regularly exposed herself to danger and enemy fire while carrying out her duties to help deliver supplies and retrieve wounded in the dangerous Salonika Front in an ambulance nicknamed Ella, that she purchased herself for the cause.  For show notes, photos and transcripts visit www.thedocnetwork.net...

8-JANUARY-1952. While serving in the Royal Australian Navy as a gunnery officer, Commander Warwick Seymour Bracegirdle served with distinction aboard several warships of the Royal Australian Navy and Royal Navy, in both the Second World War and the Korean War, being one of only a handful of officers to receive the prestigious Distinguished Service Cross a total of three times.  For show notes, pho...

17-AUGUST-1915, while serving as a signaller with C Company,  16th Infantry Battalion, Australian Imperial Force, Signaller Ellis Luciano Silas worked diligently at his telegraph set, until he fell ill with what we would now call PTSD. but what he is more famously known for is the detailed and elaborate sketches and artworks he created of the troops on Gallipoli and became an unofficial Austr...

11-NOVEMBER-1993 to mark the 75th Anniversary of the end of the First World War, Australia would go on to entomb an Unknown Soldier from the battlefield of France in the Hall of Memory of the Australian War Memorial.  For show notes, photos and transcripts visit www.thedocnetwork.net and follow the show on Instagram @IWODMJ to follow me for more history hijinks you can follow me on TikTok/Ins...

8-March-1918, While serving as a Chaplain with the 1 Australian Headquarters, Australian Imperial Force, Reverent Senior Chaplain Walter Ernest Dexter, was one of the original 12 chaplains assigned to the Australian Imperial Force and served with distinction throughout Australia's involvement on Gallipoli and the Western Front, going down in history as the most decorated Chaplain in the Austra...

8-AUGUST-1918.  On the 8th of August 1918, the British Fourth Army under General Rawlinson launched a major attack with French and American units in support against German positions to the east of the strategic Railway junction of Amiens in the Picardie region of Northern France in an attack known as the Third Battle of Picardy. It was the opening phase of what would become the Allied Hundred Days...

This Episode was Re-recorded 25-08-2022 10-OCTOBER-1941. While Serving with No. 3 (Army Cooperation) Squadron, Royal Australian Air Force, Flying Officer Peter St George Bruce Turnbull, in North Africa became one of the first Australian Fighter Aces of the Second World War, with downing eight enemy aircraft, an act that would award him the Distinguished Flying Cross.  He would go on to serve...

20-DECEMBER-1915. While serving with the 7th Infantry Battalion, Australian Imperial Force, Private William Charles Scurry, landed at Gallipoli and immediately set out to address a glaring issue with the rumours of the evacuation of ANZAC forces, just how was the 60,000 Australian and New Zealand troops going to get off the beaches without being massacred?  His solution was the invention of a...

I sit down with Preston Stewart of War Stories and we talk about the joint Australian/American Battle of Hamel during the First World War and talk about the life and service of the 1000th Recipient of the Victoria Cross Pte Henry Dalziel, and Cpl Thomas A Pope US Army, a man who until 2015 was the first US Army infantryman to receive the Congressional Medal of Honor in the First World War. 4/5-JUL...

25-OCTOBER-1915. While serving with the 21st Infantry Battalion, Australian Imperial Force, Private James Charles "Jimmy" Martin, landed on the Gallipoli peninsula and would stay until October, when he died of heart failure at the age of 14 years and 9 months, making him the youngest Australian serviceperson to die in war. --- Buy the Podcast a Ko-Fi ⁠https://ko-fi.com/iwasonlydoingmyjobpodcast ⁠...

This Episode was re-recorded on 5/10/2023 29-JULY-1918. While serving with the 29th Infantry Battalion, Australian Imperial Force, Private George Giles, participated in the attack on German positions at Morlancourt. After which, he was instructed to proceed to the headquarters of the 8th Brigade, and surrender his uniform and equipment to the Australian War Records Section. Photographs were taken,...

This episode was re-recorded and uploaded on 17/07/2023 25-MAY-1940. While only serving in the 2/17th Infantry Battalion Second Australian Imperial Force for a little over a month, Pte Evelyn Ernest Owen would contribute to the Australian War effort in the Second World War as part of the Central Inventions Board by inventing one of the weirdest. Still, the most reliable machine carbines were built...