Shrine of Remembrance

Wednesday 7 August-  Dr Rosalie Triolo The School Paper was compulsory reading for decades of Victorian state school children. During the First World War, almost all articles either told teachers and children exactly what was expected of them to help win the war, or subtly conveyed the same messages through stories, poems, songs and pictures. This presentation will discuss the power and enduring c...

Tuesday 23 July 2013- Dr David Holloway  Dr David Holloway, author of Endure and Fight: A History of the 4th Light Horse Regiment , will follow the regiment across all three major fronts involving Australian troops in the First World War: from Melbourne to Gallipoli, to the Western Front and Palestine. This story is replete with tales of individual soldiers, many from Mildura and surrounding distr...

Helen Stitt -  Wednesday 10 July 2013 This illustrated talk will reveal some moving tales of the active involvement of the RACV in supporting the Australian military. Beginning in 1908 with the initiative of Automobile Club of Victoria Foundation Member, Colonel Harley Tarrant, the RACV’s involvement has included novel fundraising motor gymkhanas, the promotion of alternative fuels during petrol r...

Dr Janet Butler 3 July 2013  In July 1915, newly enrolled army nurse Sister Kit McNaughton stepped onto a troopship and embarked on the first stage of her journey to war. In doing so she was stepping out of place, away from the woman’s role of quiet waiting on the home front. That day she would begin a diary that she would continue throughout the First World War.   Kit’s diary allows us to see the...

Thursday 20 July 2013. Shepparton Regional Lecture. Tim Whitford and John Gribben  Tim Whitford and John Gribben take their presentation on the road to visit the community of Shepparton.   During the Second World War thousands of Prisoners of War, ‘enemy aliens’ and Australians of German, Japanese and Italian descent found themselves imprisoned inside a huge POW/Internment Camp complex in farmland...

Denis Baguley and Ian McDougall- Wednesday 5 June 2013  As Australia approaches the Centenary of Anzac, the Shrine of Remembrance will continue to grow as a place of commemoration and pilgrimage. Underpinned by a history that has shaped the nation, the Shrine and what it stands for in the local and wider community continues to grow. Join the Shrine’s Chief Executive Denis Baguley and architect Ian...

Susan Gordon-Brown    Almost four decades after the Vietnam War, many former service men finally feel comfortable enough about their service in this controversial war to share their stories through the medium of photography and conversation. For many of the veterans, the process of being photographed and of telling their story was an act of catharsis. Join professional photographer Susan Gordon-Br...

Wednesday 15 May 2013 -  Catherine McCullagh   On 14 May 1943, a brightly lit vessel cruised north, a floating beacon against the blackened sea. Heading for New Guinea to take on casualties at Port Moresby, the 2/3rd Australian Hospital Ship Centaur carried a total of 332 passengers: 76 crew and 256 medical staff, including 12 nurses. There was no doubt as to the nature of the target when, at 4.10...

Tuesday 23 April-  Birger Stichelbaut and Jean Bourgeois The Western Flanders region of the Western Front is indelibly linked with Australians at war and Anzac. Ghent based Belgian researchers, Birger Stichelbaut and Jean Bourgeois will talk about the application of large numbers of historical aerial photographs in Great War conflict archaeology.   Their research is based on the interpretation and...

Thursday 18 April 2013- Dr David Holloway  Dr David Holloway, author of Endure and Fight, an History of the 4 th Light Horse Regiment, will speak about the regiment, unique in the AIF as the only unit to fight on each of the three major fronts involving Australian troops. In describing how this came about, Dr Holloway follows the regiment from Melbourne to Gallipoli, it being divided thereafter so...

Recorded at the Friends of the Shrine Luncheon 2013

Pattie Wright- Ray Parkin was a sailor first and foremost.   He then found himself a POW on the Thai Burma railway and in Japan. From those harrowing experiences came the highly regarded wartime trilogy Out of the Smoke , Into the Smother and The Sword and the Blossom . Pattie Wright, interviewed Ray and accessed his diaries and extensive archive to write his recently published biography, Ray Park...

Tim Whitford and John Gribben- During the Second World War, thousands of Prisoners of War, ‘enemy aliens’ and Australians of German, Japanese and Italian descent found themselves imprisoned inside a huge POW/Internment Camp complex in farmland in Victoria’s Goulburn Valley. In the years that followed there were murders, escapes, riots and intrigue. There was also much humour, compassion and demons...

Learn about the experiences of prisoners of war and civilian internees in Victoria during the Second World War (1939-45) and discover a little known aspect of Australia’s history. This exhibition explores the impacts on prisoners of war and internees who lived and worked in camps. Between 1939 and 1947 rural Victoria hosted eight internment and prisoner of war camps from the network that was scatt...

Dr Richard Reid- Dr Richard Reid from the Department of Veterans Affairs discusses the work currently being done on the Australian Remembrance Trail on the Western Front. The Remembrance Trail has seen the Office of Australian War Graves begin working with local communities and regional authorities to establish improved visitor facilities at former Australian First World War battlefields in Belgiu...

Professor Paul James Evidence of our commitment to peace is frequently overshadowed by the emphasis given by the media to reports of conflict. What is peace? This talk examines international, national and local efforts that seek to ensure stability and opportunities for creative collaboration in our world. Australia's role in peacekeeping in recent decades and in international initiatives for peac...

Pattie Wright Many would call these two men heroes and they would be right. Sadly, only one returned. Hec Waller was an RAN Captain and Weary Dunlop, a lieutenant Colonel, a doctor and POW. What are the odds that two of Australia's greatest came from what was then a small town by a river in northwest Victoria? Pattie Wright, author of The Men of the Line and the just published, Ray Parkin's Odysse...

Consul General to Malta, Charles Mifsud During the two world conflicts, Malta gave its valued part in defeating the enemy. In this context, the connection with ANZACs is hardly ever observed. The connection started in World War I, whereby Malta served as the nurse of the Mediterranean, seeing to injuries of ANZACs and allied soldiers during the Gallipoli Campaign and then continued on until the 19...

Mr Tim Whitford and Mr Lambis Engelzos AM Join Lambis and Tim from the Shrine of Remembrance as they discuss the search for the missing men of the Battle of Fromelles. Lambis and Tim's tireless search and advocacy over many years led to the discovery of a mass burial site for 250 soldiers lost since World War I. This search has led to the creation of the first new Commonwealth War Cemetary since W...

Major General John Cantwell Exit Wounds is the compassionate and deeply human account of one man’s tour of the War on Terror, the moving story of life on a modern battlefield: from the nightmare of cheating death in a minefield, to the poignancy of calling home while under rocket fire in Baghdad, to the utter despair of looking into the face of a dead soldier before sending him home to his mother....

Colonel Marcus Fielding Colonel Marcus Fielding will provide a unique and fascinating insight into the significant contribution by the Australian soldiers embeded in various Coalition headquarters. In telling his own story, Fielding provides interesting and fresh perspectives on Australia's involvement. 

There have been many books written on Kokoda in the last twenty years and most mention Bert Kienzle in passing. To quote Alan Poweel, author of The Third Force- "No man on the track did more to ensure the Australian victory than Lt. Bert Kienzle." But Bert's story is more than just about wartime Kokoda. From birth to death, his was an extraordinary life. 

Mr Leslie Bunn Glover- Leslie Bunn Glover, one of the last men standing of the POWs who survived the atrocities of the Death Camps of Sandakan and Kuching under their japanese Captives, will be sharing his life story. In his recently published memoirs, Leslie aged 92, recalls the horros he faced as a POW slave labourer for the Japanese. 

Professor Joy Damousi- A group who are often forgotten in our commemoration of war, mothers gave their sons in large numbers during the Great War. The ways in which mothers mourned, the sacrifices they made and the ways in which the government authorities attempted to publicly recognise their grief will be the subject of this lecture. 

David Smith. Documentary film maker Dr David Smith and his father, searchlight operator Gordon Smith of the 67th AASL, visit RAAF Landing Ground Truscott for the 50th Anniversary of the completion of Australia's secret World War II airbase. Truscott was a crucial departure point for heavy bombers making sorties over South East Asia and critical in the defence of Australia following the bombing of...