Shrine of Remembrance

Tuesday 20 May 2014 - Mr Patrick Lindsay The Anzac spirit forms the bedrock of the Australian and New Zealand national characters. It was forged from a mateship which grew into something greater than the shared experiences of brothers-in-arms. The Gallipoli Campaign was a kind of crusade and a national rite of passage for three of the countries involved:  Turkey, Australia and New Zealand.&nb...

Wednesday 30 April - Professor Joan Beaumont For many Australians the First World War is the event that defined our nation; larrikin diggers, trench warfare, and the landing at Gallipoli have become part of the Anzac Legend. But it was also the families at home which made the war effort possible with their resilience in the face of hardship, a stoic acceptance of enormous casualty lists and the be...

Tuesday 15 April 2014 - Susanna de Vries Join us for this compelling lecture recounting the lives of eight remarkable nurses whose resilience, courage and skill took them from Australia to Gallipoli, Lemnos and the Western Front. These women, represented in Susanna de Vries’ reprinted publication, Australian Heroines of World War One, had the courage and strength for which the Anzacs are renowned...

Tuesday 8 April 2014 - Ashley Ekins As another ANZAC Day approaches, the story of the Gallipoli landing and the eight month long campaign that followed will be retold. Most accounts will dwell on stories of the Anzac spirit: reckless courage, endurance, humour in adversity and above all, mateship. Yet how well do we Australians actually know the history of Gallipoli that has become a central part...

Wednesday 2 April 2014 - David Howell and Reg Yates Following a telegram from Britain a few days after the outbreak of war in 1914, the Australian Naval and Military Expeditionary Force (ANMEF) captured the German wireless station at Bita Paka in Rabaul, Papua New Guinea. The Shrine’s David Howell will be joined by Reg Yates who recently uncovered the original foundations of this wireless station....

27 March 2014 - Chris Masters Discussing his publication, Uncommon Soldier, Chris Masters, one of Australia’s foremost investigative journalists, turns his attention to the modern Australian soldier. Moving away from our ongoing fascination with Anzac story, he looks at the rich and illuminating present to write a character study of the modern Australian soldier—war fighter, peacekeeper, street-le...

25 March 2014 - Professor Bruce Scates In the lead up to the Centenary of the Great War, the Australian and New Zealand governments will embark on a great initiative, one destined to change the way that conflict is remembered.  ‘Project Albany’ will involve the digitisation of tens of thousands of repatriation files, charting what happened to the diggers who came home.  What became of the casualti...

Dr Heather Sheard- 19 March 2014 By 1914, a small number of determined women had been graduating from the Melbourne Medical School for 23 years and there were almost 130 women registered as medical practitioners in Australia.   From the declaration of war in August 1914, the male medical fraternity enlisted enthusiastically across the country and women doctors were just as keen to offer their skil...

Thursday 13 March 2014 - Dr Kathryn Spurling  Boxing Day 1944, six Australians aged between 20 and 25 should have been standing in an Aussie backyard drinking a cold beer and burning sausages on the barbeque. Instead these young men were at RAF Binbrook being briefed for an operation to bomb rail yards at Cologne, an operation from which they did not return. By war’s end, thousands of Australian a...

Professor William Logan - 18 February 2014   Most cultural heritage is difficult to protect and with Australia’s war heritage lying mostly overseas, the conservation and management of significant sites and related artefacts is even more difficult. Using illustrated examples from both World Wars and the Korean and Vietnam War, this lecture discusses the delicate international negotiations which hav...

4 March 2014 - Helen Raw and Avis Quarrell The involvement and role of Australian women in wartime is many and varied. Come and listen to two Australian women share their story. Helen was ten year’s old when the Second World War was declared and one after the other her four brothers enlisted to serve. Helen was one of the many who sent comfort packs and helped with raising funds for the war effort...

Dr Jennifer Lawless - 27 February 2014   Despite the focus on the Gallipoli campaign, little is known about the experiences of the Australians who were captured and imprisoned in Turkey. Based on ten years of research in the Australian, British and Turkish archives, this presentation examines the identity of these men and their various experiences in Turkey whilst challenging some of the myths tha...

Tim Whitford - Thursday 13 March 2014 In March 1942, Australia was on its knees. The Japanese were swarming southward, Darwin had been bombed, and the vast majority of Australia’s best troops were overseas fighting the Germans. Fear of invasion was very real… Then ships arrived at Port Melbourne bringing the first of hundreds of thousands of American troops to Victoria. It was a friendly invasion....

Ross Coulthart As an investigative reporter for the Seven Network's Sunday Night program, Ross Coulthart was part of a team that discovered a massive collection of thousands of First World War glass plate photographic negatives, which had lain hidden in a French farmhouse attic for nearly 100 years. The stories behind some of these pictures formed the basis of Ross' best-selling book, The Lost Dig...

Chaired by Air Vice-Marshal Chris Spence AO (Retd), Veterans, Peter Isaacson, Jack Bell and Maurice O'Keefe Join us for a special panel discussion on the experiences of Bomber Command members during the Second World War. Chaired by Shrine of Remembrance Chairman, Air Vice-Marshal Chris Spence AO (Rtd), the discussion will explore the experiences of a number of veterans, including Shrine Life Gover...

Peter Rees More than 10,000 young Australians served in Bomber Command during the Second World War, flying raid after raid over Europe knowing the odds were against them. More than a third died in the air. In his new book, Lancaster Men: The Aussie Heroes of Bomber Command, Peter Rees describes the bravery shown, which he claims has never truly been recognised. 

Ted Graham AM and Kim Kirsner In 2008 the finding of HMAS Sydney , sunk by the German Raider HSK Kormoran on 19 November 1941, touched the heart of the nation and brought a measure of peace to the families of the 645 Sydney men who were killed. This talk tells of the Finding Sydney Foundation (FSF), from its inception to success, and the research that predicted the position of the raider Kormoran...

Michael McKernan- Wednesday 16 October 2013  Join Michael McKernan, a historian working in the field of Australian social and military history, to hear of his most recent project which focuses on the history of Victoria in the First World War, commissioned by the State Library of Victoria. Learn about how the State of Victoria adapted to the rapidly changing nature of life, as men and women commit...

Thursday 10 October 2013 - Graham Wilson One of the most well-known actions involving the AIF during the First World War is the so-called “Battle of the Nek”. Unlike much larger actions involving the AIF later in the war, the action at The Nek is fairly well-known to the average Australian with any sort of an interest in Australian military history. Not the least of these reasons is that the charg...

Rosebud Regional Lecture- Michael Veitch Tuesday 24 September 2013 Over the course of three years and two books, author, broadcaster and performer Michael Veitch sought out and interviewed over sixty former airmen of Second World War and recorded, largely for the first time, their stories of flying, combat and survival. As Michael soon discovered, every man who flew in combat in Second World War h...

The Hon. Ted Baillieu, Professor Robin Gerster, Professor Rae Francis and Professor Bruce Scates - Thursday 26 September 2013 Australians have been making pilgrimages to the battlefields and cemeteries of the Second World War since the 1940s. From the jungles of New Guinea and South-East Asia to the mountains of Greece and the deserts of North Africa, they travel in search of the stories of lost l...

Air Vice-Marshal Chris Spence, Air Vice-Marshal Kym Osley, Wing Command Peter Isaacson - 4 October 2013 Air Force Bomber Command implemented Britain’s strategic bombing campaign against Germany and German allies during the Second World War (1939 - 45). Over 10,000 Australians served, flying raid after raid over Europe alongside servicemen across the Commonwealth.    Bomber Command aircrews suffere...

Australian Nurses of 1915 - 12 September 2013, Katrina Hedditch  The history of Australian nurses during 1915 in Egypt, on hospital ships at Gallipoli and under canvas on Lemnos Island, was forgotten for two generations despite being one of the dramatic epics of the First World War. A handful of brave women sailed to Anzac Cove for the Landing on April 25, and following the August Offensive anothe...

Wednesday 21 August 2013 - Aaron Pegram  3,848 Australians were captured by the Germans during the First World War. Instead of dwelling on the personal, subjective nature of captivity, this talk looks at the value of Australian prisoners as intelligence sources for the German Army. Hear about German interrogation methods, AIF counter-intelligence training and the experiences of Australian prisoner...

Wednesday 14 August 2013 -  Gary Barker Join the Chief Executive of the National Vietnam Veterans Museum to hear about how, over a 20 year period, a Land Rover and trailer evolved to become a National Museum and the spiritual home of Vietnam veterans.   The National Vietnam Veterans Museum tells a story about the people involved throughout a divisive era of Australian society.