Virtual
War Memorial
Australia

This aircraft, restored to non-flying status and formerly located at the Parafield Fighting Jets Museum in South Australia is a Bell P39 Airacobra of 82 Squadron (although it is wearing 24 Squadron codes - part of a flight detached to 82 Squadron) as it was when it was written off in a forced landing near Bulli in NSW in June 1943. The aircraft has sine been sold to aviation interests in Russia, where Airacobras served with great distinction in WW2. Airacobras were operated in limited numbers (22 in all) by the RAAF as a stop-gap in defence of cities on the eastern seaboard. Some are believed to have been used as training aircraft at Mount Gambier in SA. The Airacobra had some unique features which are shown in this image via open hatches. Most notable at first glance, it had a tricycle undercarriage, the engine was centre mounted, behind the pilot, driving a transmission shaft between the pilots feet to the propellor. This gave a lot of room up front for a very heavy nose armament comprising 1 x 20mm cannon (a 37mm cannon in some variants) firing through the propeller hub and two .50 calibre guns in the nose and one in each wing. While not highly regarded in the Pacific theatre, the most prolific user was the Soviet airforce who were provided large numbers under the Lend Lease Agreements. The Russians loved them, particularly as tank attack aircraft. They were replaced in Australian service by the ubiquitous Curtiss P40 Kittyhawk.

A 38 Squadron CC-08 Caribou over the Great Australian Bight

RAAF OVERSEAS HQ, LONDON, ENGLAND. 1943-03-16. 402571 PILOT OFFICER (PO) C. R. G. GRANT DFM (LEFT) WON HIS AWARD 1942-11 FOR HIS CONSISTENT SKILL AND DETERMINATION IN NIGHT OPERATIONS OVER ENEMY TERRITORY, AND 403564 FLIGHT LIEUTENANT J. K. DOUGLAS DFC WAS CITED 1943-01 AS "A MOST DETERMINED AND SUCCESSFUL CAPTAIN OF AIRCRAFT WHOSE QUIET CONFIDENCE AND KEEN SPIRIT HAVE BEEN AN INSPIRATION TO ALL."

846 Private Roy Stephen KENYON, MM

Group portrait of No. 4 Initial Training School, RAAF Course No. 22, A Squadron, Flight 13. Pugh is second from the left in the centre row.

A memorial to the crew of No. 463 Squadron RAAF Lancaster LL847 JO-D, which crashed nearby after being shot down with the loss of all seven crew on the night of 18/19 December 1944

Original grave marker of the crew of Lancaster LL847 JO-D and the common grave in which they are now interred in Le Gros-Thiele Communal cemetery

FLGOFF Robert Wentworth BYRNES 463 Squadron

Nursing SIster Dorothy Elmes, a victim of the Banka Island massacre

Sister Ellen Keats, 2nd/10th Australian General Hospial

Australian Army Nursing Sisters Ellen Keats and Elizabeth Pyman. Ellen Keats was evacuated from Singapore on the ill-fated SS VYner Brooke and was murdered by her Japanese captros at Banka Island. Sister Pyman was more fortunate being evacuated on another ship and returning safely to Australia

A commemorative coin marking the 75th Anniversary of the loss of the SS Vyner Brooke

Australian Army Nursing Sisters Ellen Keats and Elizabeth Pyman. Ellen Keats was evacuated from Singapore on the ill-fated SS VYner Brooke and was murdered by her Japanese captros at Banka Island. Sister Pyman was more fortunate being evacuated on another ship and returning safely to Australia

Sister Merle Trenery, presumed lost at sea in the sinking of the SS Vyner Brooke on 14 February 1942

Captain Joan Hempstead of the 2nd/13th Australian General Hospital

Peggy Eveett Farmaner

QLD. Paybook photograph, taken on enlistment, of QFX22714 Captain Pauline Blanche (Blanche) Hempsted, 2/13th Australian General Hospital, Australian Army Nursing Service (AANS). She was one of sixty five Australian nurses and over 250 civilian men, women and children evacuated on the Vyner Brooke from Singapore three dyas before the fall of Malaya. The Vyner Brooke was bombed by Japanese aircraft and sunk in Banka Strait on 14 February 1942. Of the sixty five nurses, twelve were lost at sea, twenty two survived the sinking and were washed ashore on Radji Beach, Banka Island, where they surrendered to the Japanese along with twenty five British soldiers. On 16 February 1942 the group was massacred, the soldiers were bayoneted and the nurses were ordered to march into the sea where they were shot. Only Sister Vivian Bullwinkel and a British soldier survived the massacre. Both were taken POW, but only Sister Bullwinkel survived the war. Sister Hempsted was one of the remaining thirty two nurses who also survived the sinking and were captured as POWs, eight of which later died in captivity. Sister Hempsted died of illness on 19 March 1945 in Sumatra. (Photograph copied from original photograph attached to attestation form, lent by Central Army Records Office.)

3782 Sapper G J F Carter, 3rd Australian Light Railway Operating Company. Amputation to both legs above the knee. Australian War Memorial - Accession Number M00051 Place made United Kingdom: England, Greater London, Ealing, Southall Date made February 1919 Conflict First World War, 1914-1918

Ground crew from 451 and 452 Squadrons at RAF Matlaske May 1945

Painting by Will Longstaff depicting the night counter-attack o Villers Brettoneux that recaptured the town and checked the German advance on Amiens, 24/5 April 1918.

Map illustrating the results of the major battles comprising Third Ypres; Menin Road 20 Sep 17, Polygon Wood 26 Sep 17, Broodseinde Ridge 4 Oct 17 and Passchendaele 12-24 Oct 17.

'Colourised' image of a NZ Howitzer battery displaying the key attributes of the gun - short barrel, fixed trail, high angle fire spoked wheels, crew of five.

Two 11 Squadron Catalinas over Lake Macquarie in NSW. Rathmines, on the edge of the lake, was a key base and depot for Australia's maritime patrol assets.

Five members of an Australian trench mortar battery preparing to fire their heavy trench mortar in the Chalk Pit. A trench mortar fires a projectile vertically from a tube at the base of which is a spigot which ignites the projectile's firing charge. In this case the shell was nicknamed a 'flying pig' as its slow descent and large size enabled it on occasion to be viewed in flight. The gun crew have been identified, left to right, as Sergeant Daley; Albert Roy Kyle; Corporal Clift; Gunner Lear; Gunner Clive Talbot.

Wiakerie is a popular location for recreational gliding

Newspaper article detailing Tom Flynn's tragic demise

Tom Flynn as a member of the victorious 1913 Waikerie football team

Reuben Starr, member of the victorious 1913 Waikerie team that defeated Morgan in the Grand Final

Lance Bombadier Larry Davenport mans his weapon pit and an M60 Machine Gun the morning following the first attack on FSB Coral.

Lance Bombadier Larry Davenport mans his weapon pit and an M60 Machine Gun the morning following the first attack on FSB Coral.

A M2A2 105mm howitzer fires in support of 1 RAR from FSB Coral

3RAR Defensive positions at Balmoral. The soldiers are wearing steel helmets and they have a very well prepared fully 'dug in' weapon pit prepared to 'Stage 3' complete with sleeping bays with overhead protection (sandbags) to protect against artillery and mortar splinters.

3RAR’s Regimental Sergeant Major, Vince Murdoch, tends a wounded and blindfolded North Vietnamese soldier at Balmoral.

Gallipoli Medallion, 1914-15 Star, British War Medal, Victory Medal

Robert Stanley PILLAR's headstone Rookwood Cemetery, Sydney

QX10333 Athol 'Ned' Bayly - on right. Middle East, probably mid 1941

Some of the Australians involved in the Dams Raid. Most were not to survive the War.

Avenue of Honour Bacchus Marsh postcard, ca 1950

Pat Hughes 1940

Three B24 Heavy Bombers of 7 OTU on a training flight in southern NSW in 1944/45

DCM, MM, 1914-15 Star, British War Medal, Victory Medal

Amiens Cathedral

Amiens cathedral from the canal precinct

Amiens Cathedral

Informal group portrait of RAF ground staff with RAAF and Royal New Zealand Air Force air crew of a Mitchell bomber squadron, 180 Squadron RAF with the Second Tactical Air Force. Left to right: two RAF ground crew, Jock (Fitter) and Alf (Rigger); 422248 Flying Officer (FO) Jack B O'Halloran, pilot of Sydney, NSW, (later Flight Lieutenant and DFC); 417379 Pilot Officer James Crosby (Jim) Jennison (later Flying Officer and DFC) of Adelaide, SA; 422175 FO Reg J Hansen of Sydney, NSW; FO Harry M Hawthorn, RNZAF of Hastings, NZ. The aircraft was lettered D and the pilot named it 'Daily Delivery' and the nose art illustration portrays a stork carrying a large bomb. RAF Dunsfold Surrey UK C263114

DCM, MM, 1914-15 Star, British War Medal, Victory Medal

The entrance to Becourt Military cemetery

Contalmaison Chateau Cemetery