Past speakers

Captain Albert Poland of the Royal Navy recorded his Second World War service in daily notebooks including the eight-month Siege of Tobruk by Rommel’s Afrika Korps, from April to November 1941.

Denis Smith's talk tells the largely unknown story of HMS Argus, the aircraft carrier which transported 24 RAF Hurricane fighter planes to Russia in 1941.

This lecture is the Society’s contribution to 75th anniversary commemorations of D-Day. By end June 1944 the word most feared by Allied senior commanders and politicians was “stalemate”. US First Army and British Second Army units made few inroads into Normandy since the D-Day landings on 6 June.

At the battles of Mission Ridge and Brigade Hill, 7-8 September 1942, in the legendary Kokoda Trail Campaign, three sister battalions of the AIF were together for the first time.

Over three decades from 1976 to 2007 the Leopard 1 Tank was the work horse of the Australian Army’s 1st Armoured Regiment. In 2015 the Australian Army History Unit (AAHU) received support for a project to section or “cut-in-half” a Leopard Tank so that students in armoured vehicle courses could see the interior of a main battle tank.

Did Australia have reason to fear Germany’s Pacific power? Most definitely yes argues Dr Bruce Gaunson, having examined the views of competent analysts at the time and dramatic evidence from the Kaiserreich’s records supporting those pre-1914 analysts.

The lightening advance of Japanese forces south to the Netherlands East Indies (Indonesia) in March 1942 spelt doom for two proud warships of the Allied navies.

The Military History Society of New South Wales Incorporated presents [...]

While the ‘Gallipoli inventions’ are famous, less is known about their ‘back story’, the human context and living conditions that gave rise to them. Gary Traynor presents Militaria from the Gallipoli campaign.

In this presentation, battlefield guide and historian David Wilson will examine a number of significant battlefields that are under threat by late 20th or 21st Century encroachments.