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Virtual War Memorial Australia, ANZAC House Torrens Parade Ground, Adelaide (2026)

22/10/2026

On 22 October 1900, after a twelve-day journey through northern China, the New South Wales Naval Contingent entered Peking, the imperial capital now known as Beijing. The siege of the foreign legations had been broken more than two months earlier, and the Australians arrived not for the decisive battles they had anticipated, but to help maintain order in a city scarred by rebellion, foreign intervention and retribution.

Thousands of kilometres across the sea, Australia's colonies were still months away from Federation when Britain called for assistance in China. The crisis had grown out of deep resentment towards foreign economic and territorial encroachment, missionary activity and the erosion of Chinese sovereignty. The I-ho-ch'uan, meaning the Righteous and Harmonious Fists, became known to Westerners as the Boxers. Their uprising spread across northern China, targeting foreigners, Christian converts, railway infrastructure and missions. As the rebellion intensified, the Qing imperial court under the Dowager Empress Cixi eventually threw its support behind the Boxers, bringing imperial forces into conflict with an international coalition.

Keen to support Britain and demonstrate their military capabilities, three Australian colonies contributed to the campaign. New South Wales and Victoria raised naval contingents, drawing on serving personnel, reservists and former naval men. Their combined force also included a detachment of Marine Light Infantry and an ambulance party. South Australia dispatched its gunboat HMCS Protector, commanded by Captain William Rooke Creswell, to serve alongside the international forces operating in Chinese waters.

The New South Wales and Victorian contingents sailed from Sydney aboard the transport SS Salamis in August 1900, reaching northern China in September. By then, the Eight-Nation Alliance, comprising Britain, Japan, Russia, France, Germany, the United States, Italy and Austria-Hungary, had already relieved the besieged foreign legations in Peking. The Australians had arrived too late for the main fighting. The Victorian contingent served in the Tientsin area and took part in the expedition to Pao-ting Fu, while the New South Wales contingent was assigned to garrison duties in Peking.

On 10 October, the New South Wales contingent departed Tientsin by boat up the Pei Ho River. After a difficult journey, it reached Peking on 22 October. The men established their headquarters at the Chang-Wang Fu Palace complex and were distributed across several posts, including the Legation quarter and the Llama Temple. Through the northern winter, they undertook guard and police duties, helped suppress looting and fires, and assisted with railway operations and other essential work.

Although the campaign offered little of the battlefield action many had expected, the Australian contingents played a part in the occupation and restoration of civil order. Their duties also exposed them to the harsher realities of the intervention, including punitive measures against Chinese people accused of offences against foreign property and personnel. Six Australians died from sickness or injury during the campaign, although none was killed in action.

When the naval brigade departed China in March 1901, the political landscape at home had changed. On 1 January, New South Wales, Victoria and the other participating colonies had become states of the newly federated Commonwealth of Australia. The Boxer Uprising was therefore among the earliest overseas military campaigns involving Australians dispatched by the colonial governments whose forces would soon pass into the service of the new nation.

https://vwma.org.au/explore/conflicts/19

21/10/2026

In late 1917, the collapse of the Tsarist Russian Caucasus Army following the Bolshevik October Revolution and the Armistice of 15 December 1917 created a strategic vacuum across Transcaucasia and northern Persia. Fearing that German and Ottoman forces would capture the oil-rich port of Baku, control the Trans-Caucasian railway, and open an overland corridor toward Central Asia, Afghanistan, and British India, the British War Office authorized a secret military mission.

Officially titled the British Military Mission to the Caucasus, the unit was colloquially known as Dunsterforce, named after its commander, Major-General Lionel Charles Dunsterville, the officer whose childhood friendship with Rudyard Kipling inspired the character "Stalky" in Kipling’s stories.

Rather than deploying conventional divisions, the War Office sought a small cadre of handpicked officers and NCOs who possessed individual initiative, robust physical stamina, and the capacity to train and lead local irregular militias (including Armenian, Georgian, Cossack, and anti-Bolshevik forces).

In early 1918, recruitment requests were sent to Dominion forces on the Western Front, including General Sir William Birdwood of the Australian Corps, and in Mesopotamia. Approximately 40 Australian officers and NCOs volunteered for the mission, forming a key contingent of the roughly 350 to 450 imperial personnel selected for what troops secretly nicknamed the "Hush-Hush Brigade". Drawn from battle-hardened veterans of Gallipoli and the Western Front, these men volunteered for the chance to conduct independent, mobile operations.

Operational viability depended heavily on an ANZAC technical unit: the 1st ANZAC Wireless Signal Squadron (incorporating the 1st Australian Wireless Signal Squadron). Carrying radio sets on pack mules and camels across rugged terrain, these Australian signallers provided the primary long-range radio links across Persia, intercepted Turkish transmissions, and decoded enemy communications.

The journey to Persia took volunteers across France, Italy, and the Mediterranean to Egypt and Mesopotamia, before ascending the Persian highlands via Baghdad and Khanaqin along ancient trade routes. The force navigated mountain passes exceeding 10,000 feet, enduring temperatures that dropped below -40°C in winter and exceeded 50°C in summer. Tactical mobility relied heavily on a fleet of 500 Ford Model T light utility cars and armored vehicles.

Logistical support was severely hampered by internal British military friction. The Mesopotamian Expeditionary Force commander in Baghdad, General Sir William Marshall, strongly opposed Dunsterforce, labeling it a "mad enterprise" and restricting motor transport and supplies. Despite supply shortages and pervasive disease, Dunsterforce personnel managed relief projects for starving Persian populations, built roads, trained local defense levies, and disrupted enemy espionage networks across northern Persia.

The most famous Australian action of the campaign occurred in July and August 1918 during the Urmia crisis. Following an Ottoman breakthrough at the town of Urmia, an exodus of approximately 80,000 Christian Assyrian and Armenian refugees fled southward toward British lines at Bijar to escape massacre. Internal factionalism among refugee groups and disillusionment from broken Allied promises severely hampered an organized retreat.

Australian Captain Stanley George Savige (24th Infantry Battalion, AIF) stepped forward to protect the column. Leading a tiny rearguard of 5 officers, 15 NCOs, and about two dozen armed refugees whom he managed to rally, Savige faced vastly superior numbers of pursuing Ottoman regulars and hostile Kurdish irregulars. Between Sain Keleh, Tikkan Tappah, and Chalkaman from 26 to 28 July and 5 to 6 August 1918, Savige employed leapfrogging rearguard tactics, holding hilltop positions until nearly surrounded before extricating his men.

Savige’s rearguard delayed the enemy long enough for an estimated 50,000 to 60,000 refugees to reach safety. For his gallantry and tactical skill, Captain Savige was awarded the Distinguished Service Order (DSO), while Sergeant Barney Bennett Murphy (28th Battalion, AIF) received a Bar to his Distinguished Conduct Medal (DCM).

Savige contracted severe malaria and beri-beri during the rearguard action and returned to Australia in 1919. His profound encounter with traumatized, displaced families directly inspired his civilian leadership back home, where in 1923 he became the principal co-founder of Legacy Australia, an organization dedicated to caring for the widows and children of fallen service personnel.

In August 1918, General Dunsterville led the main body of Dunsterforce, reinforced by the British 39th Infantry Brigade—across the Caspian Sea from Bandar-e Anzali to Baku at the invitation of the local anti-Soviet Centro-Caspian Dictatorship.

From 26 August to 14 September 1918, the small force attempted to defend Baku against roughly 14,000 troops of the Ottoman Islamic Army of the Caucasus. Lacking reliable support from local political factions and heavily outnumbered, Dunsterforce fought a stubborn defense along the city perimeter.

On the night of 14/15 September 1918, as the outer lines collapsed, Dunsterville ordered a naval evacuation. The ships ran the gauntlet of port artillery and hostile gunboats under fire to reach Bandar-e Anzali. Stranded Australian wireless operators and detachments managed independent escapes via Petrovsk, Krasnovodsk, or commandeered lorries.

Dunsterforce was officially disbanded between 17 and 22 September 1918. While the force was forced to relinquish Baku, its six-week defense during August and September delayed the Central Powers from securing Baku’s oil installations at a critical juncture of the war. Coupled with the Allied victory at the Battle of Megiddo in Palestine, the Ottoman Empire was forced to surrender shortly thereafter.

Due to the classified nature of the mission, returned veterans were initially reluctant to discuss their service. Official Historian Charles E. W. Bean compiled the detailed record of their campaign in Appendix 5 ("Australians in Mesopotamia") of Volume V of the Official History of Australia in the War of 1914–1918.

Modern Australian military historians view Dunsterforce as a foundational prototype for the Australian Army's "Train, Advise, and Assist" (TAA) doctrine, demonstrating the strategic impact that small, highly trained groups of Australian soldiers can achieve in complex, non-traditional operations.

https://vwma.org.au/explore/people/54018
https://vwma.org.au/explore/people/78695

References:
Donohoe, M.H., With the Persian Expedition (London: Edward Arnold, 1919)

Dunsterville, L.C., The Adventures of Dunsterforce (London: Edward Arnold, 1920)

Bean, C. E. W. (1941) [1937]. "Appendix 5: Australians in Mesopotamia". The A. I. F. in France: December 1917 – May 1918. Official History of Australia in the War of 1914–1918. Vol. V

20/10/2026

Corporal Scott James Smith
Special Operations Engineer Regiment
4 January 1988 – 21 October 2012

Scott James Smith grew up in the Barossa Valley, South Australia, the son of Murray Smith and Katrina Paterson and brother of Roxanne. He was educated at Faith Lutheran College and Nuriootpa High School, played football for the Nuriootpa Football Club and cricket for the Greenock Cricket Club. His partner, Liv, first came to Australia as an exchange student from Germany; his family called her his German princess. They described a man with a great sense of humour, fond of practical jokes, who lived life to the fullest, and for whom the Army became a second family, a home away from home.

Scott enlisted in the Australian Army in February 2006 and, on completing initial employment training as a combat engineer, was posted to the 1st Combat Engineer Regiment in Darwin. He deployed to the Solomon Islands on Operation ANODE in 2006, within his first year of service, and was a member of R***e Company Butterworth 79 in Malaysia.

In 2008 he was posted to the then Incident Response Regiment, later the Special Operations Engineer Regiment, as a search operator, serving in the Regiment’s domestic and offshore contingency troops. He deployed to Afghanistan on Operation SLIPPER with Special Operations Task Group Rotation XII from February to July 2010, and served on Operation NORWICH in Australia in November 2011. That same year he completed the Australian Defence Force Explosive Ordnance Reconnaissance course and was promoted to Corporal.

In July 2012 he returned to Afghanistan with Special Operations Task Group Rotation XVIII. On 21 October 2012, during a joint Australian-Afghan compound clearance and disruption operation against an insurgent network in northern Helmand Province, Corporal Smith was clearing explosive ordnance when an improvised explosive device detonated and killed him instantly. He was 24, the 39th Australian soldier to die in Afghanistan. His platoon commander later wrote publicly that Scott had directed the Commando beside him back to a safe distance before moving forward alone to clear the suspect area, an action that saved that soldier’s life. Scott was posthumously awarded the Commendation for Gallantry “for acts of gallantry in action on 21 October 2012 while an Explosive Ordnance Reconnaissance Technician in Special Operations Task Group Rotation XVIII in Afghanistan”.

His commanding officer called him an exceptional soldier with all the qualities and charisma of a great junior leader. His comrades remembered him as genuine, honest and dedicated.

Corporal Smith was farewelled with a memorial service at Camp Russell and a ramp ceremony at Multi National Base, Tarin Kot on 26 October 2012, his mates lining the route of his casket to the waiting RAAF C-130 Hercules. He was privately cremated, and is commemorated at the South Australian Garden of Remembrance, Pasadena; on the Roll of Honour at the Australian War Memorial; and at memorials including the Afghanistan Avenue of Honour, Yungaburra, Queensland.

His honours and awards include the Australian Active Service Medal with Clasp International Coalition Against Terrorism, the Australian Service Medal with Clasps Solomons 2 and Counter Terrorism/Special Recovery, the Australian Defence Medal, the NATO International Security Assistance Force Medal, the Army Combat Badge and the Soldier’s Medallion.

Lest we forget.

Rod Hutchings
Virtual War Memorial Australia

20/10/2026

A 20-year-old from East Malvern sits in the second pilot’s seat of a Wellington bomber.
It’s his squadron’s first raid, and his.

Sergeant Philip George Crittenden.

Eighty-five years ago tonight, on 20 October 1941, ten crews of No. 458 Squadron RAAF took off from Holme-on-Spalding Moor in Yorkshire to bomb enemy-held ports. It was the squadron’s first operation.

Philip’s crew drew the docks at Antwerp.

Before the war he went to Kyneton High School, then worked as a clerk at the Temperance and General Mutual Life Assurance Society in Melbourne. He enlisted in August 1940, learnt to fly in Narromine and Saskatoon, and reached the squadron in September 1941.

He was the only member of the RAAF aboard Wellington Z1218. The other five wore RAF blue.

They took off at 6.39pm. No message came back.

Z1218 came down at Mont-sur-Marchienne, near Charleroi in Belgium, about 90 kilometres south of its target. How it got there has never been explained.

A local man told investigators after the war that the bomber circled low and partly on fire, its engines cutting out and catching again. It hit high-voltage wires on the rue Pont-à-Nôle and crashed into a field behind the street. The bombs exploded.

What brought it down is still argued. A German report from that night records an aircraft downed by flak near Charleroi. The surviving gunner said flak hit the wireless operator before the order to jump. Another villager remembered a German fighter. The post-war investigators wrote only that it crashed “presumably as a result of enemy action”.

Five men died.

Sergeant Peter Hamilton, the captain.
Sergeant Philip Crittenden, second pilot.
Pilot Officer David Fawkes, observer.
Sergeants Andrew Condie and Thomas Jackson, wireless operators and air gunners.

Sergeant Percival Brown, the rear gunner, got clear of his turret and came down by parachute. He was the only survivor. He spent the rest of the war as a prisoner, and was still on a forced march across northern Germany weeks before his liberation in May 1945.

The Germans buried the five at Charleroi as unknown airmen.

In July 1947 a search team opened the graves. They identified Philip by his pilot’s wings and the Australia title on his shoulder. David Fawkes was identified by his observer’s badge. The other three could not be told apart.

Today the five headstones stand side by side in Charleroi Communal Cemetery. Philip’s name is also on Panel 106 at the Australian War Memorial.

Percival Brown came home and lived until 1978.

Rest easy, Philip.
Rest easy, Peter. Rest easy, David. Rest easy, Andrew. Rest easy, Thomas.
We remember you.
Lest we forget.

Rod Hutchings
Virtual War Memorial Australia

400410 Sergeant Philip George Crittenden (1st left 2nd row) AWM Collections photo P04303.010

20/10/2026

Our mates matter.

Whether you've served or are currently serving, we invite you to join us and the Virtual War Memorial Australia for For the Mates: Lasting Legacies.

Hosted by Brenton Ragless, this event is an opportunity to come together, hear and share stories, build connections and celebrate the mateship that continues long after service.

📅 Monday 2 November, 10am
📍 Drill Hall, Torrens Parade Ground
🎤 Guest speakers and lunch included

Veterans and currently serving members we'd love to welcome you.

A special thank you to our event partners and supporters: South Australian Sports Institute (SASI) Quayclean Bidfood Australia Nippy's

🎟️ Registrations are free but essential. tinyurl.com/ForTheMates2026

19/10/2026

On this day in 1945 the War Widow's Guild of Australia was founded as a a national support and advocacy organization for war widows, defence service families, and veterans.

Today the organisation's functions are run by the The Families of Veterans Guild.

Families of Veterans Guild - owned by Australian War Widows NSW Ltd

17/10/2026

The hospital ship Carthage is bound for Wei-hai-wei.

One of her patients is a Victorian sailor with fever.

He never gets there.

Boy Albert Arthur Gibbs, service number 48, Victorian Naval Contingent, died on board Carthage 126 years ago today, on 18 October 1900.

Boy was his naval rank.

In July 1900 the colony of Victoria raised a naval contingent for service in northern China.

The Boxer Uprising, a violent anti-foreign movement, had laid siege to the foreign legations in Peking. An international force was gathering to break it.

Before they boarded the troopship Salamis, the Victorians paraded at the Williamstown barracks for a photograph. Drag ropes for their field guns lie on the ground in front of the ranks.

The Australian War Memorial’s caption names Boy A. A. Gibbs among the men in this picture. It does not say where he stands.

One of these faces is Albert.

He went to China as servant to the contingent’s commanding officer, Commander Frederick Tickell.

On Friday 12 October 1900 the Victorian column breakfasted at 5.30 and marched out at 7.00 for Paotingfu.

Albert stayed behind.

William Bertotto, a sailor in the contingent, noted it in his diary: “Boy Gibbs taken to Base Hospital, suffering from fever.”

Six days later Albert was on board Carthage, being taken to hospital at Wei-hai-wei, the British naval base on the Shandong coast.

Fever killed him before the ship reached port.

He was 17.

He was buried at sea the next day, 19 October 1900.

The rest of the contingent served on in northern China into 1901, then came home without him.

His Virtual War Memorial record still has no birthplace and no home town.

He has no grave to visit. His name is on panel 1 of the Roll of Honour at the Australian War Memorial in Canberra.

If Albert Gibbs belongs to your family or your town, his record is waiting for what you know. The link is in the first comment.

Rest easy, Albert.

We remember you.

Lest we forget.

Rod Hutchings
Virtual War Memorial Australia

16/10/2026

The Rat of Tobruk and the Federation Guard

He had walked 96 kilometres, a lap of the block at a time. On the final lap, the street was lined with uniforms.

It was 10 October 2020. Members of Australia’s Federation Guard, our tri-service ceremonial unit, had formed a guard of honour outside his home at Lake Macquarie, New South Wales. The man walking through it was Sergeant Bert Le-Merton. He was 101.

He had set out on 15 August, the 75th anniversary of Victory in the Pacific Day, to raise money for the veterans’ charity Soldier On. Ninety-six kilometres is the length of the Kokoda Track. He covered it a kilometre or two a day.

His target was $10,000. He passed it in the first days. By 31 March 2021, Le-Merton had completed total of 419.15km walked and $112,223 raised to help prevent veteran su***de.

Albert Leslie Le-Merton was 21 when he was called up in January 1940 for three months’ compulsory training with the 35th Battalion at Rutherford Camp, near Maitland. While there, he volunteered for the Second AIF. On 27 May 1940 he joined the 2/13th Battalion at Ingleburn.

He became a mortarman. On 4 April 1941, on the escarpment at Er Regima in Libya, the 2/13th met German troops. The Australian War Memorial records it as the first complete Australian unit to fight them. Bert’s mortar detachment fired more than 100 rounds before dark.

The battalion fell back into Tobruk and stayed for eight months. It was the only Australian battalion to see out the whole siege.

German bombers struck the town and harbour, then circled the perimeter with their guns firing. Bert later recalled lying flat in the open, playing dead, as a bomb rolled to a stop about 50 yards away. It did not explode.

He served in the Alamein defences in 1942, landed at Lae and Finschhafen in New Guinea in 1943, and made two more landings in Borneo in 1945.

On 15 August 1945, the 26-year-old mortarman was in Borneo when word came that the war was over. That night he wrote in his diary:

‘There is no feeling of excitement or thrill about it.’

Seventy-five years later to the day, he set off around the block.

He was discharged on 29 November 1945 and married Joan, the sister of his best mate from North Africa. During the walk, he had a plain message for younger veterans. Remember your service, he said, then ‘live your life and become a civvie again’.

One of our aviators was in the guard on 10 October. Corporal Mel Robinson recalled that as Bert approached, he told them they looked ‘magnificent’.

Our aviators still serve in the Guard beside sailors and soldiers. Its members practise Army r***e drill, Navy sword drill and Air Force foot drill.

Bert kept walking. By 31 March 2021 he had covered more than 400 kilometres and raised more than $110,000.

He died on 6 December 2021, aged 103. Seven weeks later, the Australia Day Honours awarded him the Medal of the Order of Australia for service to veterans and to the community.

We remember Albert Leslie ‘Bert’ Le-Merton OAM.

Lest we forget.

Rod Hutchings
Director, Virtual War Memorial Australia

15/10/2026

16 October 1967

Royal Australian Navy Helicopters Deploy to Vietnam

In the skies over South Vietnam, Australian naval aviators would soon be flying into enemy fire, carrying troops into battle and risking their lives in one of the war's most dangerous forms of combat.

On 16 October 1967, the first contingent of the Royal Australian Navy Helicopter Flight Vietnam (RANHFV) arrived in South Vietnam, joining the US Army's 135th Assault Helicopter Company at Vung Tau. Formed in response to a request from the United States for additional helicopter crews, the Australian unit brought together eight pilots, four observers, four aircrewmen, 24 technical sailors and six support staff. The Australians were integrated into the American company in a unique arrangement designated the Experimental Military Unit (EMU). Its name carried an unintended irony: the emu is a large, fast-running Australian bird that cannot fly. The unit adopted the unofficial motto, 'Get the bloody job done'.

Flying Bell UH-1 Iroquois helicopters, popularly known as Hueys, the combined unit transported troops, delivered supplies and equipment, and supported combat operations across South Vietnam. Its aircraft operated in different configurations, including troop-carrying 'slicks' and armed gunships that provided fire support during dangerous insertions and extractions. The unit flew its first mission in early November 1967, supporting American forces and the 1st Australian Task Force based at Nui Dat. In late December, it moved from Vung Tau to the more exposed American base at Black Horse, where enemy rocket and mortar attacks posed an ongoing threat. Over four years of operations, more than 200 Royal Australian Navy personnel served with the RANHFV. Five were killed in action, while their work helped establish a distinctive and enduring chapter in the history of Australian naval aviation.

Read more on the Virtual War Memorial: https://vwma.org.au/explore/conflicts/5

15/10/2026

At just 21 years of age, Corporal John William Freeman had crossed the world to serve in the Vietnam War, only to lose his life in an accident far from the battlefield. A member of a little-known Australian Army intelligence unit, Freeman died in South Vietnam on 15 October 1967. His story is a reminder that the dangers faced by Australian servicemen extended beyond combat, and that lives could be cut tragically short even when enemy action was not involved.

Born in South Shields, England, on 27 May 1946, Freeman was the son of John Thomas “Jock” Freeman, a Royal Australian Air Force pilot, and Isabella Ford Welsh, whom his father had met during the Second World War. After Jock returned to Australia for demobilisation in February 1946, Isabella and their infant son followed several months later. John grew up in Mullumbimby, New South Wales, before the family moved to Sydney, where he attended Drummoyne Boys High School. An enthusiastic writer and photographer who also enjoyed playing squash, he began working as a clerk with the National Mutual Life Association in 1964. He joined the Citizens Military Force in June 1965 and served with the 1st Division Intelligence Unit. After completing military training at Canungra, Queensland, he enlisted in the Australian Regular Army in April 1967 and deployed to South Vietnam that June. Based at Nui Dat, he served with Detachment 1 of the 1st Division Intelligence Unit, attaining the rank of corporal.

On 14 October 1967, Freeman and fellow unit members visited a South Vietnamese Army intelligence unit in Ba Ria, the provincial capital of Phuoc Tuy. In the early hours of the following morning, a South Vietnamese military vehicle was discovered overturned in a stream south of the town, with its driver trapped beneath it. The driver was identified as Freeman, who had drowned. An investigation could not establish why he had been driving the vehicle, and although heavy rain was considered a possible cause, the precise circumstances of the accident remain uncertain. His body was returned to Australia, and following his funeral, his remains were cremated and his ashes interred at Northern Suburbs Memorial Gardens and Crematorium in North Ryde, Sydney. Freeman is recorded as the only Australian Army Intelligence Corps member to die during the Vietnam War. His name lives on at the Australian War Memorial, among those who gave their lives in Australia's service. He was only 21, with so much of his life still ahead of him.

Read more here: https://vwma.org.au/explore/people/654331

Virtual War Memorial Australia

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