I Was Only Doing My Job: Australia's Military History

2-NOVEMBER-1932.  While serving as a professional soldier in the post-war Permanent  Military Force of the Commonwealth Military Forces Honourary Brigadier  General Gwynydd Purves Wynne-Aubrey Meredith served for 47 years  continuously, and in doing so served in the Permanent Military Force,  the First World War, the Second War and the Korean War, but he is most  known as Major G P W Meredith, the Officer Commanding of the 7th Heavy  Artillery Battery who oversaw an ill-advised nuisance wildlife  management military operation that has become more a meme than a  historical event, known comically as the Great Emu War

For show notes, photos and transcripts visit   www.thedocnetwork.net and follow the show on Instagram and Twitter at   @IWODMJ and like us on  Facebook at I Was Only Doing My Job and to follow me for more history hijinks you can follow me on TikTok/Instagram/Twitter @docwinters.

2-NOVEMBER-1932. While serving as a professional soldier in the post-war Permanent Military Force of the Commonwealth Military Forces Honourary Brigadier General Gwynydd Purves Wynne-Aubrey Meredith served for 47 years continuously, and in doing so served in the Permanent Military Force, the First World War, the Second War and the Korean War, but he is most known as Major G P W Meredith, the Officer Commanding of the 7th Heavy Artillery Battery who oversaw an ill-advised nuisance wildlife management military operation that has become more a meme than a historical event, known comically as the Great Emu War 

For show notes, photos and transcripts visit  www.thedocnetwork.net and follow the show on Instagram and Twitter at  @IWODMJ and like us on  Facebook at I Was Only Doing My Job and to follow me for more history hijinks you can follow me on TikTok/Instagram/Twitter @docwinters.

19-NOVEMBER-1941, While serving in the Royal Australian Navy as a submarine detector, Able Seamen Thomas Welsby Clark served aboard the Light Cruiser HMAS Sydney II in the Second World War, when the Sydney was sunk by the German commerce raider HSK Kormoran with the loss of all hands. three months later, the unidentified remains of an Australian sailor in a Carley Float would wash ashore on Christmas Island and would be buried with full honours. it would take 80 years for those remains to be identified. 

For show notes, photos and transcripts visit www.thedocnetwork.net and follow the show on Instagram and Twitter at @IWODMJ and like us on  Facebook at I Was Only Doing My Job and to follow me for more history hijinks you can follow me on TikTok/Instagram/Twitter @docwinters.

18-AUGUST-1917. While serving in the Serbian Army as an Ambulance Driver, Sgt Olive May Kelso King, regularly exposed herself to danger and enemy fire while carrying out her duties to help deliver supplies and retrieve wounded in the dangerous Salonika Front in an ambulance nicknamed Ella, that she purchased herself for the cause. 

8-JANUARY-1952. While serving in the Royal Australian Navy as a gunnery officer, Commander Warwick Seymour Bracegirdle served with distinction aboard several warships of the Royal Australian Navy and Royal Navy, in both the Second World War and the Korean War, being one of only a handful of officers to receive the prestigious Distinguished Service Cross a total of three times. 

For show notes, photos and transcripts visit www.thedocnetwork.net and follow the show on Instagram @IWODMJ to follow me for more history hijinks you can follow me on TikTok/Instagram/Twitter @docwinters.

17-AUGUST-1915, while serving as a signaller with C Company,  16th Infantry Battalion, Australian Imperial Force, Signaller Ellis Luciano Silas worked diligently at his telegraph set, until he fell ill with what we would now call PTSD. but what he is more famously known for is the detailed and elaborate sketches and artworks he created of the troops on Gallipoli and became an unofficial Australian War Artist. 

For show notes, photos and transcripts visit www.thedocnetwork.net and follow the show on Instagram @IWODMJ to follow me for more history hijinks you can follow me on TikTok/Instagram/Twitter @docwinters.

11-NOVEMBER-1993 to mark the 75th Anniversary of the end of the First World War, Australia would go on to entomb an Unknown Soldier from the battlefield of France in the Hall of Memory of the Australian War Memorial. 

For show notes, photos and transcripts visit www.thedocnetwork.net and follow the show on Instagram @IWODMJ to follow me for more history hijinks you can follow me on TikTok/Instagram/Twitter @docwinters.

8-March-1918, While serving as a Chaplain with the 1 Australian Headquarters, Australian Imperial Force, Reverent Senior Chaplain Walter Ernest Dexter, was one of the original 12 chaplains assigned to the Australian Imperial Force and served with distinction throughout Australia's involvement on Gallipoli and the Western Front, going down in history as the most decorated Chaplain in the Australian Imperial Force.

8-AUGUST-1918.  On the 8th of August 1918, the British Fourth Army under General Rawlinson launched a major attack with French and American units in support against German positions to the east of the strategic Railway junction of Amiens in the Picardie region of Northern France in an attack known as the Third Battle of Picardy. It was the opening phase of what would become the Allied Hundred Days Offensive that would bring on the end of the First World War.

It would be supported by over 2000 guns and more than a thousand British and French Aircraft and would be the largest tank assault of the war with over 500 British Tanks being committed to the battle across 16 kilometres.

And in the midst of this display of the industrialisation of war, a platoon of B Company, 29th Australian Infantry Battalion, moved into positions near the recently captured village of Warfusee-Abancourt, ready to participate in the second stage of the advance

For show notes, photos and transcripts visit www.thedocnetwork.net and follow the show on Instagram @IWODMJ

to follow me for more history hijinks you can follow me on TikTok/Instagram/Twitter @docwinters.

This Episode was Re-recorded 25-08-2022

10-OCTOBER-1941. While Serving with No. 3 (Army Cooperation) Squadron, Royal Australian Air Force, Flying Officer Peter St George Bruce Turnbull, in North Africa became one of the first Australian Fighter Aces of the Second World War, with downing eight enemy aircraft, an act that would award him the Distinguished Flying Cross. 

He would go on to serve in No 76 Squadron RAAF in the Pacific, serving the defence of Milne Bay from Japanese invasion. While he would be killed in action, his devotion to his duty would be an inspiration to all he flew with.

For show notes, photos and transcripts visit www.thedocnetwork.net and follow the show on Instagram @IWODMJ

to follow me for more history hijinks you can follow me on TikTok/Instagram/Twitter @docwinters.