Australia at War and Peace

Sarah Fulford is a recipient of a Curtin University 2013 Graduate Women 90th Anniversary Scholarship effective until April 2014. This is to support Sarah’s Master of Philosophy thesis, ‘Ethos and Camaraderie of World War II Nurses as Prisoners of the Japanese’. Sarah’s supervisors are Graham Seal and Bobbie Oliver.

On Anzac Day 2012, Graham Seal and Julie Lunn conducted fieldwork for the ‘Anzac Day at Home and Abroad’ Linkage  project, with Julie travelling  Kununurra and Wyndham in the north west of WA, and Graham focussing upon Mt Hawthorn and Perth. 

On May 5, 2012, Graham took part in a workshop day at the Shrine of Remembrance in Melbourne as part of the ‘Anzac Day at Home and Abroad’ Linkage project. Professor Jay Winter convened the morning session on the interplay of history and memory, while the afternoon was devoted to structuring the group-authored book that is to be one outcome of the project.    

In anticipation of the Centennial of the First World War (1914 - 1918), the World Heritage Tourism Research Network (WHTRN), an independent academic research group, is implementing an international survey project to learn more about present day reflections, views and perspectives regarding the First World War. Your participation is invited. Participants can take the survey once only. It should take approximately 15 minutes to complete.

During May 2011 John Yiannakis travelled to Greece to investigate the feasibility of a large scale research project into the ANZAC presence and interaction with locals on the island of Lemnos during the Gallipoli campaign. He visited the Hellenic Republic's Ministry of Foreign Affairs Archive in Athens and the island of Lemnos, principally the port town of Mudros, as part of this "scoping'' exercise.

He found Mudros particularly interesting if just from the point of view of it being the antithesis of a tourist town on a Greek island. Physical remnants of the ANZAC presence can be found, but not as much as he’d had been hoping for. There are two Commonwealth War Graves cemeteries on the island where 148 Australians are buried. The local Mayor helped John arrange a few interviews with some 'pappoudes' (grand-dads): all most helpful.  Archaeologists he met at the Academy of Athens uncovered  bottles, jugs, and even galvanised iron sheets, left by the military on the island.  

John was able to sift through files at the Archives to see how much as well as what useful material might be available. There were no electronic data-bases or computers to work from: just old fashoned card indexes to plough through. However, the few files he sampled gave him hope that relevant letters and reports from the Greek perspective did exist.

While John says he has to tweak his research project as a result of his Greece visit, the expedition was very useful - despite the lack of ANZAC cookies at the local Mudros bakery!

Sue Summers completed a research project on WA Tunnelers of World War 1 two years back. The big news is that Sue’s research is to be the basis of a major Mining Hall of Fame exhibition in Kalgoorlie, beginning on Remembrance Day 2011.  Sue is currently researching the history of the Oberon and Collins’ Class submarines on a commission from the Submarine Institute of Australia.  She is also researching the repatriation of disabled soldiers following World War I.

Julie Lunn (photo left), Sarah Fulford and Madison Lloyd-Jones joined AWP in early 2011 as the latest PhD and MPhil candidates. Julie will work on a thesis related to Anzac Day on a joint scholarship between Curtin and the ARC Linkage ‘Anzac Day Centennial’ project. Sarah is looking at resilience among Australian nurses as Japanese POWs in World War 2. Welcome all.

Bobbie Oliver was invited to participate in a panel discussion organised by the Socialist Alliance on 18 May, on radicalism  in labour history.  Associate Professor Oliver gave an address titled, ‘A lawless riot or ‘the finest Exhibition of solidarity in Western Australian history’? Fremantle’s ‘Bloody Sunday’ revisited’ on the subject of the Fremantle wharf crisis of 4 May 1919.

She was also a special guest on the 6PR Evening Program on Sunday 17 April. The discussion focused on her research project, ‘Australian Conscientious Objectors to Military Service 1940s to 1970s’ including her 2010 CASAAP Seminar ‘Heroes or Rabbits?  Australian Conscientious Objectors to Military Service 1940s to 1970s’ (see seminar flyer).

Associate Professor Oliver’s current research builds upon earlier works including her 1997 publication: Peacemongers: Conscientious Objectors to Military Service in Australia, 1911 to 1945 and War and Peace in Western Australia: the Social and Political Impact of the Great  War, 1914 to1926  which was short-listed for the Non-Fiction Section of the 1995 WA Premier’s Book Awards.

AWP Convenor, CASAAP director and Professor of Folklore, Graham Seal, was a guest speaker at the Public Forum: The Foundation of ANZAC Day 1916-1939 on 7 April 2011.

The goal of the forum was to discuss, as ANZAC Day 2011 was approaching, how and why a nation’s grief was first expressed by ANZAC Day. The forum was presented in partnership with the National Centre for Australian Studies at Monash University as a part of the “ANZAC Day at Home and Abroad: A Centenary History of Australia’s National Day” project and included participants from France, UK and Aotearoa/New Zealand.  Keynote speakers, in addition to Graham Seal, included Bruce Scates, Martin Crotty and Frank Bongiorno.

Furthermore, as part of 2011 ANZAC Day commemorations, Graham contributed to the ABC Radio National Program, Hindsight, Laughing at the Front, which investigates vaudeville and the role of humour and satire during World War I as a powerful tool for Australian soldiers and civilians who had experienced one of longest and most violent conflicts in modern history.  

Graham, together with CASAAP Advisory Board member, Peter Stanley, was also interviewed for an article in The Age, Marching to a younger beat as the years take their toll on our veterans, the Sydney Morning Herald and the Illawarra Mercury, Defying the March of Time, which discuss the ongoing transformation of ANZAC day commemorations with the Dawn Service, as one example, beginning  more or less spontaneously in the 1920s with old soldiers and their loved ones wanting a simple, silent observation as a balance against the parades and ceremonies held later in the day.

Through the ‘Remembering the Wars Project’ John  Stephens was made Chair of the Steering Committee of the Living History Project of the Returned and Services League in early 2011. This is a $0.5m project to gather and record the history of the RSL in WA.  Professor Stephens is also a member of the Heritage Council of Western Australia, and a Councillor of the National Trust of Australia (WA).