Free Anzac's Dirty Dozen by Craig Stockings Page A

include: Seeking Victory on The Western Front: The British Army & Chemical Warfare in World War I (2000); The Australian Army: A History of its Organisation 1901–2001 (2001); Defenders of Australia (2002); The Third Australian Division; Battle of Crete (2005); The Royal Australian Corps of Transport: Australian Military Operations in Vietnam (2006); and Moltke to bin Laden: The Relevance of Doctrine in Contemporary Military Environment (2008). His current project is a book on the Australian Army and the war in Iraq.
    D R A NDREW R OSS is a visiting fellow at the University of New South Wales, Australian Defence Force Academy. He is a former analyst with Central Studies Establishment, Defence Science and Technology Organisation. He is the author of Armed and Ready: The Industrial Development and Defence of Australia 1900–1945 (1995). Together with Dr Bob Hall he is working on an Australian Research Council funded study of the combat performance of the 1st Australian Task Force in Vietnam.
    D R P ETER S TANLEY heads the Centre for Historical Research at the National Museum of Australia. Formerly principal historian at the Australian War Memorial, he is an adjunct professor at the Australian National University and a visiting associate professor at the Australian Defence Force Academy. He has written 23 books, mainly in Australian and British military social history, including Quinn’s Post, Anzac, Gallipoli (2005); Invading Australia (2008); A Stout Pair of Boots (2008); Men of Mont St Quentin (2009); Bad Characters: Sex, Crime, Mutiny, Murder and the Australian Imperial Force (2010); the children’s novel Simpson’s Donkey (2011); and most recently Digger Smith and Australia’s Great War (2011).
    D R C RAIG S TOCKINGS is a senior lecturer in History at the University of New South Wales, Australian Defence Force Academy. His areas of academic interest concern general and Australian military history and operational analysis. He has recently published a history of the army cadet movement in Australia, The Torch and the Sword (2007); and Bardia: Myth, Reality and the Heirs of Anzac (2009), a study of the First Libyan Campaign in North Africa 1940–1941.
    D R C RAIG W ILCOX is a historian who lives in Sydney. His publications include: For Hearths and Homes: Citizen Soldiering in Australia 1854–1945 (1998); Australia’s Boer War: The War in South Africa 1899–1902 (2002); and Red Coat Dreaming (2009), a study of colonial Australia’s fascination with the British army. His current projects include an entry on Paul Brickhill for the Australian Dictionary of Biography.

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    LOST AT SEA: MISSING OUT ON AUSTRALIA’S NAVAL HISTORY
    Alastair Cooper
    It is a bit strange that a country like Australia – where the overwhelming majority live on the coastal margins of an island continent, whose modern incarnation was founded by a navy, and which is as deeply dependent on maritime trade and industry as any country – should have so little public appreciation of its long naval history. Contemporary public understanding of Australian naval history is highly variable, with some aspects known very well, while others are not well recognised at all. While Australian military history is for good reason dominated by the ‘Anzac’ tradition and army or land-based narratives, the Royal Australian Navy (RAN) as an institution has consistently failed to overcome the ‘silent service’ approach. This may have been fitting up until the middle of the twentieth century, but is certainly no longer appropriate. This chapter examines the state of naval history in this country, investigates some of the key reasons that such a situation has come about, and suggests some topics of Australian naval history worthy of much greater attention. Australia is missing out on its naval history, and it is time for a change.
    Certainly, when considering what parts of a nation’s historyreceive the