FIELD DINING NIGHT 2008
A very enjoyable and cool Bush Dinner for over 40 members and friends was held on Pam and Barry Wright’s Jimboomba property on Saturday 14th June. A big thank you to Pam and Barry for their kind invitation as well as Bob Collins and the many others who assisted in preparing and dismantling the paraphernalia necessary for such a successful function.
Guests included John Wong from 1 Commando and Phillip Bradley, author and military historian. Speakers were Bruce Crawford who spoke emotionally about his family’s visit to Gallipoli on Anzac Day, myself about our monthly email newsletter, Phillip Bradley reading his book about the Japanese landing at Salamaua and Colin Gould updating all on PNG activities, particularly the Mt Hagen Chapter.
Phillip Bradley spoke to us last at our 2006 Dining Night in Long Tan Sergeants Mess Phillip has written two books "On Shaggy Ridge “published in 2004 and “The Battle for Wau launched on the 23" May 2008 at the Duntroon Officers’ Mess by Lieutenant General Stephen Leahy. Unfortunately, due to the short notice and it being our Association Dinner Day, no one from the Association could attend. Phillip is now researching his follow up book “From Wau to Salamaua". Michael Mc Kernan , military historian recently reviewed Phillip’s latest book in the Canberra Times. Here are a few excerpts from that review:
“This is just as good a book as “On Shaggy Ridge" and it is now fair to say that in Phillip Bradley Australia has found another military historian of the very first rank.... Bradley’s familiarity of the land over which the Australians fought around Wau is so strong, so developed, so intense that the reader can see what he has seen, can walk on the tracks that the Australians fought over, can live in the pitiless jungle that gave these men homes for months and years....unlike “On Shaggy Ridge" there is steel in Bradley’s treatment of some Australian leaders. He has no time for the first Australians in command at Wau, Colonel Norman meet though, plenty of men to admire and marvel at eye for the detail and the right quote almost never fails him all the elements of good military history can be found in this book: a good and clear narrative , character aplenty , a well-developed sense of place, an agile understanding of tactical and strategic complexity, and a strong sense of the ambiguity of life and war. Thrown together with important contemporary and modern photographs and clear and frequent maps this is truly a book to relish".
Harim Tok Tok Vol 54.
Above and below. Association Patron Maj Gen John Pearn AO. RFD. and Dining President Bob Collins, Association President Phil Ainsworth and Norm Mundy.
Barry Wright
Pam and Barry Wright
Kerry Glover and Noel Parker (ex RAN) collecting empty plates.
