Australian Military Logistics and Ships Taken up from Trade … Without it We're STUFT …

To The Editors Sirs I was pleased to hear that the Army is to receive a fine battle tank. Being a naval officer, my enthusiasm might come as a surprise to some people. Indeed, many observers did not share my satisfaction. Some critics questioned why the Australian Army needed tanks at all. They argued that we have not used tanks since Vietnam and that Asia is, in any event, not ideal tank terrain. The last point is contradicted by the reality of the Japanese advance in World War II down the Malayan …

Future War in Cities: Rethinking a Liberal Dilemma   Written by: Alice Hills, Frank Cass, London, 2004,  ISBN: 9780714684949, 285pp.   Review Essay by: Michael Evans In the Old Testament Book of Joshua, it is recorded that, when the Israelites took Jericho, ‘they utterly destroyed all in the city, both men and women, young and old, oxen, sheep, and asses, with the edge of the sword’. This passage is a chilling reminder that human history has frequently witnessed war for, and in, cities—from the sack of …

Mesopotamia 1917–1920: A Clash of Loyalties—A Personal and Historical Record Written by: Lieutenant Colonel Sir Arnold T. Wilson, Oxford University Press, London, 1931, 323pp.   Review Essay by: Graeme Sligo Sir Arnold Wilson was a British political officer in the service of the Government of India during World War I. He published two volumes on his experiences in Mesopotamia between 1914 and 1920. The first volume covers military operations from 1914 to 1917, when the British captured Baghdad; the second, …

Major General William Joseph Watson, AO, MBE, MBBS, FRACMA (1924–2004) Major General William Joseph Watson, who died just three weeks short of his eightieth birthday, was widely recognised as the pre-eminent planner, designer and commander of Australian Army hospitals since World War II. He commanded two overseas military hospitals and a Field Ambulance, and later became the Director General of the Australian Army Health Services and the Medical Superintendent of the Calvary Hospital in Canberra. Watson …

Colonel Charles Stuart, MC, ED (1917–2003) Colonel Charles Stuart—a distinguished medical officer with service in the British, Indian and Australian armies in World War II and in Vietnam—was born on 28 August 1917 in Newcastle-Upon-Tyne, Northumberland, England. He was educated at the Royal Grammar School, Newcastle, and studied medicine at Durham University. Graduating in 1941, Stuart spent six months as a resident at the Royal Victoria Infirmary, Newcastle, before being called up for service in the …

Brigadier Oliver David Jackson, DSO, OBE (1919–2004) Brigadier Oliver David Jackson, one of the ‘elder statesmen’ of the Royal Australian Regiment (RAR), died on 7 May 2004. Jackson has the distinction of being the only officer to command all three original RAR battalions and, over almost forty years, he led Australian infantrymen in five theatres of war: the Middle East, New Guinea, Japan, Korea and Vietnam. Jackson was in command of the Australian Task Force in South Vietnam when it fought, and won, its …

Major General Duncan Francis AO, OBE (1937–2004) Major General Duncan Francis, who made a significant contribution to the formation and development of the Papua New Guinea Defence Force and to materiel management in the Australian Army and defence organisation, died in Canberra on 26 October 2004 after a short illness. Major General Francis was born on 20 March 1937 in Perth, Western Australia, and was the son of Lieutenant Colonel Duncan Francis. Educated at Aquinas College, he chose to follow his father …

Brigadier Noel Russell (Chic) Charlesworth, DSO (1928–2004) Noel Russell ‘Chic’ Charlesworth was born on 3 January 1928 in Balgowlah in New South Wales. In 1945, after completing his secondary education at Sydney High School during which time he played rugby union for Sydney’s Combined High Schools, Charlesworth applied for a cadetship at the Royal Military College (RMC), Duntroon, and entered the College in February 1946. Charlesworth’s intake was the last of the three-year wartime courses and he …

Introduction Once again, the Retrospect article for this issue of the AAJ is drawn from the pages of The Commonwealth Military Journal . The article is based on an address delivered to the United Services Institution of Victoria in 1911 by Colonel, the Honourable, James Whiteside McCay, Director of Intelligence, Commonwealth Military Forces. McCay’s subject was ‘The True Principles of Australia’s Defence’. The principles governing the defence of Australia was a topic much in vogue in 1911. The …