In early 1942, the Japanese launched their invasion of the Dutch East Indies (modern-day Indonesia) as part of their southward expansion in the Pacific.
Ambon, a strategically important island, was defended by a small garrison of Dutch troops and about 1,100 Australian soldiers from the 2/21st Battalion, known as Gull Force.
They were poorly equipped and significantly outnumbered by the Japanese forces.
On the night of 30/31 January 1942 Japanese forces landed on Ambon. The Japanese were resisted by Australian troops at a number of locations, including Mount Nona, Kudamati, Amahusu and Laha.
Laha airfield was defended by about 300 Australian troops. Aside from a small number who escaped, there were no survivors. After the surrender at Laha, Japanese personnel carried out mass executions of the Australian soldiers. A group of RAAF men were also executed at Laha. Roger Maynard has written of the executions “History would record it as one of the worst massacres of the Second World War”.
Read more: Laha Airfield Executions - 30th January - 3rd February 1942
The 54th Annual Meeting of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, has just concluded. The Large Hadron Collider Hellgate has closed for the year. As faint impressions of cloven-footprints are steamed from caviar-smeared carpets, an acrid sulfuric stench still permeates the mountainous air.
Read more: PREPARING FOR DISEASE X: Diseased Minds Plan Disease X
Roasting the poor pig is many centuries old, and thus the ways of cooking it are just as many if counted in decades.
The word "pork" has its origins in the Old French language. In Middle English, the term "porc" referred to the meat of a pig, while "pig" or "swine" denoted the live animal.
The transition from "porc" to "pork" likely occurred during the Norman Conquest of England in the 11th century.
Read more: Chaucer's Culinary Campaign - Chapter One - Roast Pork
Almost every river in Eastern Australia is now pouring surplus water into the sea. But only two dams have been built in Queensland in the last 20 years - the Wyaralong Dam built 13 years ago and Paradise Dam built 19 years ago.
Droughts will come again and we will wish for another dam-builder like Joh Bjelke Petersen whose government built at least eight dams in Queensland - the Burdekin, Wivenhoe, Hinze, Beardmore, Haig, Fairbairn, Bjelke-Petersen and Eungella dams. But that all came to a halt in 1988 when the plans to build the Wolffdene Dam were scuttled by all the usual suspects.
It is over 250 years since Captain Cook's discovery of the east coast of Australia and it's worth asking ... what was Cook doing here?
He certainly wasn't looking for Australia (or New Holland as it was then known) as Europeans had known it existed since the 1500's.
Like many other Europeans before him, Cook was searching for the fabled land of Terra Australis.
Living in the real Outback of Australia is like confronting yourself with yourself. Seeing yourself for who you are. It is like meeting yourself as a stranger and wondering if you will like that person.
It was back in the 1990's that I met Albert. A quiet man who had shunned the city and, after a trip to Brisbane in 1949, decided that the big lights were not for him. He returned to the Channel Country and never left again.
Albert was an older bloke who lived in my new hometown of 35 or so residents. It was a very very long way from the coast.
I was thinking about Australia Day and what it means. Or, at the very least, MEANT. A day to celebrate being unique. Because there really is ( or was) no country like Aussie in the world. Find one, and I will eat my thongs and chuck a sickie and not turn up for work on the 25th while I get into practice mode for Australia Day on the 26th.
It is OUR day. Like America's 4th of July we have unashamedly gone full Aussie bogan one day of the year and we just have fun being, well, Australian.
I have looked through some of the Aussie stuff we have published over the years. So here it is, a bit of Aussie humour and a bit of a wake-up call to all the lefties. Don't destroy our Aussieness. You Canberra and city elites will never know when you will need a boy from the bush to sort the swines out.
Or worry that they might just go rogue....
Read more: Rogue Roos on the Rampage in Australia's Outback!
When I was in primary school, we were taught both English and Australian poems, many of which were favourites of my mother. I have decided to write an article on Australian poems which formed a part of my childhood. The proof of the pudding is in the eating, so I have decided to briefly review the poets and the poems, and then to post actual recitations or singing of one of their much-loved poems, which are no longer taught as they are considered racist.
As Australia journeys into an unknown and uncertain future, it is good to remind ourselves that we are here today because of those who went before us, and we have a sacred obligation to honour their legacy.
As Australia Day approaches, I cannot help but cast my mind back to when ANZAC Day was subsumed by the Coronavirus lockdown and we were denied the right to celebrate it and honour our Diggers in the usual way by government decree.
It looks like this 26th of January may subsumed by the furore of the leftist activist minorities, aided and encouraged by Corporate Australia.
Many eons ago, millions in fact, what is now Victoria was a cauldron of volcanic activity, particularly to the north and west. Mt.Macedon, the prominent feature about 50kms north of Melbourne is reputed to have been the largest volcano that ever existed on this planet.
At the time Tasmania was part of the Australian mainland. Along with what is now the Mornington Peninsular a series of granite upthrusts formed a ridge which now features Mt. Eliza, Mt.Martha and Arthur’s Seat. Some millions of years ago Mt. Macedon erupted and sent a gigantic flow of lava to its southeast. This lava flow was restricted to the eastern side of the granite ridge which is about 100 miles from the crater. The lava flowed right across the land and ended at what is now the north-east tip of Tasmania. The rocks in that area have been confirmed as the same rocks that exist in the cliffs at Flinders. This is over 300 miles from the source. You can follow its path from the rich red soil that abounds in the Dandenong Ranges, Berwick, and Red Hill to the east of Arthur’s Seat. It emerges again in the form of the black cliffs of Flinders before disappearing under Bass Strait.
Commercial camping grounds anywhere in this great country during Christmas summer holidays downunder look awfully like those wretched railway lost and found sales of yore. Tents, boats, barbecues, golf clubs, surfboards, cars and trailers, and overflowing garbage bins all jammed together in abject disarray. It is a wonderful attraction for the curious.
However, this overly jaded curmudgeon wonders why people flee the city in search of the great outdoors and a little privacy to happily set up camp amongst hoards of strangers, close enough that family disputes can be followed word-by-un-Christian-word during a time of supposed spiritual reflection?
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