This photograph is from the Max Harris Collection held by the Ballaraat Mechanics' Institute. Please contact BMI for all print and usage inquiries.ballarat, lucas factory, selkirk, bricks, arch of victory

This photograph is from the Max Harris Collection held by the Ballaraat Mechanics' Institute. Please contact BMI for all print and usage inquiries.ballarat, arch of victory, 1923

This photograph is from the Max Harris Collection held by the Ballaraat Mechanics' Institute. Please contact BMI for all print and usage inquiries.ballarat, arch of victory builders

This photograph is from the Max Harris Collection held by the Ballaraat Mechanics' Institute. Please contact BMI for all print and usage inquiries.ballarat, arch of victory, night

This photograph is from the Max Harris Collection held by the Ballaraat Mechanics' Institute. Please contact BMI for all print and usage inquiries.ballarat, family, arch of victory

This photograph is from the Max Harris Collection held by the Ballaraat Mechanics' Institute. Please contact BMI for all print and usage inquiries. ballarat, arch of victory, sailors, 1960s

Index, bibliography, ill (col), p.172.non-fictionOn 7 June 1917, the British Second Army launched its attack on Messines Ridge, detonating 19 giant mines beneath the German front-line positions. By the end of the day, one of the strongest positions on the Western Front had fallen, a place of such importance that the Germans had pledged to hold it at any cost. It was the greatest British victory in three years of war. The first two years of the First World War had represented an almost unending catalogue of disaster for the Australians. Messines was not only their first real victory, it was also the first test in senior command for Major General John Monash who commanded the newly formed 3rd Division and would later be hailed as Australia's greatest soldier. Messines was a baptism of fire for the 3rd Division which came into the line alongside the battle-scarred 4th Australian Division, badly mauled at Bullecourt just six weeks earlier in one of the worst defeats of the war. The fighting at Messines would descend into unimaginable savagery, a lethal and sometimes hand-to-hand affair of bayonets, clubs, bombs and incessant machine-gun fire, described by one Australian as '72 hours of Hell'. After their string of bloody defeats over 1915 and 1916, Messines would be the ultimate test for the Australians. Collapse summary world war 1914-1918- campaigns - western front, battles of messines - australian participation - 1917

Bibliography, notes, ill, maps, p.245.non-fictionRetrace Australia's role in the First World War from the trenches of Somme Mud to the wider war on the Western Front. Imagine this. You are a country boy and just eighteen. The war has been raging for two years and because of your age, you have not been eligible for enlistment. Your mates, older by a few months are joining up and disappearing to the great adventure across the world in Europe. And there is forever talk of the need for reinforcements, for men like you to join up and support the Empire, Australia and your mates in the line. Such was the case for Edward Francis Lynch, a typical country boy from Perthville, near Bathurst. When war was declared in early August 1914, he was just sixteen and still at school, but like a generation of young males in Australia, there was something to prove and a need to be there. Will Davies, editor of the bestselling Somme Mud, meticulously tracked Lynch and his battalion's travels; their long route marches to flea ridden billets, into the frontline at such places as Messines, Dernancourt, Stormy Trench and Villers Bretonneux, to rest areas behind the lines and finally, on the great push to the final victory after August 1918. In words and pictures Davies fills in the gaps in Private Lynch's story and through the movements of the other battalions of the AIF provides impact and context to their plight and achievements. Looking at these battlefields today, the pilgrims who visit and those who attend to the land we come to understand how the spirit of Australia developed and of our enduring role in world politics.world war 1914-1918 - personal narratives - australia, western front 1914-1918 - australian participation

Index, bibliography, maps, ill, p.173.non-fictionThe German army in the Second World War sought to fight and win swift, decisive victories in a succession of short campaigns - blitzkrieg, or lightning war. Flexibility was as essential as the will to win. Battle groups, or shock troops, were created from miscellaneous, and often disparate military units to undertake a specific local operation; it was the army's skill in combining superior numbers, aggressive tactics and the battle group commander's ability to exploit the changing situation on the ground which brought success on the battlefield.

The actions described here cover all theatres of the war, and include battle groups large and small, deployed usually to smash a breach in the enemy line or seal off an enemy penetration. It covers operations in the first dynamic years when Wehrmacht forces defeated the armies of one European country after another in fast campaigns, through to the years after Stalingrad and Africa as they moved towards defeat. 

The battle groups' contribution to Wehrmacht fortunes offer powerful lessons in the tactics of battle management and this book by James Lucas, a military historian known for his close studies of the German soldier, is considered to be one of the most detailed and authoritative accounts on the subject. Collapse summary germany - armed forces - history, germany - regimental histories

Index, bibliography, notes, ill, maps, p.266.non-fictionStephen Bungay's Alamein is a trenchant re-examination of an event now cloaked in myth. Though the propaganda of the time focused on personalities, this was a desert war, he reveals, determined largely by logistics. In a conflict that for two years had ebbed and flowed along the North African littoral, victory was always going to go to the side that mastered its supply lines - in Britain's case not least by withstanding the epic siege of Malta. He also gets beyond the polemics and eulogies of many past writers in re-assessing Alamein's chief protaganists, Montgomery and Rommel, to show how it was precisely the most unattractive side of Montgomery's character that was needed to transform the Eighth Army into a force capable of fighting a battle it could win.battle of alamein - 1942, world war 1939-1945 - campaigns - north africa

Index, bibliography, ill, p.478.non-fictionIn Crisis in the Pacific acclaimed historian Gerald Astor draws on the raw experiences of marines, sailors, soldiers and airmen under fire - from generals and admirals to correspondents, line officers and enlisted men on both sides of the battle lines - to present a view of the critical struggle for the Philippines, the keystone to Japanese domination of the Pacific and to ultimate Allied victory. These accounts, many published here for the first time, are dramatic and graphic, brutal and awe-inspiring. Ranging from the diplomatic and nursing corps' experience of the Japanese conquest and occupation of the islands, to the Bataan death march and first-hand accounts of war crimes inflicted by the Japanese on prisoners of war, to the final push for the hills of Mindanao, Crisis in the Pacific is the first complete history, told in the words of the men and women who were there, of one of the most crucial battlegrounds of World War II.world war 1939 – 1945 – campaigns – phillipines, world war 1939 – 1945 – personal narratives

Index, appendix, ill (b/w) (maps)non-fictionWar is a noisy, confusing and frightening experience and it is the job of the soldier, usually against better judgement to walk through this storm and secure victory. war - psychological aspects, military art and science - australia

Index, ill, maps, p.541.non-fictionThis book tells for the first time one of the best kept secrets of World War Two. British Security Co-ordination made a major contribution to the eventual allied victory.world war 1939 – 1945 – secret operations – britain, secret service - britain

Index, notes, map, p.267.non-fictionThe classic account of Hitler's fall from power, first pubilshed in 1947, reissued with a striking new cover. In September 1945 the fate of Adolf Hitler was a complete mystery. He had simply disappeared, and had been missing for four months. Hugh Trevor-Roper, an intelligence officer, was given the task of solving the mystery. His brilliant piece of detective work not only proved finally that Hitler had killed himself in Berlin, but also produced one of the most fascinating history books ever written. The Last Days of Hitler tells the extraordinary story of those last days of the Thousand Year Reich in the Berlin Bunker. Besieged in the shattered capital, but still dominating the remains of his court, Hitler reiterated the original alternative of Nazism: either total victory or annihilation. This book is the record of that carefully prepared, ceremonious finale to a terrible chapter of history. World War II. Military History. Nazi Germany. germany - politics and government - 1933-1945, adolf hitler - death and burial

Index, bibliography, notes, ill, maps, p.301.non-fictionJust as the Battle of Gettysburg was the high-water mark of the Confederacy's bid for secession, the Chinese offensive launched at Wonju was the high point from which China's hopes for victory soon faded. This is the first book to show that after fifteen days of combat at Wonju, Chinese leaders realized that they could not win the war and could possibly lose it. On this not particularly well-known battlefield, UN forces led by brave U.S. and South Korean fighting men ensured South Korean independence. These battles reinvigorated the UN war effort, thanks in no small part to the leadership of the U.S. Eighth Army's new commander, Lt. Gen. Matthew Ridgway. J. D. Coleman's comparison between the pivotal battles of Wonju and Gettysburg is original and thought provoking.korean war 1950-1953 - history, korean war - battle of wonju

Index, bibliography, notes, ill, maps, p.722.non-fictionVietnam became the Western world's most divisive modern conflict, precipitating a battlefield humiliation for France in 1954, then a vastly greater one for the United States in 1975. Max Hastings has spent the past three years interviewing scores of participants on both sides, as well as researching a multitude of American and Vietnamese documents and memoirs, to create an epic narrative of an epic struggle. He portrays the set pieces of Dienbienphu, the Tet offensive, the air blitz of North Vietnam, and less familiar battles such as the bloodbath at Daido, where a US Marine battalion was almost wiped out, together with extraordinary recollections of Ho Chi Minh's warriors. Here are the vivid realities of strife amid jungle and paddies that killed 2 million people. Many writers treat the war as a US tragedy, yet Hastings sees it as overwhelmingly that of the Vietnamese people, of whom forty died for every American. While all the world has seen the image of a screaming, naked girl seared by napalm, it forgets countless eviscerations, beheadings and murders carried out by the communists. The people of both former Vietnams paid a bitter price for the Northerners' victory in privation and oppression. Here is testimony from Vietcong guerrillas, Southern paratroopers, Saigon bargirls and Hanoi students alongside that of infantrymen from South Dakota, Marines from North Carolina, Huey pilots from Arkansas.vietnam war 1961-1975 – history, vietnam war 1961-1975 – personal recollections

Index, bibliography, ill, p.200.non-fictionThis book presents a visual analysis of twenty famous victories won by a broad cross-section of history's most outstanding commanders, from Alexander the Great's triumph against the Persians in 331 B.C. to Israeli general Moshe Dayan's Sinai campaign of 1956.generals - biography, battles - history

Index, bibliography, ill, maps, p.176.non-fictionChapter heads: The Red Falcons of Bolshevism--Waging peace testing for war --The struggle for survival--Armies of the air--Pobyeda! Victory!world war 1939-1945 - aerial operations - russia, soviet union - air force

Index, bib, ill, p.192.non-fictionListing of the victims of the ace German fighter pilots in World war IIfighter pilots - great britain - biography, fighter pilots - germany - biography

Index, ill p.284.non-fictionPhotographic essay of victory in France. world war 1939-1945 - history, world war 1939-1945 - campaigns - france

Index, notes, bib, ill, maps, p.272.non-fiction An account of the minelaying by 4 Squadrons of the RAAF that between April 1943 and July 1945 in coalition with the USN 7th Fleet mined virtually every important Japanese port in the Southwest Pacific and as far North as Wenzhou (Wenchow) this was a substantial contribution to the Allied victory in the Pacific in WW2.world war 1939-1945 - aerial operations - australia, world war 1939-1945 - mining operations

Ill, p.159.non-fictionThe victory of the Russian army on the Eastern front in 1916world war 1914-1918 - military history, world war 1914 - campaigns - eastern front

Ill, p.159.non-fictionThe Japanese victory in the Phillipines in 1941world war 1939-1945 - campaigns - phillipines, world war 1939-1945 - history

Ill, p.159.non-fictionThe initial wave of victories by japan in World War Twoworld war 1939-1945 - campaigns - pacific area, world war 1939-1945 - history

Ill, p.159.non-fictionThe allied victory in the New Guinea campaign.world war 1939-1945 - campaigns - pacific area, world war 1939 – 1945 – campaigns – kokoda

Ill, p.159.non-fictionThe allied victory over Italy in the Western Desert in 1941world war 1939 – 1945 – campaigns – north africa, bir hacheim

Index, ill, p.312.non-fictionBorn in 1947, Gottfried grew up in post-war Bayreuth. In this atmosphere of deceit and discretion, he discovered the darker nature of his great-grandfather Richard Wagner's legacy: the intrinsic anti-Semitism in the composer's music and his heirs' beliefs; how Hitler proposed to Gottfried's English-born grandmother; how plans were drawn up to divide the world culturally, post Nazi victory, between Wolfgang and Wieland Wagner; and how the world of contemporary opera maintains and promotes anti-Semitic ideology even today.germany - history, germany - anti-semitism

A number of colour photographs taken at the rededication of the Ballarat Arch of Victoria by Governor-General Quentin Bryce. The Creswick Lighthorse feature in a number of the photographs.arch of victoy, ballarat, creswick lighthorse, lighthorse, world war, avenue of honour, ballarat arch of victory, ballarat avenue of honour, quentin bryce, governor general, world war 1, mmm

Index, ill, maps, p.336.non-fictionBetween the wars A second A.I.F. The volunteers To the Middle East After the fall of France Victory at Sidi Barrani Before Bardia The battle of Bardia The capture of Tobruk The engagement at Derna Beda Fomm and Benghazi The capture of Giarabub Appendixes : 1. The A.I.F. in the United Kingdom ; 2. The 6th Division's operation order for the capture of Bardia ; 3. Abbreviations ; 4. A.I.F. colour patches, 1941. world war 1939-1945 - campaigns - north africa, world war 1939-1945 - australian involvement