Canberra Hit Us Hard - A Big Lap Stop We'll Never Forget

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A Soldier's photos

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 Frank Cleary, NX21851, a gunner in an Anti Aircraft Regiment, was posted to the Middle East from June 1941 through to January 1942. A detailed account of his Second World War service is included in another post on this blog. During his time in the Middle East he posted over 100 photos home. A much smaller handful of  half a dozen photos from his time in Papua New Guinea, also arrived home. All black and white, ranging in size from 6cm x 4cm through to around 8cm x 6cm, they are typical of any tourist photos of new, exotic locations, but with the constant reminder that far from a mere tourist, this photographer is also a soldier.  The treasured 'home' for these photos for the past eighty years has been this small wooden box. It's the sort of gift you could buy from a market stall or one of the shops servicing pilgrims and visitors over the many pre-war years. And it is easy to imagine the excitement in the Cleary family when this gift was presented, probably during home l...
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Second World War Service

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  The Second World War Service of John Francis Cleary NX21853 Frank Cleary turned up at Paddington on 25 May 1940 to enlist in the newly re-created Australian Infantry Force (the 2 nd AIF), the volunteer army which would fight in the Second World War. This would probably have been the Victoria Barracks, bounded by Oxford Street and Moore Park Road, and to this day still a functioning Army base in Sydney. War in Europe had been declared on September 3 1939, finally triggered by the German invasion of Poland, the step too far after a series of expansionist moves in various European countries. In a memorable radio address, a sombre Prime Minister Robert Menzies, accepting that Britain’s declaration meant that Australia was therefore itself automatically at war, informed the nation of this event, on the evening of Fathers’ Day 1939, 3 September.   Although memories of World War 1 (1914 – 1918) – “the great war”, “the war to end all wars” – were still fresh, there seems to have ...
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Our Hennessey connection

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