On 19 November 1941, HMAS Sydney, an Australian light cruiser, was engaged in a naval battle with the German auxiliary cruiser Kormoran off the coast of Western Australia. During the battle, both ships were sunk, with the loss of all 645 crew members on board the Sydney and 81 crew Read more…
The United States 7th Fleet is responsible for operations in the Western Pacific Ocean. It was formed on March 15, 1943, in Brisbane, Australia, during World War II. The fleet was initially commanded by Vice Admiral Arthur S. Carpender, and it consisted of the cruisers USS Minneapolis and USS New Read more…
De Koninklijke Paketvaart-Maatschappij (KPM – Royal Packet Navigation Company – was established in 1888 in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. The company was created by merging several smaller Dutch shipping companies that were operating in the Dutch East Indies (now Indonesia). KPM’s main purpose was to provide a regular shipping service between Read more…
Batchelor Airport is a former Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) base located in Batchelor, Northern Territory, Australia. The base was established in 1942 during World War II and was used primarily as a bomber base for the RAAF’s No. 1 Operational Training Unit. During the war, Batchelor Airport was also Read more…
Dutch message re upcoming Pearl Harbour attack was ignored. Identifying Japan as a potential aggressor, in the thirties the Dutch tried to strengthen their intelligence capability. In 1932 the Royal Netherlands Navy set up a radio intercept unit to monitor the activities of the Japanese Navy. Several weeks prior to Read more…
Scroll down and a map shows up with New Guinea connected to Australia but a small missing part on that map shows where in this perspective the Torres Strait could have been. See also: The Colonial Warship the Doerga explored northern Australia (1825-1826) Dutch Explorers in the Gulf of Carpentaria Read more…
Jean Pierre Purry was a Swiss explorer who presented a plan to the Dutch Governor General of the Dutch East Indies in Batavia (now Jakarta, Indonesia) in 1717 to establish a settlement in Australia. His plan was to settle in the vicinity of Eyre Peninsula in South Australia. Purry was Read more…
Juliana Village in Miranda in Sydney’s South came about thanks largely to the vision and drive of one man: Johan (Jan, John) Logeman (more info on Jan in the pdf below). The idea was born when he he was recovering from a heart illness. Talking to people around him it Read more…
“Settlers of the Latrobe Valley: A Sociological Study of Immigrants in the Brown Coal Industry in Australia” is book by Polish-Australian sociologist and academic Jerzy Zubrzycki. The book includes two detailed studies, of the Dutch at Moe and the Ukrainians at Newborough, directed to testing the validity of generalisations about Read more…
Maerten van Delft was a Dutch explorer who conducted an expedition in 1705 to explore the western and northern coastlines of what is now known as Australia. The expedition was organised by the Dutch East India Company (VOC). The expedition played a significant role in the early European history and Read more…