Backyard Battlefields is a military history program which explores historical sites throughout Australia and beyond. Backyard Battlefields gives Australia's military history a context by explaining its significance within the grander narrative of world events. Presented by James De Leo. For more information visit backyardbattlefields.com
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In Phuoc Tuy province, South Vietnam, a tractor was stolen from the French Courtenay rubber plantation. Intelligence reported that it was being used by Viet Cong guerillas, to transport weapons and ammunition across the Australian area of operations. A patrol from 2 Squadron, Special Air Service Regiment was tasked with its destruction. This episode of Backyard Battlefields features excerpts from…
The Beaufort was a twin-engined torpedo bomber, built by the Bristol Aeroplane Company. In 1939 the Australian government decided to have them built under licence by the Department of Aircraft Production (DAP) at Fishermans Bend in Melbourne and Mascot, New South Wales. Over 700 were built between 1941-1944 and were extensively used as a medium bomber and for general reconnaisance around Australia…
The Wunaamin-Miliwundi ranges are an elevated feature running through Western Australia's Kimberley region. Between 1879 and 2020 they were called the King Leopold Ranges after King Leopold II of Belgium. Through his private army the Force Publique he oversaw the death, torture and dismemberment of millions of people in the Congo Free State. The horror and depravity which took place were brought…
Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) Station Cunderdin was established in 1940 near the Western Australian wheatbelt town of Cunderdin. It was home to the No.9 Elementary Training School teaching ab initio (entry-level) pilots for the 'Empire Air Training Scheme' (EATS) an initiative to produce Australian air crew for eventual transfer to the Royal Air Force (RAF). Later it staged B-24 Liberator…
Northam is a small town approximately 100KM East of Perth. During WW2 it supported the US Navy's 7th Fleet operating out of Fremantle. The nearby locality of Springhill housed the bunkers of the '7 Naval Ammunition Depot' (7 NAD) storing ordnance the US, British and Dutch submarines needed to take the war to the Japanese. Torpedoes, shells, small arms and explosives were housed there and shipped…
The Sirius Dog Sled Patrol is a Danish Naval Special Forces unit. Named for the brightest star in the night sky, it's tasked with long range reconnaisance, patrolling and maintining Denmark's sovereignty over the vast, Arctic wilderness of North-Eastern Greenland. It was born during the Second World War, enlisting hunters and native Inuits for the purpose of preventing a German presence on the…
Bill Simmonds was from Bunbury, Western Australia. A pilot with the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) 77 Squadron, during the Korean War he flew P-51 Mustangs before converting to the Gloster Meteor jet fighter. On the 8th of May 1952 he became one of the few Australian 'Mig Killers' of the conflict after shooting down a Communist MIG-15 while escorting US bombers over North Korea. He went onto a…
On October 3, 1952 Britain detonated an atomic bomb on the MonteBello Islands, 50 miles off Western Australia's Pilbara coast. The success of the top secret test made Britain the third atomic power after the United States and Soviet Union. Author Paul Grace, has written a dramatic account of the test, 'Operation Hurricane: The Story of Britain's First Atomic Test and the Legacy that Remains' His…
'Eendracht' means 'Concord' or 'Unity' and is taken from the motto of the Dutch republic 'Eendracht maakt macht' - 'Unity makes strength'. It was the name of a ship of the Dutch East India Company (VOC) captained by Dirk Hartog which made contact with Western Australia in 1616. The crew of the 'Eendracht' marked their visit with a pewter dish subsequently known as 'Hartog's Plate' which remains…
Today 'Emily Taylor' is a bar in the fashionable port City of Fremantle, but first it was the name of a ship built in Bombay for the British East India Company and subsequently sold to a private concern. It was chartered by the Western Australian goverment to transport settler families to establish the colony's third settlement, the town of Augusta on Cape Leeuwin in 1830. Not long after 'Emily…
