Recollections of War

19/06/2026

One of the things we enjoy the most is when we are contacted by people asking for information or images relating to items in the collection.

Last week, we catalogued an interesting identity disc and keepsake made from coins. It belonged to an Australian Army Nursing Service (A.A.N.S.) nurse named Eileen McNamara.

(Honora) Eileen Lilian McNamara was born on 22 August 1889 in Grenfell, New South Wales, the tenth child of 14 born to Timothy McNamara and Hanora Mary Conlon.

She was a 28 year old trained nurse when she enlisted with the Australian Army Nursing Service on 6 September 1917. Her sister, Kathleen Muriel, enlisted 4 days later and they both embarked on board the T.S.S. Wyreema from Sydney on 14 October 1918 bound for Salonika.

Due to the cessation of hostilities, the ship was recalled after arrival in South Africa, where it spent a couple of weeks before returning to Australia at the end of December.

By this time, cases of Spanish Influenza were increasing and a troopship (HMAT Boonah) which had recently arrived in Fremantle had hundreds of men on board who had contracted it.

When the Wyreema arrived in Fremantle not long afterwards, nursing volunteers were called for. Every one of the A.A.N.S. contingent aboard the Wyreema volunteered to look after the ailing men at the quarantine station at Woodman Point.

It is believed that Eileen was one of them. She was later awarded a 'Mentioned in Despatches'.

Two of Eileen's brothers, Leo and Ignatius, also served for Australia during World War One.

The date engraved on the half coin is 19 January 1919. The significance of this date is unknown but would coincide with time spent at the quarantine station. Perhaps the other half of the coin was given to a fellow nurse or patient as a keepsake or love token.

Anyway, back to the request...

We had purchased a postcard showing the T.S.S. Wyreema to put with the identity disc to add context to the display. The card was dated 1911 and related to when the ship was being used as a liner rather than a troopship.

The person who contacted us had recently bought a heritage home named 'Wyreema' and was wanting a good quality copy of the postcard to enlarge and hang on the wall in their new house.

We were more than happy to comply! It means that someone is actually looking at what we're cataloguing.

We are approaching 1000 items, but still have tens of thousands to go. It's a daunting and time consuming task, but we're plugging away.

If anyone who lives locally wants to help out, please get in touch!

18/06/2026

To all of our Albany friends - don't miss out on seeing this important production while you can.

It tells of a very dark time in our wartime history, but is portrayed with humour and compassion by a wonderfully talented group of actors, directors, producers, screenwriters and all support crew. The Theatre 180 family are the best!

Expect to be moved and definitely take your tissues!

ALBANY - only a couple of days until we return with 21 HEARTS: Vivian Bullwinkel and the Nurses of the Vyner Brooke.

With 2 performances this Saturday (20 June) at 11am and 5pm, there's still plenty of time to grab a ticket - but hurry tickets are selling fast.

We can't wait to be back in beautiful Albany with this extraordinary true story.

Tickets: https://shorturl.at/PZb1x

17/06/2026

Another recent purchase was a wonderful album full of named soldiers who served with the 2/33rd Infantry Battalion AIF.

Here is a composite photo showing over 40 men and a little dog named George - perhaps their mascot.

The photos were originally 6 to a page. The album was scanned and then individual portraits separated.

Aside from a few with nicknames (mostly politically incorrect these days), we have identified the rest with the help of a Nominal Roll on the website of the 2/33 Australian Infantry Battalion AIF.

We have shared them with the association to keep in their archive and will also submit them to the Virtual War Memorial Australia so that the images will be there for researchers, relatives and friends to see.

Although time consuming, it feels very worthwhile - keeping the memories of these men alive.

17/06/2026

A new acquisition headed straight to the Bomber Command room.

The metal and concrete relics came from a practice ‘bouncing bomb’ dropped into a British reservoir prior to the Dambusters Raid in mid-May 1943.

During preparation for the operation, 617 Squadron RAF (which included many Australian personnel) conducted extensive, low altitude practice drops into reservoirs and coastal ranges to perfect their release timing.

They used inert, concrete filled test bombs such as the one pictured from which the relics were obtained.

A fascinating piece of history!

05/06/2026

We recently bought a large group of ephemera from the Salvos Stores eBay shop and it arrived yesterday.

There are some very interesting items in the grouping, including this 4th Australian Divisional Artillery card which lists their engagements and exploits chronologically from 1916 until 1919.

The 4th Australian Divisonal Artillery comprised several brigades and batteries and this card was issued to commemorate the association between them prior to their separation in Belgium at the end of World War One.

Inside the card was a smaller card from a Gunner in the 4th Australian Divisional Artillery named James Hall.

There are 36 men with the surname Hall and first name James who enlisted in the A.I.F. and many more with a second name of James, so he is currently unidentified.

02/06/2026

Finally managed to produce some images from a set of WWI glass plate negatives purchased some time ago.

Many thanks to our good friend, Derris, for giving us a light box on which we photographed them.

All of these men were from South Australia and enlisted between September 1914 and May 1915.

They are from left to right (top) - Roy Edward GREEN, Ernest George WATSON and George Henry GALLACHER; and from left to right (bottom) - John GILLESPIE, Ernest Leslie GOLDSWORTHY and Louis Clive WOOD.

We hope to uncover all of their stories and keep their memory alive.

11/05/2026

More stunning photos. Makes our place look pretty good....

11/05/2026

It was our absolute privilege to host the 10th Light Horse Albany Troop Inc. here a couple of weekends back.
We can't believe how good the photos have turned out given the weather conditions!
Lex (Alex Porebski) is a star, but he did have great subject matter. You all looked fabulous!
Well done to everyone involved.

03/05/2026

What a fabulous couple of days here with the 10th Light Horse Albany Troop Inc. providing the backdrop for their latest photo shoot.

It was a shame that the weather didn't cooperate, but no doubt master photographer, Lex, will have taken some stunning photos regardless.

Here are a few that we took to be going on with.

Full of admiration for this wonderful group of people and horses who show such dedication to keeping history alive. We salute you!

02/05/2026

A new arrival this week was a copy of the 'Australian Town and Country Journal' dated 4 October 1916.

It was purchased for the cover illustration which showed a 'Trench-bayonet exercise for the A.I.F. at Liverpool Camp'.

We have two different leather and metal helmets like those pictured plus the padded suit, and felt this would help answer the questions of our visitors as to their purpose.

Upon investigating the journal further, it was full of wonderful images, stories and advertisements from that time.

There were 4 pages in the centre devoted to the men from NSW who had recently been either reported wounded or killed in action. There were also 28 small portraits of some of those men.

We researched and identified 27/28, confirming the details, service numbers and addresses. We then isolated the individual pictures and sent them to Faithe Jones, the wonderful admin of Virtual War Memorial Australia, who has now uploaded them, adding more faces to names.

It makes us feel good to be contributing to the historical record for future researchers and family members.

Lest we forget.