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Monthly Meetings

  • About the meeting
    The Society meets on the third Tuesday of each month in the Village Day Club room on the RAAFA Memorial Estate, Bull Creek Drive, Bull Creek.

    Click here for directions to the Village Day Club room.

    Meetings commence at 7.30 pm, all are welcome and attendance is free.  Following is a list of speakers scheduled to present with a summary of their topic.

  • April 2024

     Date – Tuesday April 16

    Speaker – Brendan Cook

    Topic – The Rape of Nanking (now Nanjing).

    The Rape of Nanking, or the Nanking Massacre, was the mass murder of Chinese civilians in Nanking, the capital of the Republic of China, by the Imperial Japanese Army immediately after the Battle of Nanking in the second Sino-Japanese war. Beginning on December 13, 1937, the massacre lasted six week.

  • May 2024

     Date – Tuesday May 21

    Speaker – Peter Illidge

    Topic – The Crimean War 1853 -1856. A lesson on how not to fight a war.

  • June 2024

     Date – Tuesday June 18

    Speaker – Our guest speaker is Ian Duggan

    Topic – Ian is the author of “Black Swans over Java”, which reveals the secret air base near Marble Bar in Northern WA, called Corunna Downs from which B24 bombers from the US Air Force and the RAAF conducted raids against Japanese installations and shipping.

  • July 2024

     Date – Tuesday July 16

    Speaker – Our guest speaker is Ian Duggan

    Topic – The Rock and Traders, Pirates and Spies.

    The talk is in two parts.  The first part deals with a tiny,  rocky island off the North West coast of WA, home to the USAAF and RAAF crew who operated the then secret and state of the art LORAN long range navigation system.  The second part discusses the Japanese occupation of the Netherlands East Indies and the construction of three large fishing  boats ostensibly for fishing and trading.  These were crewed by Indonesians and were often seen off the coast of WA.  Were they actually spying for the Japanese?

  • August 2024

     Date – Tuesday August 20

    Speaker – Tony Atkinson

    Topic – The battle of Mang Yang Pass. This was the last and bloodiest engagement of the French Indo China War in 1954. Together with Dien Bien Phu, it hastened the French withdrawal from Vietnam.

  • September 2024

    Date – Tuesday September 17

    Speaker – Brendan Cook

    Topic – The Cowra Breakout. On the  5th of August 1944, 1,104 Japanese POW’s staged a mass escape from an Australian POW camp near Cowra NSW.

  • October 2024

    Date – Tuesday October 15

    Speaker – Miles Whittam-Seth

    Topic – The Australian Aircrewmen in the Dambuster Raid.

  • November 2024

    Date – Tuesday November 19

    Speaker – John Simpson

    Topic – John will give a presentation on Duncan John Glasfurd, the great grandfather of John’s sons on their mother’s side. He was a Senior Training Officer at Mena Camp in Egypt, and a Senior Field Officer at Gallipoli. His extensive military service includes Sudan in the late 1900’s and the Somme during WWI.  This will be a top story with a few great twists.