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SBS Australia
3 days ago
- General
- SBS Australia
'A call to remember': First Nations Veterans honoured at ceremony in Sydney
A warning this story contains the name of a First Nations person who has died. At the Anzac Memorial in Hyde Park – a ceremony to remember First Nations veterans. Welcoming those in attendance, is Gadigal Elder, Allan Madden. 'Once again, on behalf of the land council and of the Gadigal mob, welcome, welcome, welcome.' A welcome dance is followed by a guard of honour, a smoking ceremony, and an opening prayer. The Ode, accompanied by a digeridoo. The service shining a light on veterans' stories. Squadron Leader Coen Henry, is a Royal Australian Air Force and Barkindji/Wiradjuri Man. 'The number of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples who served in the First and Second World Wars varies greatly. As ethnicity was not noted on enlistment documents an accurate figure will never be known, it has been suggested that more than 3,500 Indigenous people served in these conflicts.' This year's key address was from Lieutenant Colonel Joseph West, an Australian Army and Murrawari Man, whose ancestors died in Kokoda. He joined the military when he was 18. Lieutenant West reflects on the meaning of 'lest we forget'. 'It is more than recalling names and dates, it is a call to remember truthfully, completely and with respect. But in the past we failed this promise with Indigenous soldiers." The heritage of many First Nations service personnel was previously not even recorded. "People from non-European descent were not permitted to join the defence force, in accordance of the Defence Act of 1903. This meant that even though Indigenous soldiers volunteered and fought, they did so without formal recognition." The story of Lieutenants West's great-Uncle, Private Harold West was also told in the 1942 poem 'The Coloured Digger', by H E 'Bert' Beros. Lieutenant Commander Robert Valler is with the Royal Australian Navy. At the service, he read an excerpt from The Coloured Digger. "He'd heard us talk Democracy – They preach it to his face – Yet knows that in our Federal House there's no one of his race. One day he'll leave the Army, Then join the League he shall, And he hopes we'll give a better deal to the Aboriginal." The service was also an opportunity to educate younger Australians about the contributions of First Nations veterans in Defence. Hundreds of school students lined the Pool of Remembrance in front of the Anzac Memorial, and at the end of the service laid wreaths. Attendees of all ages engaged in the event, including multiple local school groups; invited to listen, commemorate, combine tradition, and help right historical wrongs.
Associated Press
21-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Associated Press
From the Navy to Nature: Australian Veteran Transforms Trauma into Poetry in ‘Feathers and Flame'
AUSTRALIAN CAPITAL TERRITORY, May 20, 2025 (SEND2PRESS NEWSWIRE) — Just in time for Mental Health Awareness Month, Australian veteran and debut poet Kathryn Carlisle unveils 'Feathers and Flame: Poetry of Australian Landscapes and Personal Transformation' (ISBN: 978-0228811718), a moving new collection that explores emotional healing through the lens of wildlife, wilderness, and personal growth. After nearly 39 years of service in the Royal Australian Navy and Royal Australian Air Force, Carlisle turned to poetry as a form of creative recovery. Her words draw strength from the quiet rhythms of the natural world, offering insight into the unseen struggles many veterans face and the hope found in reconnecting with nature. 'Watching birds interact, walking bush trails, being still in nature. These simple moments brought me home to myself,' says Carlisle. 'Through writing, I learned to breathe again.' Each poem in 'Feathers and Flame' offers a moment of stillness. A breath of wild air. From desert plains to coastal skies, Carlisle's reflections highlight the quiet power of presence, the wisdom of the natural world, and the journey from sorrow to self-discovery. The book was born from Carlisle's healing process, including her participation in the Australian Defence Force's ARRTS Program, which supports veterans' recovery through art, writing, and music. Her military background lends her work emotional depth, while her lifelong love of the Australian landscape roots the collection in authenticity and awe. Available now via Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Indigo, and other major booksellers. ABOUT THE AUTHOR KATHRYN CARLISLE is a poet, veteran, and nature lover based in the ACT. Having lived in multiple states across Australia during her childhood—sometimes in a double-decker bus or caravan—she developed a deep connection to the land early on. Today, she finds inspiration in the Goorooyarroo Nature Reserve, where the landscape continues to guide her healing and creativity. BOOK DETAILS Title: 'Feathers and Flame: Poetry of Australian Landscapes and Personal Transformation' Author: Kathryn Carlisle Genre: Poetry / Memoir / Nature & Mental Health Publisher: Tellwell Talent ( ) Formats: Paperback, Hardcover, eBook Paperback ISBN: 9780228811718 Hardcover ISBN: 9780228811725 eBook ISBN: 9780228816874 NEWS SOURCE: Author Kathryn Carlisle Keywords: Books and Publishing, Mental Health Awareness Month, Feathers and Flame by poet Kathryn Carlisle, Memoir, mental health, Tellwell Publishing, ISBN 9780228811718, AUSTRALIAN CAPITAL TERRITORY This press release was issued on behalf of the news source (Author Kathryn Carlisle) who is solely responsibile for its accuracy, by Send2Press® Newswire. Information is believed accurate but not guaranteed. Story ID: S2P126331 APNF0325A To view the original version, visit: © 2025 Send2Press® Newswire, a press release distribution service, Calif., USA. RIGHTS GRANTED FOR REPRODUCTION IN WHOLE OR IN PART BY ANY LEGITIMATE MEDIA OUTLET - SUCH AS NEWSPAPER, BROADCAST OR TRADE PERIODICAL. MAY NOT BE USED ON ANY NON-MEDIA WEBSITE PROMOTING PR OR MARKETING SERVICES OR CONTENT DEVELOPMENT. Disclaimer: This press release content was not created by nor issued by the Associated Press (AP). Content below is unrelated to this news story.
News.com.au
13-05-2025
- Politics
- News.com.au
Australia deploys warship in sanctions enforcement mission against North Korea
Australia has deployed a warship on a sanctions enforcement mission against North Korea. HMAS Sydney will patrol areas where the hermit state is suspected of illegal trading in violation of UN sanctions aimed at stopping it from acquiring nuclear weapons. 'Operation Argos supports the international community's goal of the complete, verifiable and irreversible denuclearisation of North Korea,' Vice Admiral Justin Jones said in a statement. 'Australia also deploys maritime patrol aircraft to enforce Operation Argos, with a Royal Australian Air Force P-8A Poseidon having deployed to Japan in April. 'Enforcing UNSC sanctions against North Korea is consistent with Australia's commitment to a rules-based global order.' It is the second time the HMAS Sydney – a Hobart-class guided missile destroyer – has taken part in Operation Argos, having supported sanctions enforcement efforts in September 2024 also. North Korea regularly tests intercontinental ballistic missiles, which are the primary delivery system for nuclear warheads. It has also sent more than 10,000 troops to Russia to aid the Kremlin's war efforts in Ukraine. North Korea's supreme leader Kim Jong-un has said involving his country, which perpetually faces severe food shortages, was 'just' and 'falls within the sovereign rights of our republic'.
7NEWS
12-05-2025
- 7NEWS
$250k bail for son accused of staging wife's death as lawnmower accident in Queensland
An Air Force pilot accused of killing his wife and staging her death to look like a lawnmower accident is back at home after his family paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to secure his release. Robert Crawford, 47, was granted bail last week, with his conditions including a curfew and a $250,000 bond. He had spent almost seven months in custody before being granted bail in the Queensland Supreme Court. Crawford was arrested and charged with murder and interfering with a corpse on October 10, 2024. He maintains his innocence and is contesting the charges. His wife, Frances Elizabeth Crawford, was found dead near a ride-on lawnmower on a rural property in Upper Lockyer, about 1.5 hours drive west of Brisbane, in July 2024. Prosecutors accused Crawford of strangling his wife in a 'murderous rage' and then moving her body to make her death look like a late-night accident with the lawnmower. Judge Frances Williams granted bail, ruling that Robert Crawford's risk of fleeing was 'acceptable.' Suzanne Duffy, a close friend of Frances and organiser of the family's GoFundMe campaign, shared an update to the fundraiser, expressing their anger that Crawford was in the family home while the case remains in court. 'The grandfather of Frances' Crawford's children put up $250,000 for her alleged murderer's bail,' she wrote in an update. '$250,000 for his alleged murderous son, who tonight, is sleeping in their formerly shared home in the Upper Lockyer Valley, Queensland.' 'To say the family are angry is an understatement.' Crawford's murder charge is next due to be heard at Ipswich Magistrates Court on October 8 for committal proceedings. He has been suspended from the Royal Australian Air Force and banned from defence bases. If you need help in a crisis, call Lifeline on 13 11 14.
ABC News
29-04-2025
- General
- ABC News
In the final weeks of the Vietnam War, these Australians from the RAAF returned to Saigon
There were not meant to be any Australians in Vietnam in 1975. Public outrage — and a tenuous peace treaty — paved the way for the withdrawal of troops in 1973. But the two-decade fight over the future of Vietnam wasn't over and without its international allies, the capitalist south rapidly fell to the communist north. City after city was captured and by the end of April, the capital Saigon was surrounded. In these desperate times, more than 200 people from the Royal Australian Air Force returned to the region for humanitarian missions. They were nurses, pilots, ground crew, administrators. Noel Darr of the 37th Squadron was one of them. Chaos on the tarmac South Vietnamese troops and western TV crews run for cover as a North Vietnamese mortar round explodes on Newport Bridge on the outskirts of Saigon. ( AP ) This month marks the 50th anniversary of the fall of Saigon, the dramatic moment when Northern forces stormed the capital, reunited the country and ended the war. Mr Darr had been flying into Vietnam since 1968, transporting vital cargo, from injured personnel to food supplies. But on April 2, 1975, his mission as loadmaster was to help evacuate 200 refugees from Phan Rang Bay. "We were only supposed to take out women and children," he said. "But the males were coming on with civilian clothes over their uniforms and a lot of them were carrying AK47s. "We could hear this weapons fire and we didn't know whether it was friendly fire or North Vietnamese." Loadmaster Noel Darr remembers the chaos on the tarmac in those final weeks of the war. ( ABC News: Lachlan Bennett ) As panic spread across the tarmac, crowds charged towards the aircraft, trying to escape the Northern advance. "They were desperate to get out and babies were just being thrown over in the paratroop door," Mr Darr said. After the South Vietnamese regime had urgently requested humanitarian assistance, Australia sent eight Hercules aircraft from the RAAF base in Richmond, NSW, and two Dakotas from their base in Butterworth, Malaysia. And as Communist victory grew increasingly likely, US president Gerald Ford announced a bold plan: Operation Babylift. A last-minute plan to save orphans Flight Lieutenants Ian Frame and Hugh Howell and Flying Officer Ian Scott feeding children waiting to board. ( Supplied: Ian Frame ) The plan was to evacuate thousands of Vietnamese orphans from Saigon and place them with adoption families in the US, Canada and other western countries. Those too sick for the long journey were flown to Australia via Bangkok by pilots like John Stone, who evacuated 107 children on April 4 and 55 on April 17. "I remember walking between the boxes of babies. Some guys had bottles feeding them," he said. " We knew what would've happened to them if they had stayed behind. " Pilot Geoff Rose flew alongside Mr Stone but was "not sure the South Vietnamese really wanted their children taken away". "It was sort of showing the people that they'd given in by evacuating," he said. RAAF members John Handford, Geoff Rose and Eric Lundberg with babies set to be evacuated. ( Supplied: Geoff Rose ) Around 3,000 children were airlifted out and not without controversy. There were claims some had been forcibly taken from poor families. Others had their identification tags removed, severing any remaining link to their past. And some orphans never made it out of Saigon. Rescue mission ends in tragedy Aircrews often had to fly over the wreckage of a a US Galaxy aircraft on their return to Saigon. ( Aviation Safety Network ) Just minutes after take-off, a US Galaxy aircraft with 314 babies, crew and passengers suffered a catastrophic disaster. The back door ripped from its hinges, forcing the aircraft to make an emergency landing in the mud flats. Mr Stone remembers seeing billowing clouds of smoke as he arrived at the airport for his own Babylift flight. "By the time we got there, the choppers were bringing in survivors," he said. "It sticks in my mind very vividly. I remember taking off over the wreckage." Nuns bring Vietanmese children set to be evacuated under Operation Babylift to an aircraft waiting at Tan Son Nhut. ( Supplied: Ian Frame ) Mr Darr also saw the wreckage when he flew into Saigon the following day. "[The pilot] put her down on the mud flats. It killed all the people on the bottom decks and then it skidded towards the Mekong River," he said. " It was awful. All those kids were going to be saved and they died in a plane crash. " The crash killed 138 people, including Australians Margaret Moses, a nun, and Lee Makk, a nurse. There were suspicions of sabotage, a theory ruled out by a subsequent investigation. But betrayal wasn't unheard of in these final, chaotic days. A traitor in the ranks A sign near the airport in Saigon thanks the South Vietnam allies, like the US and Australia, for their service. ( Picture: Supplied / Geoff Stone ) Mr Rose and Mr Stone were preparing for a supply run on April 8 when they heard a thunderous explosion. "A jet went flying over, I felt the blast and thought, 'I hope this is not an attack on the city,'" Mr Rose said. That aircraft had just bombed the presidential palace, but it wasn't a Northern invader, it was a South Vietnamese aircraft. Inside was Air Force Lieutenant Nguyen Thanh Trung, who had hoped to kill South Vietnam President Nguyen Van Thieu. In a 2000 interview, Nguyen said South Vietnamese forces had murdered his father in 1963 and tossed the corpse into the Mekong as a warning to others. "I promise with my father that some day … I will bring that bomb and drop it to the palace to stop the war as soon as possible," he told Reuters. While the attack ultimately failed, Mr Nguyen's actions made him a hero of the Northern regime. Geoff Rose (right) said he met the man who bombed the presidential palace, Nguyen Thanh Trung (left), while helping train pilots in Vietnam in the late 1990s. ( Supplied: Geoff Rose ) Decades later, Mr Rose was working for an aircraft leasing company that was training pilots at Vietnam Airlines. Among the crew was the same man who had bombed the palace. "I don't know whether it was a joke amongst the other blokes, but they allocated me to train him," Mr Rose said. " And all the other pilots we flew with were North Vietnamese. They had flown bombers and fighters and walked up the Ho Chi Minh Trail. " Over the next six months, the two men shared battle stories between training and "got fairly close". "Some people might think I'm a traitor, but you know, it was 18 years after the war," Mr Rose said. Last stand for the South When RAAF members had to stay overnight in Saigon, they would sometimes be put up at the Embassy Hotel, a few blocks away from the Presidential Palace. ( Supplied: Geoff Stone ) As the days passed, time was running out to escape Saigon. It had become too dangerous to fly at night, so pilots would sometimes stay at the Embassy Hotel. Aircraft captain David Nichols remembers sitting on the rooftop garden, drinking beers, staring into the sky. "It was very pleasant, very calm. The city was under curfew and very quiet," he said. " But in the distance, we could hear the gunfire and explosions. " That was South Vietnam's last stand — a desperate fight at Xuon Loc to stop the Northern advance. After 11 days, they fell back to Saigon, a city now surrounded by tens of thousands of troops. Facing imminent defeat, the South Vietnamese president resigned on April 21 and fled the city on April 25. Australia's final flights out of Saigon David Nichols remembers his flying days in the final days of the war, while sitting in the cockpit of an old Hercules aircraft. ( ABC News: Lachlan Bennett ) The same day, Australia was also preparing to leave Saigon for the last time. Mr Nichols recalls the cargo on his last flight: 12 Vietnamese nuns and two yellow Combi Vans. "To this day, I don't know who chose that load," he said. " Why did we go to a war zone to pick up the cargo and who made those decisions? I guess I'll never know. " Australian ambassador Geoffrey Price also left Saigon that day, along with 10 staff members, 15 refugees and nine journalists. Unloading supplies near a newly constructed refugee camp. ( Supplied: Geoff Rose ) With planes filled with personnel and possessions, four air defence guards were almost left behind. "The door closed and they said, 'Look after yourselves,'" Mr Nichols said. The guards had little else but their weapons and fears South Vietnamese soldiers, now abandoned by their allies, may turn violent. But before the sun set, a Hercules aircraft piloted by Jack Fanderlinden returned to pick them up. "And that was the last flight to leave," Mr Nichols said. TV captures the fall of Saigon North Vietnamese tanks crash through the gates of the presidential palace in the final moments of the war. ( AFP: Françoise Demulder/Succession Demulder/Roger-Viollet ) The panic of those remaining in Saigon played out on television, with cameras capturing crowds swarming the US embassy and helicopters flying from rooftops. Mr Darr said people were clinging onto aircraft "like you saw in Afghanistan with the fall of Kabul". "They were flying out to the ships and they were just pushing the choppers overboard because they didn't have enough room to land," he said. Around 30 former employees of the Australian embassy were left behind, along with many more who had worked for the US. At dawn on April 30, North Vietnamese tanks rolled into Saigon, crashed through the gates of the presidential palace and ended the war. 'A mission, a purpose' John Stone said he and other RAAF members would often have a beer on the back ramp after a long day. ( ABC News: Lachlan Bennett ) While the missions in these final weeks were sometimes tough and traumatic, there were often moments of great friendship. Mr Stone said they used to stash beers near the back door that would become "ice cold" after hours of flight. "I did a lot of flying with these guys, we did a lot of trips together and we drank a lot of beer on the ramp of these airplanes," he said. Mr Nichols was proud of what they did and said morale was generally quite high. "There was a mission, there was a purpose," he said. Loading the Hercules on April 4, the first day of Operation Babylift. And while he acknowledges the "enormous contribution" of those involved in fighting, including conscripts, he is glad the story of those final weeks has been told. "It's always been a soft spot and there hasn't been much documented," he said. "A lot of the war memorials, documentaries and histories have Australia's commitment finishing in '72. "But on the 50th anniversary it will be documented now."
