Backyard Battlefields

Garden Island is a thin limestone sliver, 5km off the coast of Western Australia. It was an idyllic holiday destination until it became an important part of the defence of Fremantle during World War 2, protecting the Cockburn Sound and Southern approaches to the port. It was also the training ground of the famous 'Z' Special Unit, who paddled their kayaks into Singapore harbour to attack Japanese shipping. Today it is home to HMAS Stirling and the Royal Australian Navy's Fleet Base West.

William Dampier was a Pirate, Author and Explorer. He published numerous books including 'A New Voyage Around the World (1697) which was a unique blend of adventure and natural history which made him a popular sensation. He was the first English person to explore the coast of Western Australia in the ship HMS Roebuck which was the first Royal Navy expedition solely dedicated to science and exploration. 

In 1925 during a charity ball at Perth's Government House, in front of hundreded of witnesses, Cyril Gidley was shot in the chest at point blank range and killed. The assailant was his 20 year old former fiance Audrey Jacob. It was one of the more dramatic trials which took place at Perth's Old Courthouse. What appeared to be an open and shut case became a legal and media sensation.

The Old Perth Courthouse is the city's oldest surviving building. It was built in 1836 to assert the supremacy of British law in the Swan River Colony and soon became integral to legal and civic life. It was designed in a classical 19th century Greek revival style and is one of two remaining examples of the work of Colonial Engineer Henry Revelly. It was also the scene of the infamous 1925 'Murder on the Dancefloor' trial of Audrey Jacob.

In 2016 two Russian MI-24 attack helicopters were buried at the Darwin tip. The story of how they came to be there is  a tale involving spies, diplomats, mutineers and mercenaries in a scandal that came to be known as 'The Sandline Affair'.

Built in 1870 in a Victorian Gothic and French Second Empire Architectural style the Perth Town Hall was designed by Architect Richard Roach Jewell and James Manning. It is the only Town Hall in Australia built primarily by convict labour.

On the 10th of June 1940 Italian Dictator Benito Mussolini declared war on Great Britain and France. That day the Italian Motorship 'Remo' was in the Western Australian port of Fremantle. It was loaded with cargo and carrying 229 passengers. It was siezed by Australian authorities as a 'Prize of War' and drafted into service.

In 1932 the Australian Army was deployed with machine guns to 'fight' thousands of Emus (large flightless birds indigenous to Australia) destroying crops in the Western Australian wheatbelt town of Campion. The operation became known as 'The Emu War'. 

St Albans Church in the Perth suburb of Highgate was named for the first British Christian Martyr, Saint Alban. Built in 1889 in a Romanesque style, it was an early design of soldier Architect Lt. General Joseph John Talbot Hobbs. 

On the 17th of August 1832 a duel was fought on the shores of the Swan River in the newly established colony of Western Australia. The combatants were two prominent citizens, 28 year old Solicitor William Naire Clark and former Naval officer and merchant George French Johnson.

The Baudin Expedition 1800 - 1803 was a French Scientific journey to chart the coast of 'New Holland' (Australia) It was approved by Napoleon Bonaparte as First Consul of France and began with two warships Le Geographe and Le Naturaliste. The expedition charted large parts of the Australian continent and 'discovered' more than 2000 animal and plant species unknown to European science.

Perth's 'Barracks Arch' is all that remains of the 'Pensioner Barracks'. It was a Tudor style bulding designed by colonial architect Richard Roach Jewell in 1863. It is located at the Western end of St Georges Terrace, Perth and once housed the members and families of the 'Pensioner Guards'. These were ex-soldiers who served as guards on convict ships en-route to Australia and were given employment and land on arrival to continue in this militia role. The building was demolished in the 1960s to make way for Perths Mitchell Freeway. 

In 1942 a Japanese submarine I-21, operating off the East coast of Australia shelled the port of Newcastle in New South Wales. This attack was in the context of the bombardment of Sydney's Eastern suburbs and the audacious midget submarine attack on Sydney Harbour.

The Chinook (or 'Chook') is a twin-rotor heavy lift helicopter manufactured by Boeing and used by the Australian Army. A detatchment was deployed to Afghanistan in support of the Special Operations Task Group (SOTG)

In September 1943, Japanese Navy Kawanashi 'Emily' Flying Boats operating out of Surabaya, Indonesia bombed the Western Australian town of Onslow, Western Australia.

The Pinjarra Mounted Volunteers were raised in 1862 by prominent citizen Captain Theodore Fawcett, formerly of the British 6th Dragoon Guards. It was the first mounted unit raised for policing and defence in the Western Australian Perth (Boorloo) area, known then as The Swan River Colony. 

Born in the town of Northam, Western Australia, Hugo Throssell won the Victoria Cross (VC) at Gallipoli in 1915 and later became a Socialist and outspoken advocate on the futility of war. 

The Monte Bello Islands have a unique place in Western Australian history. They form an archipelago lying approximately 130KM off the Pilbara coast and in the 1950s they were the site of 3 British nuclear weapons tests called 'Operation Hurricane' and 'Mosaic.'

Kojanup Barracks is an important piece of Western Australian history. Built by British Redcoats of the 51st Regiment it was a staging post on the road to the strategically important town of Albany. Kojanup is located 256km South East of Perth, Western Australia. 

The Fremantle Artillery Barracks was built to service the forts defending the Western Australian port of Fremantle. Sitting atop Cantonment Hill on the corner of Burt and Tuckfield Streets, it is now home to the Army Museum of Western Australia.