Royal Australian Artillery Historical Company ENewsletter

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Dear Gunners (Readers) -

WELCOME TO AIRBURST NO 18 - December 2015,

There is a lot of activity going on in the RAAHC. The Library holdings are being progressively digitized, the 18 Pounder Projects continues to participate in commemorative events and Australia's Memorial Walk undergoes further development and maintenance. We have also establishesd our Face Book page which provides regular updates of activities and snap shots of Gunner History. Click on the Face Book Link at the bottom of the left hand column to have look.

Peter Hartup has written a report for this Airburst and you are able to have a look at his work.

The 18 Pounder has been involved in the Kangaroo March recreation at:

GUNNING

GOULBURN

MOSS VALE

The gun and limber also participated in the Manly Council Remembrance Day Ceremony as shown in the photo below.

And finally a visit was made to Willowmavin Primary School in VIC-just near Kilmore not far from Puckapunyal. The kids received us with wild enthusiasm.We still need donations to ensure we can continue to attend events up until 2018. I know many of our members have donated but please consider giving again. Simple really: make an Electronic Funds Transfer to ; BSB 032096 Accnt: 179231 and send and email with your name and address to [email protected] so we can send you a receipt.

Australia's Memorial Walk is undergoing significant restoration with laser engraving being applied to the panels in each of the major walk segments.

There are two Gunner Dinners on the horizon; the National Coral Gunner Dinner in Canberra on 14 May 2016 and the AAA National Gunner Dinner a year later in Caloundra on 27 May 2017. Flyers are contained in this Airburst. More to follow.

Christmas is almost upon us and so on behalf of the Board I would like to wish you all a very Merry Xmas and a Happy New Year.

Ubique,

Ian Ahearn
Deputy Chair
RAAHC

Certificate of Life Membership

Mr Kevin Browning, OAM was recently awarded the Certificate of Life Membership to the Royal Australian Artillery Historical Company by Major General Tim Ford, AO (Retired).

Well done Kevin!

RAAHC LIbrary - by Peter Hartup

The RAAHC Library is to be renamed as the 'Sir Roden Cutler VC Research Centre'. The Centre has settled into its new premises well and we have been getting on with our preservation and digitisation projects.

We have made some acquisitions from the plethora of new publications related to the centenary of the First World War, and more broadly on artillery topics. Recent acquisitions can be seen by clicking here.

Preservation and Digitisation

We have completed transfer of approximately 80 donated photograph albums from unsuitable mountings to quality long-term archival storage media, and will complete scanning these images over the next month or two. This will enable us to open the collection online for assistance from members in captioning individual images.

Our collection of VHS videos has been transferred to DVD. The quality is decidedly variable, but at least the transfer to digital storage means the quality is at least "locked in". Now that we have these videos in a digital format, further conversion to MP4 format for display via artilleryhistory.org is underway. A sample of our output can be viewed by clicking here.

Unfortunately we still have a few Beta and other formats which we could not convert using our own resources. If anyone can help us out, please contact the Library at [email protected].

Periodicals such as Cannonball are being scanned into searchable PDF format and uploaded so that words and phrases can be searched for within the collection. Cannonball issues from number 56 onwards have been uploaded and indexed for searching. This has already paid dividends in our ability to answer some queries away from the Library, improving our response times considerably.

Journals and newsletters from the state and unit associations will be processed progressively. In response to a number of queries we've also scanned and uploaded about 40 maps and plans. You can see a sample by clicking here.

Artillery Register

New South Wales and Tasmania have been fully migrated to our online database, including 2,822 images which have been processed, resized and watermarked with our logo. Phew!

Entries for other states are up there, but images are not (yet).

We have developed a display format, which you can see a sample of here.

The Future

We are nearing the time when we "expose" all this database goodness via artilleryhistory.org. Our webmaster Graham Hampton has done some testing and it looks like this is achievable.

Once this is done, things will really take off as our members will be asked to help out with captioning, and tagging with subject headings.

Can You Help?

The image below is believed to be the January CO/CI Parade in 1968. Can you help us identify any of the participants?

Please provide any information you may have to:

[email protected]. It will be gratefully received!

North Head Anglican Chapel

The Royal Australian Artillery Historical Company (RAAHC) is seeking anyone with knowledge and/or photograph of an Anglican Chapel that may have once existed at North Head.

The Chapel was apparently dedicated to St Charles the Martyr (i.e. King Charles I).

Anyone with information or photographs are requested to contact Mr Kevin Browning , OAM at the RAAHC.

CORAL NATIONAL DINNER
14 May 2015 Canberra

The third CORAL National Gunner Dinner will be held at the Federal Golf Club, Red Hill, Canberra. It is open to all ranks and spouses/partners.

Further detail will be provided.

2017 National Gunner Dinner

Following the success of the Australian Artillery Association's 2014 National Gunner Dinner they have decided to hold another National Gunner Dinner on 27th May 2017 at The Event Centre in Caloundra on the Sunshine Coast of Queensland.

Once again the event is attracting registrations from abroad with UK and NZ registrations now received.

For full details of the dinner along with viewing the list of Registered Attendees Click Here.

Did You Know?

Did You Know: The Gun Salute. The gun salute appears to have originated in the early 14th century and there seems to have been two reasons for it. The first would have been for the making of noise to do honour to the guest. The second was the emptying of guns by firing; this was considered a friendly and trusting gesture, as once fired, the guns could not be easily and quickly reloaded, hence an honour was bestowed upon the visitor. It was a sign that he was trusted and considered an ally. One would assume that all pieces were fired on such occasions and hence the term GUN salute rather than ROUND salute.

Gunners Around the Nation

View the latest Newsletters from various Artillery associations around the nation:

RAA Association Victoria Newsletter - Cascabel

Locating Surveillance and Target Acquisition Association - Newsletter