Tiger-pie

I was a suspect about it, the colour of the enameling, the very dodgy looking badge on the front, thanks for confirming my suspisions Mike. Regards; Johnsy

Can anyone identify this, is it real? I not sure of its origin, so I thought I would start with the political section as it does not appear to be military. This is the only picture I have. Regards; Johnsy

A couple of Aussie types.

There has been much discussion among various militaries about adopting PDW's (Personal Defence Weapons) for certain branches where a full size assault rifle is not necessary. Some of them are very impressive looking little units, and have a far greater range and dropping power over an SMG. The M7 the Germans are producing looks the best, more conventional than the FN P90. I believe the Yanks are looking to adopt a type that is .45 cal for better dropping power. I think it is an interesting direction in the path of weapons development and usage. With regards to assault rifles, I have tried the M4 and it is poorly balanced when unslung. I wasn't very impressed with it overall. I really liked the Steyr, good balance, the carbine (short barrel) version is good, but you need to wear nomex gloves or you get flash-burns. It is a very accurate rifle. I originally trained on the SLR, which I still like for hitting power. We had two versions, the semi-auto rifle which became unbearably hot after about 100 rounds and the heavy barrelled automatic rifle (AR). I have handled the SA80 when I cross-decked onto a Pommy ship, but never got to fire it so I can't really comment on its performance. Regards; Johnsy

Examples of craft work done by interned Germans. Ummm...can't remember what the rock was there for... Regards Johnsy

Can't really add much more info other than it was a pre-war organisation with some of the members interned for the duration of the war. Regards; Johnsy

VC biscuit brown. Sorry about the quality of the photos, but this was displayed about a foot or so above my head height. It has "VC URIE 1915" written on it.

Scratch built VC, not sure if it was made in the field or not for an actual recipient. Not a bad bit of workmanship all the same.

Hi all Well I looked it up, and I knew there was some sort of process to do with trace elements. It is a process called gold fingerprinting and it was developed at Curtin University in Western Australia to trace stolen gold back to its original mine. The technology works by identifying the unique signature of each piece of gold, similar to human DNA. If you want to check it out for yourselves, just do a search using the term gold fingerprinting. There are various methods, Curtin Uni's method is only one of many. As far as mercury is concerned, it is used to extract gold. This process was used in extracting gold prior to Western society realising how toxic mercury was to the enviroment. It would also be safe to say that any old gold that the Swiss may have have been extracted using the mercury method, thus the content would be higher than gold mined post-war. The method is still used in third world countires, mainly South America and Africa. This is known as the mercury amalgamation method, and is/was also used for extraction of silver. Regards; Johnsy

G'da Gordon; This could probably be easily put to rest by a real expert, but conclusions with no controversy in a TV program don't sell air-time. Regards; Johnsy PS: Definition of an expert as explained to me by one of my Chiefs when I was a young AB. Expert: x is the unknown factor, spurt is a drip under pressure.

Sounds like bull to me. If you smelt gold then the mercury would "evaporate" off, surely. I know that they used to use mercury to give gold a deep lustre, so wouldn't the colour be a give-away? I will look into it, but as far as I am aware they can tell from trace mineral elements where the gold has originated from i.e. wether it is from Australia or South Africa. Regards; Johnsy

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Komet view 1

J.E. Newland VC.

R.V. "Mick" Moon VC

Sir Ross Macpherson Smith was Australia's most highly decorated airman during WW1. Initially he served in the Light Horse before transferring to the Australian Flying Corps.

Unknown DSO and SA medal.

Private W. Learoyd of the ambulance corps of the NSW Sudan contingent appears to be the first Aussie soldier to become a battle casualty when he and two other men where wounded near Tamai shortly after their arrival in Suakin. He later served in the South African war.

Albert Roberts MC. Was a Major with M Special Unit who operated in Japanese occupied New Britain. Dropped from an American submarine in September 1943 Roberts organised an itelligence network among the local population. Robert's guerillas rescued four American airmen who had been shot down.

Thomas Anderson 2/29th Battalion, aged 17, posted missing Febuary 1942, Malaya. A larrikin, often absent without leave, he was regarded as a good soldier. His fate was unknown. My great-uncle Aubrey Rickard fought in this unit, and I wonder if they knew each other. Aubrey was killed in Bukit Temuh Road on the 11th of Febuary a few days before the surrender of Singapore.

Robert Kelly. Commander of two medical contingents sent from New South Wales during the Boar War.

Walter Henry Frame DSC MM and Bar

Private Starkey DCM One of the first Australian soldiers to be decorated in war and was later selected to attend the coronation of King Edward VII in 1901.

Chauvel contd.

General Sir Harry Chauvel.