17th September 1945: Soldiers of the Australian 2/31st Battalion pass through Bandjermasin in Borneo as they take responsibility for the island after the surrender of Japan in the Second World War. It was reported they were given an enthusiastic welcome by the locals.
The island of Borneo was under Japanese occupation from the end of 1941. Bandjermasin is now part of Indonesia.
From the collection of the Australian War Memorial, Canberra.
This photograph, showing smoke and fire drifting across Tower Bridge and the River Thames in London after a German bombing raid, was taken on the 7th of September, 1940.
This was the first major Nazi attack on the city in the Second World War.
Troops of the Australian 7th Brigade (Australian 2nd Division) pass the former German bunker known as “Gibraltar” in Pozières, France on the 28th of August, 1916.
The Battle of Pozières was part of the larger Battle of the Somme, which claimed around a million casualties. Pozières marked a victory against the German Empire for Australia, with the help of British troops. First World War.
From the collection of the Australian War Memorial, Canberra.
Here’s a picture of “baby ballerina” Suzanne Farrell of New York City Ballet, mid-pirouette while on tour in Amsterdam fifty-four years ago. 25th August 1965.
Farrell’s autobiography is Holding On to the Air.
24th August 1991: Shortly before the collapse of the Soviet Union, people gather in Kyiv, Ukraine to demonstrate in favour of independence. The sign reads, “Ukraine is leaving the USSR”.
Demonstrations for freedom from Moscow broke out across the USSR in 1991. Some were violently crushed by the Soviet Army, on instructions from the communist government, resulting in civilian deaths.
Freed Korean “Comfort Women” – women forced to work as sex slaves for the Empire of Japan during the Second World War – talk to US soldiers in a photograph dated the 14th of August, 1944.
It is estimated that hundreds of thousands of women from Asia, as well as several hundred from the Netherlands and Australia, were treated this way.
Here is the official caption of the photograph:
“Three Korean “comfort girls” (captured in Burma), photographed while being interrogated by Capt. Won Loy Chan (San Francisco, California), Tech. Sgt. Robert Honda (Hawaii) and Sgt. Hirabayashi (Seattle, Washington), all of the G-2 Myitkyina Task Force of the U.S. Army.”
10th August 1916: Australian infantry soldiers march towards their rest billet after fighting in the Battle of Pozières – part of the much larger First World War Battle of the Somme in France.
The Battle of Pozières, where Empire forces from Britain and Australia fought the Germans, resulted in a British victory.
The Brigade suffered 1898 casualties in the fighting between 25th of July and the 7th of August. Australian war historian Charles Bean wrote that Pozières ridge “is more densely sown with Australian sacrifice than any other place on earth”.
From the collection of the Australian War Memorial, Canberra.
