Papua New Guinea WW2 History Cruise

Dr Karl James has been a historian at the Australian War Memorial, Canberra, since 2006, and has been Head of the Military History Section from May 2019.

A graduate of the University of Wollongong, his research focuses on Australia’s involvement in the Second World War. His publications include Kokoda: Beyond the Legend (editor), Double Diamonds: Australian Commandos in the Pacific War, 1941–45 and The Hard Slog: Australians in the Bougainville Campaign, 1944-45. He is a member of the editorial staff for the Memorial’s magazine Wartime.

He has worked on major exhibitions at the Memorial, including as lead curator for From the Shadows: Australia’s Special Forces (2017–18), the special anniversary exhibition Rats of Tobruk, 1941 (2011), and the refurbishment of the permanent Second World War Galleries (2010).

Dr James is currently working with Professor Peter Dean on the edited volume Australia in the Second World War. Dr James is also writing a new history of the 1941 siege of Tobruk and a popular history of the operations of HMAS Sydney’s (III) Carrier Air Group in 1951–52 during the Korean War.

Gary McKay spent 30 years as an army officer after being conscripted for national service in 1968. He served in South Vietnam in 1971 as an infantry rifle platoon commander where he was awarded the Military Cross for gallantry and severely wounded in the last major Australian battle of the Vietnam War.

In 1987 Gary’s best-selling autobiography In Good Company was released and he began what is now a full-time career as a non-fiction writer and freelance historian. He is Australia’s most prolific writer on the subject of the Vietnam War having released 12 books with Allen & Unwin. Two of his latest, Australia’s Battlefields in Vietnam and Going Back have been highly acclaimed by veterans who have returned to Vietnam and those wanting to see where Australia fought during the war. Gary has also travelled widely in the Pacific doing research and leading battlefield tours in Papua New Guinea and the Solomon Islands.

David Howell is a Melbourne-based historian, author and tour guide. Growing up with the stories of the war in New Guinea by his grandfather, David has made over 50 crossings of the famous Kokoda Track along with visiting most of the major battlefields in Papua New Guinea.

David spent the last five years working at the Shrine of Remembrance, the national war memorial of Victoria where he created their journal, Remembrance.He is a serving member of the Army Reserve and has deployed on peacekeeping operations. David is also the Hon. Secretary of the 39th Australian Infantry Battalion.

Peter Dean is Professor of War Studies and Pro Vice-Chancellor (Education) at the University of Western Australia. His research interests are Australian military history – focussing on the Pacific War, Australian strategic policy, and the ANZUS Alliance. Peter’s books on this topic, include MacArthur’s Coalition: US and Australian Military Operations in the Southwest Pacific Area, 1942-1945 (published 2018), and a three volume series on Australia in the Pacific War (Australia 1942: In the Shadow of War; Australia 1943: The Liberation of New Guinea; Australia 1944-45: Victory in the Pacific). His next book will discuss Australian military and amphibious warfare in the Pacific. He is also involved with the Melbourne University Press Defence Studies Series, the peer-reviewed journal – Global War Studies, and the Australian Army Journal.

Keiko Tamura is a Japanese born anthropologist/historian whose research focuses on Australia-Japan relations. She worked for the Australia-Japan Research Project at the Australian War Memorial for twelve years, looking into war experiences of the Australian and Japanese soldiers in New Guinea and surrounding islands.  Between 2014 and 2018, she was research advisor to the Japanese government for an archival study to locate Japanese soldiers’ remains in the Pacific. Her research topics include Japanese military nurses in Rabaul, Japanese war brides, and memories of war and commemorations. She also led the Cowra Japanese War Cemetery Database Project, launched in May 2019.

Chris Masters is one of Australia’s best-known, most successful and most influential investigative journalists – inducted into the Australian Media Hall of Fame in 2017. He retains the record of longest serving reporter on Australia’s longest running current affairs program, Four Corners. Over 25 years he made a series of nation shaping reports, among them The Moonlight State, investigating police corruption in Queensland which helped trigger the Fitzgerald Inquiry and reforms across Australia. He has received multiple awards including the premier Gold Walkley for his international expose of the sinking of the Rainbow Warrior, and is the author of five best-selling books.