PHG Blog

There were two attempts at turning the ship into a museum, but neither measure was successful. A storm later set the ship adrift, where she settled in the mud. In 1973, the bow and stern sections were removed and set as memorial pieces, and the rest of the ship remains as a wreck near Milson Island.

I have not read every book on the First World War; nobody has or ever could. There are tens of thousands of works written on the subject. The WW1 Museum and Memorial in Kansas City lists over 1,100 titles in English on their website.

Australia sent over 416,000 men to fight in the First World War, out of a population of less than 5 million people. Over 60,000 were killed and 125,000 wounded from Rabaul to Gallipoli, and Kut to Flanders.

My favorite bit, however, was in the basement; the only First World War German tank in existence, Mephisto. This is an A7V tank, one of 20 produced by Germany during the Great War. It was brought to Australia in 1919, and has been in the Queensland Museum's ever since.

No matter where you may find yourself in the world, chances are you are not very far from a memorial to those lost in the First World War; perhaps a battlefield marker, or a monument to some event or person. From Mons to Micronesia, Namibia to New Jersey, Dublin to Donbass, the First World War shaped the 20th century, and continues to affect us today.

This week we mark the anniversary of the very first seaborne airstrikes in history, which took place near Tsingtao, China, during the...