Two book launches by historians from the AWM were also launched by Cambridge University Press during the conference.
These were given by well-known both individual authors and historians including from the Australian War Memorial, Australian National University, Melbourne University, and Monash University to name a few. Presentations were delivered on the social, political and strategic setting as well as details of the air, land and sea campaigns, several based on the latest research from Japanese archives. Other highlights of the conference included the firsthand account of the loss of HMAS Canberra in August 1942 by veteran Mackenzie Gregory and a special guest speaker from the National Defence Institute of Japan. Its offering of the best historian subject experts in Australia was led by Professor David Horner’s key note presentation ‘1942: A Pivotal Year’. The conference was themed on the 70 th anniversary of the existential threat to Australia in 1942. Survival was the order of the day victory was far from certain.Ī highly successful inaugural biennial MHHV conference In the Shadow of War – Australia 1942 kicked off Military History and Heritage Week. In the air, on land, at sea and on the home front, Australia was hard-pressed. Melbourne was the Headquarters of the war effort, but the frontlines were right in Australian territory, towns and cities. The victorious Japanese forces had swept right up to Australian territory and the very lifeline of the Pacific supply route with the United States was directly threatened. In 1942 Australia lay in the shadow of war, a shadow on its very doorstep.