Australian Peacekeeper and Peacemaker Veterans’ Association Ltd

31/10/2026

On 14 September 1947, Republican officers at Yogyakarta in Java welcomed four Australian military observers. Brigadier Lewis D**e and Major David Campbell were Army. Commander Henry Chesterman was Royal Australian Navy. Wing Commander Lou Spence was RAAF.

Their job was to watch a ceasefire between Dutch and Indonesian Republican forces and report breaches to the United Nations Consular Commission in Batavia (now Jakarta). The Australians reached Java first. They were out in the field reporting while the Commission was still waiting for the other nations’ observers to arrive. The Australian War Memorial calls them probably the first UN peacekeepers anywhere in the world.

The paperwork that sent them was 22 months old. On 1 November 1945, 81 years ago today, Australia ratified the Charter of the United Nations.

Spence was invalided home within weeks. Three years later he was killed in Korea commanding No. 77 Squadron.

Four observers went in 1947. In 1999 Australia sent more than 5,500 peacekeepers to East Timor. Thousands more served in between, in Kashmir, Cyprus, Cambodia and Somalia.

Which mission was yours? Tell us where and when.

31/10/2026

On the night of 31 October 1956, in the Red Sea south of Suez, the cruiser HMS Newfoundland ordered a darkened ship to heave to. She was the Egyptian frigate Domiat.

Domiat refused and opened fire with her 4-inch guns.

Newfoundland and the destroyer HMS Diana answered, and Domiat went down. British and French aircraft had begun striking Egyptian airfields that same day.

One Egyptian shell wrecked Newfoundland's pay office.

Midshipman (Supply) Kelvin Gulliver, Royal Australian Navy (RAN), normally worked there. At action stations he was in the emergency cypher team, decoding classified signals.

He'd joined the Naval College at 15, three years earlier.

Gulliver was one of 13 RAN officers and midshipmen serving in Royal Navy ships during Operation Musketeer.

Canberra committed no forces, but it didn't bring them home either. They were ordered to hide their nationality.

In practice that meant swapping the brass "Australia" buttons on their uniforms for Royal Navy ones. With little notice, and most of them in working rig, few probably did.

The 13 were spread through the fleet: the carriers Eagle, Albion and Bulwark, the cruisers Jamaica and Ceylon, destroyers, and the command and minesweeping ships off Port Said. Lieutenant Ian MacGregor, of HMS Ceylon, died eight years later when HMAS Voyager sank on 10 February 1964. Gulliver served on, through Vietnam, and retired a Commodore.

Domiat had started life as HMS Nith, a Royal Navy frigate sold to Egypt in 1948. Newfoundland and Diana pulled 69 of her crew from the water.

Within weeks the United Nations sent in UNEF, its first armed peacekeeping force, to stand between the armies. Much of modern peacekeeping traces back to that deployment.

29/10/2026

Fifteen years ago today, an Afghan soldier opened fire on a parade at Sorkh Bed, Afghanistan, and killed three Australians.

Lance Corporal Luke Gavin, 29, 2RAR.
Corporal Ashley Birt, 22, 1st Topographical Survey Squadron.
Captain Bryce Duffy, 26, 4th Field Regiment.

Their full story is in our post from this morning. Read it, and say their names.

If today is heavy, Open Arms is there 24/7 on 1800 011 046.

Rest easy, Luke. Rest easy, Ashley. Rest easy, Bryce.
Lest we forget.

28/10/2026

Saturday morning at a patrol base called Sorkh Bed. The parade has just been dismissed.

Hundreds of Afghan soldiers stand on the ground with the Australians who mentor them. Men are talking. A sergeant just back from picket is still in his body armour.

Among the Australians are a 2RAR lance corporal and a sapper from Gympie. A gunner captain who volunteered for this tour is there too.

Fifteen years ago today, 29 October 2011, an Afghan soldier opened fire on them and killed three Australians of Mentoring Task Force Three.

Lance Corporal Luke Gavin was 29. Before the Army he was an assistant manager at a Crazy John’s phone store. He joined 2RAR in Townsville and served three tours of East Timor. In Afghanistan he was the bloke who could patch a wound as a combat first aider and talk to the Afghans in Pashtu. The Army remembered a soldier whose men took their lead from his professionalism and mateship, and a devoted husband and father of three.

Corporal Ashley Birt was 22, from Gympie. He followed his big brother into the Army and became a geospatial technician with 1st Topographical Survey Squadron, the sapper who builds the maps soldiers work from. The year before, he’d served in Solomon Islands. He had been at Sorkh Bed for four days. The Army’s farewell described a larrikin who was always smiling and played hockey at the highest levels.

Captain Bryce Duffy was 26, an artillery officer from 4th Field Regiment. He was a forward observer, the man who calls in the guns and the aircraft. He’d already done one tour of Uruzgan in 2010. When the forward observer with Combat Team Charlie was wounded, Bryce volunteered to take his place. His mates called him Duff Man. His sister said he bled green.

The gunfire also killed an Afghan interpreter and wounded seven more Australians. Australian soldiers returned fire and killed the gunman.

Then came the work of keeping people alive.

The medic had been shot in the knee. He crawled between the wounded anyway, sorting who needed help first. Younger diggers ran in from a nearby compound and went to work on their mates. Sergeant Robert Althofer, Luke’s section commander and his mate through two East Timor tours, was among the wounded. The helicopters took them to Tarin Kowt.

In Robert’s words: “Everyone who survived that day was lucky.” He has also said the war ending doesn’t mean the hurting has.

Fifteen years on, many who stood on that parade ground still carry it. If it’s heavy this week, reach out to a mate, or to the numbers in the comments.

Their three names sit on the Roll of Honour in Canberra. Today, we say them out loud.

Photos © Commonwealth of Australia (Department of Defence), with links to their stories in the first comment.

Rest easy, Luke.
Rest easy, Ashley.
Rest easy, Bryce.
We remember you, and the interpreter who died beside you.

Lest we forget.

Rod Hutchings
Australian Peacekeeper and Peacemaker Veterans Association

28/10/2026

Thirty-five years ago today, five Air Force aviators were killed on a training flight off the Victorian coast: Squadron Leader Mark Lewin, Flight Lieutenants Tim Ellis and Mark Duncan, and Warrant Officers Jon Fawcett and Al Gwynne.

They died preparing for work they might one day be called on to do. Every service has lost people this way, and their families carry it the same as any other loss in service.

Australia still has no national memorial to the ADF members who have died in training. APPVA is building one, the Australian Military Training Memorial, approved for Anzac Parade in Canberra.

Today we remember the crew of Windsor 380, and every family who has lost someone in training. Lest we forget

28/10/2026

27/10/2026

A Port Augusta officer joined his battalion on 2 October 1970.
Twenty-five days later, two patrols from his own company met in the jungle.

Second Lieutenant Rex William Davies died that day, 27 October 1970. He was 25.

Fifty-six years ago today.

Rex was born in Port Augusta on 2 February 1945. After that, the records we hold go quiet. They don’t tell us what work he did before the Army, or who was waiting for him at home.

He landed in South Vietnam on 10 September 1970. He spent three weeks at 1st Australian Reinforcement Unit, the holding unit that sent new men out to the battalions. On 2 October he joined A Company, 7th Battalion, The Royal Australian Regiment. 7RAR was on its second tour (the first had been 1967 to 1968).

A second lieutenant is the most junior officer rank. Rex had held his for a short time, and he’d been with his men for less than four weeks.

On 27 October, patrols from 2 Platoon and 3 Platoon of A Company were out in the same area. Same company, same side.

They met. Rex died in the clash.

Two other men were wounded. One was a sapper from the small engineer team attached to the company to deal with mines and b***y traps.

The battalion’s second-in-command led a formal investigation. He found the cause was a navigation error.

That finding is hard to read. It was harder to live with. Nobody on either patrol meant harm to a mate.

If you were there, this post asks nothing of you. We remember Rex, and we hold you in that remembering too.

Rex served 48 days in Vietnam.

His name is on Panel 5 of the Roll of Honour at the Australian War Memorial. In the early hours of 16 November, it’s due to be projected onto the Hall of Memory in Canberra. One name, lit in the dark.

If you served with A Company 7RAR in 1970, sappers included, we’d be glad to hear from you. The same goes for anyone who knew Rex in Port Augusta, or trained beside him as an officer cadet.

Rest easy, Rex.
We remember you.
Lest we forget.

Rod Hutchings
Australian Peacekeeper and Peacemaker Veterans Association

26/10/2026

A copy of Army newspaper lies on a classroom desk at Metinaro.
Beside it, a name card: Damaso BELO.

At the front of the room, an Australian officer is teaching English to new Timorese recruits.

She is Captain Nileshni Karan of the Australian Training Support Team.

The photo was taken in April 2002. The Australian War Memorial records Damaso Belo as a former pro-independence guerrilla fighter. He may be the man seated by the wall.

Twenty-five years ago today, on 26 October 2001, the first battalion of the East Timor Defence Force was formally inaugurated. At the same ceremony, the Australian-built training centre at Metinaro, about 32 km east of Dili, was handed over to the people of East Timor. Australia’s Chief of the Defence Force, Admiral Chris Barrie, was among the guests.

The battalion was 600 strong. The new force was built around former fighters of Falintil, the guerrilla army of the independence struggle.

Portugal ran their 12-week basic course at Aileu, and 250 recruits had finished it by June. Australia ran the specialist training. On inauguration day the other 350 were still in basic training at Metinaro.

Thirty-two of the first graduates were already instructing them.

The Army’s 19th Chief Engineer Works managed the construction. By April 2002, 28 ADF members were working with the new force on weapons and communications training. Captain Karan’s English classes belonged to the same program, along with advice on budgets and strategic planning. Australian and New Zealand officers helped run the camp.

Malcolm Wells led Australia’s first training team in 2001, while the country’s first military base was still being built. He went back to Dili in September 2025 as a brigadier and said he was struck by how far the force had grown since then.

Early in 2002 the battalion moved east to Lospalos. East Timor became an independent nation on 20 May 2002.

Many in our community served in East Timor with INTERFET and UNTAET. Others stood in those classrooms and on those building sites. This anniversary belongs to both.

The force that battalion started is now the F-FDTL, Timor-Leste’s defence force. Every September its soldiers and ours still meet for the Xanana-Cosgrove Shield.

Lest we forget.

Rod Hutchings
Australian Peacekeeper and Peacemaker Veterans Association

Photo: Captain Nileshni Karan conducts an English lesson for ETDF recruits at Metinaro, April 2002. John Immig, Australian War Memorial P04862.015.

25/10/2026

At Aidabasalala, soldiers of 6 RAR stacked sandbags and established defensive positions along East Timor's troubled western border.

On 25 October 2000, responsibility for that border passed to another Australian battalion.

The 1st Battalion, Royal Australian Regiment (1 RAR) Battalion Group, commanded by Lieutenant Colonel John Caligari, relieved 6 RAR under Operation Tanager, Australia's contribution to the United Nations Transitional Administration in East Timor (UNTAET).

The handover marked the beginning of another six months of Australian peacekeeping in an area where armed militia incursions remained a threat.

Operating across an area known as AO Matilda, 1 RAR took responsibility for protecting communities along the border with Indonesian West Timor.

Patrols were dispersed across a large area. Much of the responsibility fell to junior non-commissioned officers commanding small groups of soldiers, often operating considerable distances from their headquarters.

Behind those patrols stood a battalion group drawn from 15 specialist elements, including armour, engineers, signals, medical, logistics and aviation personnel.

Their work extended beyond security operations.

Civil Military Affairs teams worked with East Timorese communities, United Nations personnel and humanitarian organisations to restore services, assist displaced families and support the country's recovery.

For those rotating home with 6 RAR, the handover brought an end to six demanding months. For the arriving members of 1 RAR and its supporting units, the responsibility was beginning.

The battalion group's deployment continued until 25 April 2001, when 4 RAR assumed responsibility.

Today, 26 years later, we recognise those who served during both rotations, including the infantry patrols, support personnel and headquarters staff whose work sustained Australia's commitment to peace and security in East Timor.

Were you among those who served with 6 RAR, 1 RAR or their supporting elements during Operation Tanager? We would welcome your memories of the handover, the border patrols and the East Timorese communities you came to know.

25/10/2026

In a communications room in Dili, Australian and Pakistani officers stood beside a map of East Timor.

Their work was part of a much larger United Nations mission. One that had to maintain security while helping a nation prepare to govern itself.

On 25 October 1999, 27 years ago today, the United Nations Security Council unanimously adopted Resolution 1272, establishing the United Nations Transitional Administration in East Timor (UNTAET).

East Timor was recovering from the violence and destruction that followed its August 1999 vote for independence. The Australian-led INTERFET force had deployed in September to restore security and support humanitarian assistance.

UNTAET was given an extraordinary responsibility. It would temporarily administer the territory, maintain law and order, coordinate relief, restore essential services and help establish the institutions needed for independence.

This required people with very different skills.

Military peacekeepers maintained security and protected vulnerable communities. United Nations police officers supported law and order. Engineers helped repair damaged infrastructure. Communications specialists connected headquarters and units across the territory.

Civilian personnel worked alongside East Timorese counterparts to rebuild public administration, develop justice institutions and prepare for elections.

Australia's military contribution to UNTAET began in February 2000 under Operation Tanager. It included an infantry battalion group, communications specialists, headquarters staff and logistics personnel.

Australian Federal Police officers also formed part of the story. About ten officers who had served with the earlier UNAMET mission returned with INTERFET and subsequently transitioned into UNTAET's policing work.

The accompanying photograph, taken in April 2002, captures three of the people involved.

Major David Jeffery, Australia's Deputy Force Communications Officer, stands alongside Major Ali Farhan, Communications Equipment Manager with the Pakistani Army, and another Pakistani officer at UNTAET Peacekeeping Force Headquarters in Dili.

Their work illustrates the cooperation required to sustain a multinational mission. Reliable communications allowed people from different countries and services to coordinate operations across East Timor.

On 20 May 2002, East Timor became the independent Democratic Republic of Timor-Leste.

Today, we recognise the Australian military, police and civilian personnel who served with UNTAET, their international colleagues, and the East Timorese people who worked to rebuild their country.

Did you serve with UNTAET, Operation Tanager or one of the missions that preceded it? We welcome your photographs and recollections of the people you worked alongside.

Rod Hutchings
Australian Peacekeeper and Peacemaker Veterans Association