Ray Simpson (VC)
Rayene Stewart Simpson, (16 February 1926 – 18 October 1978) was an Australian recipient of the Victoria Cross, the highest award for gallantry "in the face of the enemy" that can be awarded to members of the British and Commonwealth armed forces. Simpson received his award for actions in Kon Tum Province, South Vietnam on 6 May 1969. Early life Rayene Stewart Simpson was born on 16 February 1926 at Redfern in Sydney, the third child of New South Wales-born parents Robert William Simpson, labourer, and his wife Olga Maude, née Montgomery. Olga deserted her husband and children about 1931. Ray was separated from his siblings and placed in the Church of England Home for Boys in Carlingford. Educated at a local school and at Dumaresq Island Public School, Taree, he worked as a labourer. Military career Simpson joined the Second Australian Imperial Force on 15 March 1944 and was posted to the 41st/2nd Battalion, a militia battalion that served as a holding unit for soldiers ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Redfern, New South Wales
Redfern is an inner-city suburb of Sydney located 3 kilometres south of the Sydney central business district and is part of the local government area of the City of Sydney. Strawberry Hills is a locality on the border with Surry Hills. The area experienced the process of gentrification and is subject to extensive redevelopment plans by the state government, to increase the population and reduce the concentration of poverty in the suburb and neighbouring Waterloo (see Redfern-Eveleigh-Darlington). History The suburb is named after surgeon William Redfern, who was granted of land in this area in 1817 by Lachlan Macquarie. He built a country house on his property surrounded by flower and kitchen gardens. His neighbours were Captain Cleveland, an officer of the 73rd regiment, who built Cleveland House and John Baptist, who ran a nursery and seed business. Sydney's original railway terminus was built in Cleveland Paddocks and extended from Cleveland Street to Devonshire Street a ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Silver Star
The Silver Star Medal (SSM) is the United States Armed Forces' third-highest military decoration for valor in combat. The Silver Star Medal is awarded primarily to members of the United States Armed Forces for gallantry in action against an enemy of the United States. History The Silver Star Medal (SSM) is the successor award to the "Citation Star" ( silver star) which was established by an Act of Congress on July 9, 1918, during World War I. On July 19, 1932, the Secretary of War approved the conversion of the "Citation Star" to the SSM with the original "Citation Star" incorporated into the center of the medal. Authorization for the Silver Star Medal was placed into law by an Act of Congress for the U.S. Navy on August 7, 1942, and an Act of Congress for the U.S. Army on December 15, 1942. The current statutory authorization for the medal is Title 10 of the United States Code, for the U.S. Army, for the U.S. Navy and U.S. Marine Corps, and for the U.S. Air Force and U.S. ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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26th Battalion (Australia)
The 26th Battalion was an infantry battalion of the Australian Army. Originally raised in April 1915 for service in World War I as part of the Australian Imperial Force (AIF), it was assigned to the 7th Brigade and consisted of personnel recruited from the states of Queensland and Tasmania. The battalion fought at Gallipoli in the latter stages of that campaign before being withdrawn to Egypt in late 1915. In mid-1916, it was sent to Europe where it served in the trenches of the Western Front in France and Belgium for the rest of the war, fighting in most of the battles that the Australians took part in between 1916 and 1918. At the end of the war, it was disbanded in May 1919 as part of the demobilisation of the AIF. During the inter-war years, the 26th Battalion was re-raised as a part-time unit of the Citizens Forces, known as the 26th Battalion (Logan and Albert Regiment), based in Queensland. In 1934, the 26th was merged with another Queensland-based infantry battali ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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2/3rd Pioneer Battalion (Australia)
The 2/3rd Pioneer Battalion was a pioneer battalion of the Australian Army, which served during World War II. Formed in 1940, the battalion served in the Middle East where it fought in Syria and Palestine before taking part in the fighting around El Alamein. In 1943, the battalion returned to Australia and subsequently took part in the fighting against the Japanese in New Guinea in 1943–1944. Their final campaign came in mid-1945, when they took part in the Battle of Tarakan during the Borneo campaign. The battalion was disbanded in early 1946. History The 2/3rd Pioneer Battalion was raised for service during World War II as part of the Second Australian Imperial Force (2nd AIF) in May 1940 and drew the majority of its initial intake of personnel from Sydney, New South Wales. The concept of pioneer battalions had originally been explored by the Australians during World War I, when five such battalions were formed and utilised as support troops assigned at divisional level on ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Cowra, New South Wales
Cowra is a small town in the Central West region of New South Wales, Australia. It is the largest population centre and the council seat for the Cowra Shire, with a population of 9,863. Cowra is located approximately above sea level, on the banks of the Lachlan River, in the Lachlan Valley. By road it is approximately west of the state capital, Sydney, and north of the nation's capital, Canberra. The town is situated at the intersection of three state highways: the Mid-Western Highway, Olympic Highway, and the Lachlan Valley Way. Cowra is included in the rainfall recorder and weather forecast region for the Central West Slopes and Plains division of the Bureau of Meteorology forecasts. History The first European explorer to the area, George William Evans, entered the Lachlan Valley in 1815. He named the area the Oxley Plains after his superior the surveyor-general, John Oxley. In 1817 he deemed the area "rather unfit for settlement". A military depot was established no ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Second Australian Imperial Force
The Second Australian Imperial Force (2nd AIF, or Second AIF) was the name given to the volunteer expeditionary force of the Australian Army in the Second World War. It was formed following the declaration of war on Nazi Germany, with an initial strength of one infantry division and related auxiliary components. After considerable expansion of this force, three divisions were sent to the Middle East and North Africa, while the 8th Division was sent to garrison British Malaya and Singapore. Under the ''Defence Act 1903'', neither the part-time Militia nor the full-time Permanent Military Force (PMF) could serve outside Australia or its territories unless they volunteered to do so. The Second AIF fought against Nazi Germany, Italy, Vichy France and Japan. After the war, Australia's wartime military structures were demobilised and the 2nd AIF was disbanded, although a small cadre of its personnel became part of the Interim Army that was established in 1947, and from which the Austra ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Melbourne University Press
Melbourne University Publishing (MUP) is the book publishing arm of the University of Melbourne. History MUP was founded in 1922 as Melbourne University Press to sell text books and stationery to students, and soon began publishing books itself. Over the years scholarly works published under the MUP imprint have won numerous awards and prizes. The name ''Melbourne University Publishing'' was adopted for the business in 2003 following a restructure by the university, but books continue to be published under the ''Melbourne University Press'' imprint. The Miegunyah Press is an imprint of MUP, established in 1967 under a bequest from businessman and philanthropist Russell Grimwade, with the intention of subsidising the publication of illustrated scholarly works that would otherwise be uneconomic to publish. Grimwade's great-grandnephew Andrew Grimwade is the present patron. ''Miegunyah'' is from an Aboriginal Australian language, meaning "my house". [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Taree, New South Wales
Taree is a town on the Mid North Coast, New South Wales, Australia. Taree and nearby Cundletown were settled in 1831 by William Wynter. Since then Taree has grown to a population of 26,381, and is the centre of a significant agricultural district. It is 16 km from the Tasman Sea coast, and 317 km north of Sydney. Taree can be reached by train via the North Coast railway line, New South Wales, North Coast Railway, and by the Pacific Highway (Australia), Pacific Highway. Taree railway station is on the North Coast railway line, New South Wales, North Coast line of the NSW TrainLink network. It is serviced by six NSW TrainLink trains daily: three heading to Sydney, another three heading North to Grafton, Casino or Brisbane. Taree is within the Local government in Australia, local government area of Mid-Coast Council, the state electorate of Electoral district of Myall Lakes, Myall Lakes and the Federal electorate of Division of Lyne, Lyne. Name The name Taree is derived f ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Carlingford, New South Wales
Carlingford () is a suburb of Sydney, in the state of New South Wales, Australia. Carlingford is 22 kilometres north-west of the Sydney central business district in the local government area of City of Parramatta. Carlingford is in the Hills District and Northern Sydney regions. Carlingford is amongst the middle of three different regions of Sydney. The suburb sits in the north-eastern outskirts of the Greater Western Sydney region and is on the south-eastern outskirts of the Hills District and western outskirts of Northern Sydney. The section of Carlingford east of Pennant Hills Road is considered part of the Northern Sydney region, while the rest of the suburb, west of Pennant Hills Road, is referred to as part of The Hills District. History Aboriginal contact References to Aboriginal people in the Carlingford historical record in the 18th, 19th and into the 20th century remain limited to a handful of third party observations, reinterpreted in modern day. There are ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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South Vietnam
South Vietnam, officially the Republic of Vietnam ( vi, Việt Nam Cộng hòa), was a state in Southeast Asia that existed from 1955 to 1975, the period when the southern portion of Vietnam was a member of the Western Bloc during part of the Cold War after the 1954 division of Vietnam. It first received international recognition in 1949 as the State of Vietnam within the French Union, with its capital at Saigon (renamed to Ho Chi Minh City in 1976), before becoming a republic in 1955. South Vietnam was bordered by North Vietnam to the north, Laos to the northwest, Cambodia to the southwest, and Thailand across the Gulf of Thailand to the southwest. Its sovereignty was recognized by the United States and 87 other nations, though it failed to gain admission into the United Nations as a result of a Soviet veto in 1957. It was succeeded by the Republic of South Vietnam in 1975. The end of the Second World War saw anti-Japanese Việt Minh guerrilla forces, led by communist fi ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |