Canberra – Day 4

Today we spent the entire day at the war museum. What a fabulous display. I think its one of the best museums in the world! It starts will the first world war. There are models of most of the great battles that took place. Amazing stuff. I over heard a tour guide say that each model man cost $20,000 to make cast in bronze and is very life-like. The scenes include topography, buildings, equipment, trees (or what was left of them) and machinery. He also mentioned he had an old guy through a few years back who said he remembered that scene, and started to rattle off the names of the officers in the scene. It appears that all of the scenes have been re-created from original photos.

The WWII section was even larger. Huge tanks, planes and so forth. There was a room that you entered that had a checker plate metal floor and it simulated a bomber taking off with a darkened room shaped like the insides of a plane. The screen in front played the visual footage of what the pilots saw, and then a glass screen in the floor acted like the bomb bay and opened up and then you could see the footage under the same plane. Meanwhile the speakers were playing the sounds of the engines very loudly as it would have sounded if you were a passenger, and the whole floor was vibrating as if you really were inside the plane. Really well done.

The next section was the medals section where 63 of the Victoria Crosses earned by Australian’s were displayed. Apparently the largest public collection on display in the world. Apparently the latest recipients’ VC was on its way, they were still trying to work out how to secure it properly and make a properly secure case.

Apparently they are all made out of a captured war item held in England and made up on request by the same jeweller in London each time one is awarded. Although this latest one is the first one that has been awarded since we changed over from the British system. So its not officially called a VC anymore, but is still equal to it.

We stopped for a nice lunch in the Outpost Café and continued on to the magnificent extension done to the war museum where all the large aeroplanes are kept. Steve said he made models up as a kid of most of these planes. He said the best two planes in the display were the two Messerschmitt 262 (jet) and 163 (rocket glider) both from 1945. Its amazing technology for more than 60 years ago! Still current technology in Australian aviation. That’s the most amazing part! The other item in this room was the submarine that was blown up in Sydney harbour. It had a huge chunk peeled out of it and was hanging from the wall.

Also in this room there were 3 different movies show every hour; 15 minutes past and 30 minutes past the hour. I saw 2 of the three and they were really impressive.

So after finishing this level we moved down below to the bottom floor which held the 1945 – current wars, the Boer War and special exhibit which was the last year of WWI. The current section wad really interesting. The entrance held a jeep type vehicle from the current wars that was made of fibreglass and metal. It was on display with all its garb intact, as it had driven over a landmine and had the front passenger side underside ripped out. Apparently all occupants were unscathed. The vehicle was a write off.

Inside was the Korean War. Interesting in that section was a 16 year old boy they found wandering around lost in the war. They trained him up to assist in the hospital base and later arranged for his immigration to Australia when the war was over. He was the first Korean to immigrate to Australia after the war and won much recognition for his service to the RSL and war veterans. He died in 2006.

The Vietnam war was next. The real helicopter they had sitting in a grassy field looked quite in the setting you’d imagine for this war. There were two large screens either side of it and it played footage of the helicopters flying in and dropping off personnel and taking off again. During the footage they reinacted the sounds of the events by playing the sounds of the engine again, and also blowing air around the room as if you were both on the chopper and also when it was landing. It was quite life like. You really felt like you were there!

The Peacecorp was the last section where they had the 4 peacekeeping missions that Australians were involved in as well as Wars in Afghanistan and Iraq; Rowanda, Somalia, East Timor and Sudan? (can’t remember the last one). They had Major General Peter Cosgrove’s most prized possession, his slouch hat, a captured sudam hussein’s personal weapon collection of a gold plated machine gun and several captured East Timorese hand made weapons that were apparently more dangerous to the people using them than who they were firing at!

It was really interesting. It still appears that Peace is unobtainable in this museum as their final quote reveals.

It was a great day and we thoroughly enjoyed our time in this place. We finished with a walk around the wall of honour. We also viewed the unnamed soldier’s grave inside the memorial. We walked to the end and saw the last entry including the Afghanistan and Iraq wars and noticed the more famous name of Private Covco is mentioned.