Academic literature on the topic 'Brigadier slew'

Celem artykułu analiza i ocena realizacji zadań przez 1 Pomorską Brygadę Logistyczną z Bydgoszczy ze szczególnym uwzględnieniem wykonywanych funkcji w ramach współpracy międzynarodowej w aspekcie zapewnienia bezpieczeństwa logistycznego Sił Zbrojnych RP. Skutkiem tak określonego celu jest stwierdzenie, że podmiotem badań jest jednostka wojskowa systemu zabezpieczania logistycznego SZ RP, a przedmiotem wybrane zadania jakie były przez nią wykonywane w latach 2015-2021 w rejonie odpowiedzialności oraz miejscu pełnienia funkcji Narodowego Elementu Wsparcia (NSE) dla pododdziałów. Zasadniczym problemem badawczym jest udzielenie odpowiedzi na pytanie- jaka jest rola 1 BLog w systemie zabezpieczenia logistycznego SZ RP oraz jak realizowane przez nią zadania wpływają na bezpieczeństwo logistyczne SZ RP? Do rozwiązania problemu badawczego zostały wykorzystane różne metody badawcze m. in. obserwacje, synteza, dedukcja oraz metody graficzne przedstawienia danych.. Hipoteza badawcza: Analiza i ocena zadań realizowanych przez 1 BLog pozwala na potwierdzenie, że jest ona kluczowym ogniwem w systemie wsparcia logistycznego Sił Zbrojnych RP. Artykuł składa się z dwóch zasadniczych części. W celu przybliżenia czytelnikowi specyfiki jednostki, w pierwszej części, ogólnie omówiono misję, możliwości oraz strukturę brygady. W części drugiej szczegółowo opisano jej rolę w zakresie realizacji zobowiązań sojuszniczych. Przedstawiono sposób zabezpieczenia logistycznego Polskich Kontyngentów Wojskowych (PKW) oraz na przykładzie ćwiczenia międzynarodowego pod kryptonimem TRIDENT JUNCTURE 2015 zobrazowano wsparcie pododdziałów wydzielanych w ramach Sił Odpowiedzi NATO. Analiza danych oraz doświadczenia własne pozwoliły na sformułowanie wniosków w ramach których określono 1 BLog jako istotne ogniwo realizacji zadań zabezpieczenia logistycznego na rzecz SZ RP.

The revelation of the engineering handling of the death case of Police Brigadier Nofriansyah Yosua Hutabarat has had an impact on raising other issues related to unprofessionalism within the Indonesian National Police such as the issue of the 303 gambling consortium, drugs, promotions associated with factions within the POLRI, luxury lifestyle, case transactions and so on The public considers that unprofessionalism within the Indonesian National Police does not only occur with individual members of the police but is already "institutionalized", the slow handling of the murder case of Police Brigadier Nofriansyah Yosua Hutabarat is suspected of having a tug-of-war of interests is an example of "institutionalized" unprofessionalism, even though this case has received attention from the President and Menkopolhukam. The regulation of some of Kompolnas' repressive powers in Presidential Regulation Number 17 of 2011 gave rise to new legal norms that increase Kompolnas' authority, this becomes out of sync and harmony with Kompolnas'.Reform of the external oversight system at the Indonesian National Police is a must by rearranging the system of recruitment, education and career paths for Polri members and officials as well as strengthening the existence of external oversight institutions (both preventive and repressive in nature) and their authority attached to Kompolnas as The National Police Agency through the revision of Law Number 2 of 2002 concerning the Indonesian National Police

Efektywne zabezpieczenie logistyczne wojsk, wymaga posiadania odpowiedniego potencjału. Planowane do użycia siły i środki muszą zostać tak skalkulowane, aby w każdych warunkach usługi logistyczne, a w tym dostawy środków bojowych i materiałowych docierały w odpowiednie miejsce, w odpowiednim czasie oraz w odpowiedniej ilości i jakości. W 1999 roku, w odpowiedzi na wyzywania współczesnej logistyki wojskowej powstała 10 Opolska Brygada Logistyczna. Była to pierwsza w Wojsku Polskim jednostka wojskowa, przeznaczona do wsparcia logistycznego Polskich Jednostek Wojskowych wykonujących zadania w kraju i poza jego granicami. Autor postawił na wstępie hipotezę, że najprawdopodobniej 10 Opolska Brygada Logistyczna odegrała znaczącą rolę w aspekcie realizowanych zadań zabezpieczenia logistycznego Sił Zbrojnych Rzeczypospolitej Polskiej. W toku prowadzonych badań hipoteza ta została zweryfikowana pomyślnie. Celem artykułu było również znalezienie odpowiedzi na pytanie czy podjęte w 1999 roku rozwiązanie organizacyjne utworzenia 10 Opolskiej Brygady Logistycznej sprawdziło się w aspekcie realizowanych zadań zabezpieczenia logistycznego Sił Zbrojnych. Cel główny został zrealizowany poprzez przedstawienie 10 Opolskiej Brygady Logistycznej, jej roli i przeznaczenia, aktualnie posiadanego potencjału oraz głównych zadań realizowanych w kraju jak i w misjach poza jego granicami na rzecz Polskich Kontyngentów Wojskowych. Ukazano również wysiłek brygady włożony we wsparcie administracji publicznej w walkę z pandemią koronawirusa SARS-CoV-2 oraz współpracę w tym obszarze i wsparcie logistyczne jednostek wojsk operacyjnych oraz innych służb mundurowych. Podjęcie tej problematyki wynikało z potrzeby uzupełnienia wąskiego katalogu dostępnych opracowań na temat funkcjonowania opolskiej jednostki. Do przeprowadzenia badań wykorzystano literaturę oraz dokonano analizy aktualnych danych uzyskanych z poszczególnych sekcji Pionu Logistyki, Szefa Sztabu oraz Pionu Szkolenia 10 Opolskiej Brygady Logistycznej.

The change in the value of the breaking energy is discussed here for selected steel grades used in building structures after subjecting the samples made of them to episodes of heating in the steady-state heating regime and then cooling in simulated fire conditions. These changes were recorded based on the instrumented Charpy impact tests, in relation to the material initial state. The S355J2+N, 1H18N9T steels and also X2CrNiMoN22-5-3 duplex steel were selected for detailed analysis. The fire conditions were modelled experimentally by heating the samples and then keeping them for a specified time at a constant temperature of: 600 °C (first series) and 800 °C (second series), respectively. Two alternative cooling variants were investigated in the experiment: slow cooling of the samples in the furnace, simulating the natural fire progress, without any external extinguishing action and cooling in water mist simulating an extinguishing action by a fire brigade. The temperature of the tested samples was set at the level of −20 °C and alternatively at the level of +20 °C. The conducted analysis is aimed at assessing the risk of sudden, catastrophic fracture of load-bearing structure made of steel degraded as a result of a fire that occurred previously with different development scenarios.

Applications by fire brigades expose the composite cylinders to harsh temperature and handling conditions. Standards have been used for certifying composite cylinders, which are designed for transport of dangerous goods and do not reflect service conditions specific to fire brigades. In this paper, the residual safety of a design type (fully wrapped with aluminum and carbon fiber composite) at the end of their service life of 15 yrs is analyzed. One sample underwent hydraulic load cycle (LC) tests, another conventional burst tests, and the third slow burst tests (SBTs). The statistical evaluation and the handling of an unexpected high amount of early failures are shown.

Abstract When reform negotiations in international organizations (IOs) produce limited substantive progress, the diagnosis is typically a lack of political will. We identify a different dynamic: in protracted negotiations, international policy paradigms can emerge that enshrine a politically realistic but incomplete issue definition and thereby focus the debate on a subset of policy instruments that do not fully address the underlying problem. We draw on the multilateral negotiations literature to show how policy paradigms—which are widely explored in Comparative Politics, but largely neglected in International Relations—can emerge even in heterogenous IOs, where deep cognitive cohesion is unlikely. The risk of negotiation failure incentivizes negotiators to adopt and maintain “achievable” issue and goal definitions, which over time are accepted as axiomatic by diplomats, IO officials, and policy experts. The resulting international policy paradigms help avoid institutional paralysis, but can also impede more ambitious reforms. To establish the empirical plausibility of this argument, we highlight the contemporary international policy paradigm of rapid deployment in UN peacekeeping, which focuses more on establishing an initial brigade-sized presence than on rapid deployment of the full peacekeeping force. Drawing on primary documents and interviews, we identify the roots of this First Brigade policy paradigm in reactions to the UN's failure to respond to the 1994 Rwandan genocide and trace its consolidation during UN reform negotiations in the 2000s and early 2010s. We also demonstrate that an alternative explanation of the paradigm as reflecting operational lessons-learned does not hold: a brigade-sized initial presence is rarely sufficient for mandate implementation, does not reliably speed up full deployment, and creates risks for peacekeepers. By highlighting the existence and impact of international policy paradigms, our study adds to scholarship on the role of ideas in International Relations and provides a novel perspective on reform negotiations in IOs.

O Brasil, com uma superfície de 8.514.215,3 km2 (IBGE, 2004), possui pouco mais de 8% de seu território protegido por unidades de conservação (MMA, 2004). Sua grande diversidade de ecossistemas, aliada às usuais técnicas de manejo da terra e condições climáticas adversas, resulta em uma ampla gama de condições propícias à ocorrência de incêndios florestais de grandes proporções. Comparativamente a outras nações, com menores dimensões e que chegam a dispor de dezenas de aeronaves com capacidade de até 42.000 litros de água ou retardante químico para o combate a incêndios, temos oficialmente apenas uma aeronave de asa fixa especializada no combate a incêndios florestais, além de helicópteros e aviões de reconhecimento sob responsabilidade do IBAMA e de órgãos estaduais de meio ambiente. O COMBFOGO – Esquadrão Aéreo de Combate a Incêndio Florestal (ONG) é uma iniciativa pioneira da sociedade brasileira, visando a minimização dos danos causados pelo fogo ao meio ambiente e com especial enfoque nas Unidades de Conservação. A proposta da organização é a utilização de aeronaves com baixos valores de aquisição e custo operacional, homologadas para o patrulhamento e combate a incêndios florestais, que após pequenas adaptações em seu interior, permitem o lançamento de bombas de água ou retardante químico. Estas aeronaves alcançam uma capacidade total de 300 litros e terão o efeito de retardar o avanço do fogo até a chegada das brigadas terrestres. WATER BOMBING METHODOLOGY FOR AERIAL WILDFIRE FIGHTING Abstract Brazil, which has a territory of 8.514.215,3 sq.km , with 692.205.700 ha of conservation areas, officially relies on a single aircraft dedicated exclusively to wildfire fighting. On the other hand, other nations with smaller dimensions have dozens of such aircraft with load capacities up to 42.000 litters of water or chemical agents, that help both in wildfire fighting and reforesting. COMBFOGO represents an initiative of Brazilian society to minimize that hazard of the wildfires to the environment. This initiative is based in the use of aircraft already present in Brazilian market, with low acquisition and operating costs, authorized for search and combat of such fires. The aircraft should require minor interior modifications to be able to carry and launch water or chemical agent 25 litter bombs. These bombs will slow down the fire advance and give more time to the fire brigades to reach the area.

Introduction Media and trauma cannot exist independently but are always caught in a cross-feedback loop. Depending on its mediating technology, trauma has always given rise to a different “technological unconscious” whereby the very conditions of trauma are tied to its form and technological dimensions (Johanssen 311). Our analysis explores this link, drawing on the case of the 2023 Greek TRAUMA podcast (Koukoumakas et al.), an audio documentary nested in iMEdD Lab, tracing seven disastrous events that have afflicted Greece in the last twenty-four years – from the Parnitha earthquake in 1999 to the Tempi train crash in 2023. This is a unique example of a quality news podcast that touches upon the ways collective trauma has built into the national identity of modern Greek people. There is a striking similarity in the way Amit Pinchevski describes how the Holocaust became a collectively shared trauma in Israel and how the TRAUMA podcast narrates the collective trauma in Greece. Without diminishing the experience of those directly involved and traumatised, TRAUMA weaves an audiography of a national body traversed with traumatic symptoms. Already from the title, TRAUMA bears a self-contradictory promise: to document that which essentially escapes documentation, or, in Amit Pinchevski’s apt words, to mediate a “failed mediation” (4). More specifically, trauma is being shaped by the technology through which it is mediated, and is tied to its form and technological dimensions (Johanssen 311). This is also the case in the present podcast, which (re)mediates seven stories of traumatic disaster in the acoustic language of voice and sound, and is necessarily bound and shaped by the very logics and limitations of the podcast medium. What concerns the present article is how, in the case of TRAUMA, podcasting logics tap on the existing media landscape of trauma coverage, negotiating and shaping trauma representation anew. Following current scholarship in the field, we read TRAUMA not only as a journalistic audio archive aiming to document and share traumatic narratives, but, rather, as essentially a(e)ffecting the way these stories are perceived. Far from aestheticising or sensationalising the “private drama of catastrophe”, as is often the perverse “lure” and the case with trauma coverage in traditional media, TRAUMA utilises podcast logics to create audibility platforms for otherwise lost voices, and thus, in an activist gesture, to draw attention to and raise concern about the painful repetition of tragic stories in the light of a non-(pro)active Greek state. Our analysis, framed in audio and content analysis of the TRAUMA podcast, minds a gap; there is little podcast-specific analysis of trauma mediation (Karathanasopoulou and Williams; Cardell and Douglas) even if the latter seems to flesh a recurrent thematic concern in podcast narratives (such as the podcast re-mediation of Holocaust narratives in 2019, titled “Those Who Were There: Voices from the Holocaust”, or Greek podcasts From a Wonder to a Trauma and iMEdD’s Mute). Individual Voice Testimonies in the TRAUMA Podcast In light of its unique characteristics (lo-fi, low-cost, amateur-friendly, open-source, and relatively content-free), podcasting has been read as potentially challenging and even transgressing mainstream media discourse (Park; Rae; McHugh; Tiffe and Hoffmann). In her work on podcasting and political listening, Maria Rae sees in podcasts the ability to intervene in and disrupt existing media structures of attention that determine who is heard and how. Upending such “regimes of attention”, they may invite us, instead, to retune, un-hear, or hear differently. In the case of TRAUMA, the work taps on topics which have cross-fed a barrage of images on social media platforms, and fuelled 24-hour news cycles on traditional visual media. To this trauma-casting, it juxtaposes its own audio logics of multiple, yet unified, voicing and of slow, engaged listening. Literally “opening the mic” for those unheard or only heard little, TRAUMA makers aspire to host what they term as “the ‘unedited experience’ of the disaster”. This, they see as a gesture away from existing media coverage of disasters in Greece that may silence, voice-over, aestheticise, or selectively frame (and un-frame) individual voicing. The “voyeurism lure” is mindfully addressed as TRAUMA podcast makers have published – parallel to their documentary work – a journalists’ code of conduct in cases of trauma coverage, addressing issues related to “privacy, legislation, and journalist ethics” (Voutsina et al.). At the same time, the silencing or voice-over tactics, often employed in cases of trauma coverage, are also actively counter-balanced as TRAUMA utilises verbatim testimonies and offers opportunities for direct earwitnessing of what surfaces less as a private catastrophe and more as shared, public wound for Greek citizens. The notion of earwitnessing encompasses a form of listening attuned to the specific social, cultural, and political manifestations of sound and voice. To “earwitness” is to listen to the history that unfolds and to become responsible for what you listen to (Rae et al.). Letting otherwise lost voices surface and having us listen to those accounts, TRAUMA actively gestures towards “acoustic justice”, defined by Brandon Labelle in his homonymous book as “the practices or gestures that seek to rework the distribution of the heard” (131). Such reworking of audibility norms is best served through emphasis on unheard testimonies. Testimonies are indeed the more extensive part of the text genres emerging in the TRAUMA podcast. A relatively large number of codes were created, and data revealed that two codes appeared more frequently: the codes referring to the Mati fires and the Tempi fatal train accident. There are a couple of reasons for this, as both accidents were severe: the Mati fires that took place in 2018 “would go on to become the second deadliest fire globally in the past 25 years. 104 lives were tragically lost in Mati”, as the narration script testifies. The train crash in the Tempi valley in February 2023 was the most recent tragic event, and one that involved the loss of very young people. In the case of both disasters, testimonies prevail, only carefully complemented by narrative voice-over, news clips, or accompanying music. The news clip chosen to inform listeners about the tragic accident in Tempi is short and sharp: “Intercity train collides with commercial train, resulting in three wagons derailing”. Most of the sparse news clips used to enhance the informative lens of the documentary adopt the same style: they are short, accurate, and show the core of the news story. They are like stamps of verification of what actually happened, without however overshadowing or emotionally framing the actual verbatim material featured in the piece. Narrative voice-over and music follow the same logic of only discreetly framing the testimonial material. The voice-over that is featured in the podcast, with an agonising tune playing in the background, carefully offers sharp and concrete information on disastrous facts, introducing testimonies or drawing links between voices. Music also plays a significant role, even if the focus of the audio documentary is on discourse and voice; the musical background sets a mysterious tone, adding to the audio experience of the listener when accompanying the narrative voice. Its notable absence when we move from the voice to the testimonies is also a clear documentation of the value that the TRAUMA podcast attributes to testimonies. With no accompanying music, testimonies retune us to the soundscape of the people involved, securing sharper focus on those voices and greater empathy on the part of the listener. Testimonies flesh out engaging, emotive narratives that also harbour accurate information of the stories involved (Theodosiadou). A multitude of intimacies exist in podcasting, and this intimacy contains the possibility to materially connect the listener to a story (fictional or factual; Karathanasopoulou). In the quote below there is a possible connection between the listener and the factual story as the narration becomes very realistic and absolutely grounded in the tragic events; the listener has a chance to envision the situation at the hospital, and this acoustic illustration possibly connects them more tightly to the actual story. From the Tempi train crash, the father of a young student-victim describes the most difficult moment while waiting that first night at the hospital: I dubbed that day 'a game of poker with death': in the hospital, whenever an ambulance arrived, everyone would rush towards it, hoping to find their loved ones injured or anxiously checking if the body bag was sealed, all racing to discover if their dear ones were dead. Victim relatives are heard sharing their private trauma-scapes and reporting on how difficult it has been to cope with such a traumatic event, and how these tragedies have influenced all their lives. Our attention, as podcast listeners deprived of any visual stimuli, is actively drawn both to the content of their sayings but also to the vocal utterances per se, in all their individual acoustic register of gaps or hesitations, of voice colour, pace, and rhythm: it was incredibly difficult to endure such a situation. Most of us struggled through five years without any medication. But there are so many others that rely on very strong medications to cope. Fig. 1: Visual installation 58 Nails in Tempi, by artist Georgios Koftis. Tempi Valley, January 2024 (photo by Georgios Koftis). “We believe that there are more and more of us people not having a voice, contrary to what is depicted in the media” — Georgios Koftis. From the Individual to the Collective TRAUMA hosts survivors’ and victim relatives’ testimonies, maintaining the force and intimacy of the individual witness, yet not letting them flesh out a singular, eccentric, private disaster drama. Not only are individual voices balanced out with other voices of the various field experts on whom the documentary draws, but they are also amplified in echoes as we listen on to more (and all the more similar) testimonies. In this sense, we move from the private to the collective, and the documentary escapes the risk of over-emphasising personal disaster or aestheticising the pain of those directly involved. On a similar note, we hear both a relative of a victim of the Tempi crash and a relative of a victim in the Mati fires become equally cynical and accepting of the inevitability of accidents in life: in the collective unconsciousness we exist within, it was inevitable. Whether it be a boat, a ship, a plane, or a power station, it was destined to occur somewhere, and undoubtedly, it will happen again. We have grown somewhat cynical. After the Tempi train crash, when we gather during court breaks, we quip, "What's next, a plane crash?" We even start placing bets. It may come across as cynical, but considering what we have experienced and what we are likely to experience again, that's just how it is. In the case of the Mati fire tragedy, many testimonies similarly focus on the absence of care or action from the Greek state and the feeling of aloneness in confronting such a preposterous disaster. Around 18:00, my mother gave me a call and informed me about a fire... There was no mention of it on TV. If only my family had been alerted just 5 minutes earlier, they could have jumped into the car and taken the route through Marathon Avenue, just like many others who managed to survive. We're talking about a mere distance of 500 metres, and the authorities had a clear view of the scene. They witnessed people burning, yet made no attempt to rescue them. There was no fire brigade in sight, not a single siren reached out ears, no loudspeakers blaring "Evacuate" to warn us, nothing at all. From the intense heat and lack of oxygen, we were beginning to lose our strength, my entire family. The relatives of the victims report on how difficult it has been to cope with such a traumatic event and how these tragedies have influenced all their lives. What can I say… The boy is seeing a psychologist to cope with the trauma. Whenever he sees us about to light a match, he thinks there’ll be a fire and quickly jumps to put it out. It’s so sad. These scars will never heal – they don't simply fade away no matter how much we wish they would. Joining voices from disparate disaster events, TRAUMA captures the “return and repeat” logics of trauma temporality, but, more importantly, meddles with and away from the “shock and freeze” effect of the singular event to reveal threads, echoes, re-doublings, and flashbacks that flesh a silently ongoing, collective trauma. Individual narratives of disaster are thus both solidified and pluralised in a sonic space that merges the private and the public, the singular and the plural, the rupture and the thread, allowing personal stories to open up into informed public conversations. Moving on in echoes and counterpoint polyphony, TRAUMA ultimately effects a “hearing different” of individual trauma testimonies, enabling the latter to surface less as closed echo chambers and more as resonant channels of shared wounds. The movement from the private to the collective is also repetitively referenced in the podcast per se. Both in the expert talks but also in the narrative script the notion of collective trauma is insistently mentioned: “erosion of trust in the state and the absence of catharsis” are considered to be the two main characteristics of collective trauma, according to the experts on the podcast and the journalist-narrator. This profound lack of trust that victims felt personally but also collectively surfaces as a resonant feeling, threading the two decades of fatal accidents that the TRAUMA podcast touches on. Collective trauma is what occurs when a community or society is stripped of its essential functions, such as democracy, institutions, social solidarity, and, most importantly, the preservation of social bonds. Negligence can never be equated with acts that are considered felonious. Felonies encompass acts where the outcome is a result of deliberate and conscious actions. It is not only the outcome that is condemned, but also the intentional and rational behavior of the perpetrator. Conclusion The TRAUMA podcast revolutionises auditory experience both in tapping to unmute individual voices and thus offering acoustic justice, but also in terms of activating political listening. The acts of podcast creation and “political listening” can reinforce the audience’s political opposition to unjust practices (Rae et al.). TRAUMA is an example of a podcast that attempts to raise awareness of the Greek state’s failure to take relevant action, thus sensitising and mobilising listeners in ethical responsibility. Re-tuning listeners to trauma narratives and turning them into earwitnesses may fashion a space of empowerment. Writing of post-9/11 trauma and mourning and the ways in which the latter was quickly dismissed by U.S. authorities to allow for militant action, Judith Butler questions the typical equation of grief and trauma with passive numbness or stillness, and aptly observes that “suffering can yield an experience of humility, of vulnerability, of impressionability and dependence, and these can become resources if we do not resolve them too quickly” (149-50). Staying with trauma voices, as enabled in the case of TRAUMA, may help for “mourning otherwise” or for what Athena Athanasiou terms “agonistic mourning”, opening quietly militant spaces of ethical response-ability and caring, and even re-orienting trauma rupture and paralysis in actively “contending with dominant and prevailing systems that make and unmake bodies” (LaBelle 564). In the case of TRAUMA, letting listeners linger in the aural intimacy of the private trauma transforms listening into active earwitnessing and political contestation. The originality of the documentary lies in the weaving of the personal to the collective trauma, as well as in how this pain intertwines and defines the national collective trauma. Maybe this is also a hidden message that TRAUMA conveys: a silent ‘activism’ to make listeners participate in the personal and collective trauma and activate them in a positive and empowering way towards taking responsibility and work in line with the collective good (Theodosiadou). This brings the podcast genre to a new epoch, an epoch that transcends from audio blogging to silent activism. This concluding remark aligns with Karathanasopoulou & Williams's findings that non-visual media can provide a safe environment to reveal deeply personal experiences and, in some cases, form an example of “quiet activism”. Future research should enlarge the lens of podcasting on traumatic events, through comparative research on podcasting in other countries, as well as through sustained analysis on how narration, sound, and music elements in podcasts (re)negotiate media representations of trauma. Acknowledgment Georgios Koftis made his visual memoriam in January 2024, almost a year after the Tempi accident, for the 57 people who tragically died in the Tempi train crash in February 2023 (also adding one more nail for the missing and injured people). He generously granted us the copyright both for the visual art and for his photograph of the 58 Nails in Tempi. We sincerely thank him for this as well as for making our voice heard. References Athanasiou, Athena. Agonistic Mourning: Political Dissidence and the Women in Black. Edinburgh: Edinburgh UP, 2017. Butler, Judith. Precarious Life: The Powers of Mourning and Violence. London: Verso, 2004. Cardell, Kylie, and Kate Douglas. “Okay to Laugh? Trauma, Memoir, and Teaching the Podcast Mum Says My Memoir Is a Lie.” a/b: Auto/Biography Studies 37.2 (2002): 299-315. DOI: 10.1080/08989575.2022.2136826. Johanssen, Jacob. “Amit Pinchevski, Transmitted Wounds: Media and the Mediation of Trauma.” Journal of Communication Inquiry 46.3 (2022): 311-315. Karathanasopoulou, E. “Audio within Audio: Story-Telling and the Evocation of Emotion in Podcasting.” In The Bloomsbury Handbook of Radio, eds. K. Mc Donald and H. Chignell. Bloomsbury, 2023. 226-242. Karathanasopoulou, E., and H. Williams. “Podcasting as a Feminist Space for the Disclosure of Trauma and Intimate Embodied Experience: The Heart as a Case Study of Quiet Activism.” Radio Journal: International Studies in Broadcast & Audio Media 21.1 (2023). Koukoumakas, Kostas, et al. Trauma. iMEdD Lab, 2023. <https://lab.imedd.org/en/trauma/>. LaBelle, Brandon. Acoustic Justice: Listening, Performativity and the Work or Reorientation. New York: Bloomsbury Academic, 2021. ———. LaBelle, Brandon. “Towards Acoustic Justice.” Law Text Culture 24.1 (2020): 550–72. 9 Feb. 2024 <https://ro.uow.edu.au/ltc/vol24/iss1/21>. McHugh, Siobhan "Truth to Power: How Podcasts Are Getting Political." The Conversation, 31 Aug. 2017. <https://theconversation.com/truth-to-power-how-podcasts-are-getting-political-81185>. Park, Chang Sup. “Citizen News Podcasts and Engaging Journalism: The Formation of a Counter-Public Sphere in South Korea.” Pacific Journalism Review 1.1 (2017): 245. DOI: 10.24135/pjr.v23i1.49. Pinchevski, Amit. “Archive, Media, Trauma.” In On Media Memory: Collective Memory in a New Media Age. Palgrave Macmillan, 2011. 253-64. ———. Transmitted Wounds: Media and the Mediation of Trauma. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2019. Pinchevski, Amit, and Michael Richardson. “Trauma and Digital Media: Introduction to Crosscurrents Special Section.” Media, Culture & Society (2022). <https://doi.org/10.1177/01634437221122244>. Rae, Maria. “Podcasts and Political Listening: Sound, Voice and Intimacy in the Joe Rogan Experience.” Continuum 37.2 (2023): 182-93. DOI: 10.1080/10304312.2023.2198682. Rae, Maria, et al. “Earwitnessing Detention: Carceral Secrecy, Affecting Voices, and Political Listening in the Messenger Podcast.” International Journal of Communication (2019): 13-20. Scomazzon, Giulia. “Amit Pinchevski, Transmitted Wounds: Media and the Mediation of Trauma. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2021.” Cinéma & Cie. Film and Media Studies Journal 22.39 (2023): 157–8. <https://doi.org/10.54103/2036-461x/19081>. Theodosiadou, Sofia. “Review of TRAUMA Audio Podcast: 24 years, Seven Tragedies: The Experience of Survivors and the Collective Trauma of an Entire Country”. RadioDoc Review, forthcoming 2024. Tiffe, Raechel, and Melody Hoffmann. “Taking Up Sonic Space: Feminized Vocality and Podcasting as Resistance.” Feminist Media Studies 17.1 (2017): 115-8. DOI: 10.1080/14680777.2017.1261464. Voutsina, Katerina, et al. Reporting on Traumatic Events: A Journalist’s Code of Conduct. iMedD, 2023. <https://lab.imedd.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/iMEdD_Trauma_Toolkit_for_Journalists_EN.pdf>.

It seems clear that people who are deaf ... struggle continually against the meanings that others impose on their experience, and the way that this separates them from others. They struggle for acknowledgement of the way they see their lives and wish to live them, and aspire to connection?with other people, to share and belong. (David Moorhead. Knowing Who I Am. 1995. 85.) Nga Tapuwae and Before I am deaf but, before that part of my life started, I was hearing and worked for many years as a librarian in New Zealand. My first job was in a public library located within a secondary school Nga Tapuwae Secondary College in South Auckland. Its placement was a 1970’s social experiment to see if a public library could work within the grounds of a community college (and the answer was no, it could not). The experience was a great introduction for me to the Maori and Polynesian cultures that I had not previously encountered. Until then, I was wary of both groups, and so it was a revelation to realise that although there were many social problems in the area including low literacy, many of the children and teenagers were bright, talented individuals. They simply did not connect to the Anglo-Saxon reading materials we offered. Years later, my interest in the social dynamics of literacy led to my enrolment in a post-graduate literacy degree in Melbourne. This action may have saved my life because at the end of this course, a minor ailment resulted in a visit to the university doctor who diagnosed me with the life-threatening medical condition, Neurofibromatosis Type 2 (NF 2). NF2 is a late onset genetic condition in which one’s body grows tumours, always on both hearing nerves, sometimes elsewhere as well. The tumours usually cause deafness and can cause death. I was told I needed to have my tumours removed and would probably become fully deaf as a result. This is how my life as I knew it changed direction and I started the long journey towards becoming deaf. Diagnosis and Change Predictably, once diagnosed, friends and colleagues rallied to comfort me. I was told things probably weren’t as bad as they sounded. Helen Keller was mentioned several times as an example of someone who had succeeded despite being deaf and blind. ‘Really,’ my friends asked, ‘how bad can it be? ‘Inside myself however, it couldn’t have been worse. A day later the enormity of it all hit me and I became inconsolable. A friend drove me back to the doctor and she did two things that were to change my life. She referred me to the University’s counselling services where, happily, I was counselled by Elizabeth Hastings who later went on to become Australia’s first Disability Services Commissioner. Secondly, the doctor organised for me to visit the HEAR Service at the Victorian Deaf Society (VDS). Again by happy accident, my friend and I stumbled into the ‘wrong building’ where I ended up meeting John Lovett, who was Deaf and the CEO there, via an interpreter. When I met John Lovett I was distraught but, unlike other people, he made no attempt to stop me crying. He simply listened carefully until I realised he understood what I was saying and stopped crying myself. He said my fears that I could end up alone and lonely were valid and he suggested the best thing I could do for myself was to join the ‘Deaf community’; a community. I had never heard of. He explained it was made up of people like him who used Australian sign language (Auslan) to communicate. He was so engaging and supportive that this plan sounded fine to me. By the time we finished talking and he walked me over to the HEAR Service, I was so in his thrall that I had enrolled for a Deaf awareness workshop, an Auslan class, and had plans to join the Deaf community. Had I stayed on and learned Auslan, my life may well have followed a different path, but this was not to be at that time. Becoming Hearing Impaired (HI) Across at the HEAR service, an alternate view of my potential future was put to me. Instead of moving away from everything familiar and joining the Deaf community, I could learn to lip-read and hopefully use it to stay in the workforce and amongst my hearing friends. I had a cousin and aunt who were late deafened; my cousin in particular was doing well communicating with lip-reading. I discussed this with friends and the idea of staying with the people I already knew sounded far less confronting than joining the Deaf community and so I chose this path. My surgeon was also optimistic. He was confident he could save some of my hearing. Suddenly learning Auslan seemed superfluous. I phoned John Lovett to explain, and his response was that I should do what suited me, but he asked me to remember one thing: that it was me who decided to leave the Deaf Community, not that the Deaf community had not wanted me. He told me that, if I changed my mind, I could always go back because the door to the Deaf community would always be open and he would be still be there. It would be a decade before I decided that I wanted to go back through that door, and around that time this great man passed away, but I never forgot my promise to remember our conversation. It, and a few other exchanges I had with him in the following years, stayed at the back of my mind, especially as my residual hearing sank over the years, and the prospect of total deafness hung over me. When I had the surgery, my surgeon’s optimism proved unfounded. He could not save any hearing on my left side and my facial and balance nerves were damaged as well. The hospital then decided not to operate again, and would only attempt to remove the second tumour if it grew and threatened my health again. Consequently, for close to a decade, my life was on hold in many ways. I feared deafness—for me it signalled that my life as I knew it would end and I would be isolated. Every hearing test was a tense time for me as I watched my remaining hearing decline in a slow, relentless downward path on the graph. It was like watching the tide go out knowing it was never going to come in as fully again. My thinking started to change too. Within a week of my diagnosis I experienced discrimination for the first time. A library school that had offered me a place in its post graduate librarianship course the following year made it clear that they no longer wanted me. In the end it did not matter as I was accepted at another institution but it was my first experience of being treated less favourably in the community and it was a shock. After the surgery my life settled down again. I found work in public libraries again, rekindled an old relationship and in 1994 had a baby boy. However, living with a hearing loss is hard work. Everything seemed tiring, especially lip-reading. My ears rejected my hearing aid and became itchy and inflamed. I became aware that my continual hearing problems were sometimes seen as a nuisance in work situations. Socialising lost a lot of its appeal so my social world also contracted. Around this time something else started happening. Outside work, people started expressing admiration for me—words like ‘role model’ and ‘inspiring’ started entering the conversation. Any other time I might have enjoyed it but for me, struggling to adapt to my new situation, it felt odd. The whole thing reminded me of being encouraged to be like Helen Keller; as if there is a right way to behave when one is deaf in which you are an inspiration, and a wrong way in which one is seen as being in need of a role model. I discussed this with Elizabeth Hastings who had helped me prepare mentally for the surgery and afterwards. I explained I felt vulnerable and needy in my new situation and she gave me some useful advice. She thought feeling needy was a good thing as realising one needs people keeps one humble. She observed that, after years of intellectualising, educated people sometimes started believing they could use intellectualisation as a way to avoid painful emotions such as sadness. This behaviour then cut them off from support and from understanding that none of us can do it alone. She believed that, in always having to ask for help, people with disabilities are kept aware of the simple truth that all people depend on others to survive. She said I could regard becoming deaf as a disability, or I could choose to regard it as a privilege. Over the years the truth of her words became increasingly more evident to me as I waded through all the jargon and intellectualisation that surrounds discussion of both deafness and the disability arena, compared to the often raw emotion expressed by those on the receiving end of it. At a personal level I have found that talking about emotions helps especially in the face of the ubiquitous ‘positive thinking’ brigade who would have us all believe that successful people do not feel negative emotions regardless of what is happening. The Lie Elizabeth had initially sympathised with my sadness about my impending deafness. One day however she asked why, having expressed positive sentiments both about deaf people and people with disabilities, I was saying I would probably be better off dead than deaf? Up until that conversation I was unaware of the contradictions between what I felt and what I was saying. I came to realise I was living a lie because I did not believe what I was telling myself; namely, that deaf people and people with disabilities are as good as other people. Far from believing this, what I really thought was that being deaf, or having a disability, did lessen one’s worth. It was an uncomfortable admission, particularly sharing it with someone sitting in a wheelchair, and especially as up until then I had always seen myself as a liberal thinker. Now, faced with the reality of becoming deaf, I had been hoist by my own petard, as I could not come to terms with the idea of myself as a deaf person. The Christian idea of looking after the ‘less fortunate’ was one I had been exposed to, but I had not realised the flip side of it, which is that the ‘less fortunate’ are also perceived as a ‘burden’ for those looking after them. It reminded me of my initial experiences years earlier at Nga Tapuwae when I came face to face with cultures I thought I had understood but did not. In both cases it was only when I got to know people that I began to question my own attitudes and assumptions and broadened my thinking. Unfortunately for deaf people, and people with disabilities, I have not been the only person lying to myself. These days it is not common for people to express their fears about deaf people or people with disabilities. People just press on without fully communicating or understanding the other person’s attitude or perspectives. When things then do not work out, these failures reinforce the misconceptions and these attitudes persist. I believe it is one of the main reasons why true community inclusion for deaf and people with disabilities is moving so slowly. Paying for access is another manifestation of this. Everyone is supportive of access in principle but there is continuous complaint about paying for things such as interpreting. The never-ending discussions between deaf people and the wealthy movie industry about providing more than token access to captioned cinema demonstrate that the inclusion lie is alive and well. Until it can be effectively addressed through genuine dialogue, deaf people, hard of hearing people and people with disabilities will always be largely relegated to life outside the mainstream. Collectively we will also continue to have to endure this double message that we are of equal value to the community while simultaneously being considered a financial burden if we try to access it in ways that are meaningful to us. Becoming Deaf In 2002 however all this thinking still lay ahead of me. I still had some hearing and was back living in New Zealand to be close to my family. My relationship had ended and I was a solo mother. My workplace had approved leave of absence, and so I still had my job to go back to in Melbourne if I wanted it. However, I suspected that I would soon need the second tumour removed because I was getting shooting pains down my face. When my fears were confirmed I could not decide whether to move back to Melbourne or let the job go, and risk having trouble finding one if I went back later. I initially chose to stay longer as my father was sick but eventually I decided Melbourne was where I wanted to be especially if I was deaf. I returned, found temporary employment, and right up to the second surgery I was able to work as I could make good use of the small amount of hearing I still had. I thought that I would still be able to cope when I was made fully deaf as a result of the surgery. It was, after all, only one notch down on the audiogram and I was already ‘profoundly deaf’ and still working. When I woke up after the surgery completely deaf, it felt anti-climactic. The world seemed exactly the same, just silent. At home where I was surrounded by my close family and friends everything initially seemed possible. However, when my family left, it was just my seven-year-old son and myself again, and on venturing back into the community, it quickly became clear to me that at some level my status had changed. Without any cues, I struggled to follow speech and few people wanted to write things down. Although my son was only seven, people communicated with him in preference to me. I felt as if we had changed roles: I was now the child and he was the adult. Worse was soon to follow when I tried to re-enter the workforce. When I had the surgery, the hospital had installed a gadget called an auditory brainstem implant, (ABI) which they said would help me hear. An ABI is similar to a cochlear implant but it is attached to the brainstem instead of the cochlear nerve. My cochlear nerve was removed. I hoped my ABI would enable me to hear enough to find work but, aside from clinical conditions in which there was no background noise and the staff knew how to assist, it did not work. My most humiliating moment with it came when it broke down mid job interview and I spent half the time left trying to get it going again in full view of the embarrassed interview panel, and the other half trying to maintain my composure whilst trying to lip-read the questions. The most crushing blow came from the library where I had happily worked for seven years at middle management level. This library was collaborating with another institution to set up a new library and they needed new staff. I hopefully applied for a job at the same level I had worked at prior to becoming deaf but was unsuccessful. When I asked for feedback, I was told that I was not seen as having the skills to work at that level. My lowest point came when I was refused a job unpacking boxes of books. I was told I did not have experience in this area even though, as any librarian will attest, unpacking boxes is part of any librarian’s work. When I could not find unskilled work, it occurred to me that possibly I would never work again. While this was unfolding, my young son and I went from being comfortable financially to impoverished. My ex-partner also decided he would now make childcare arrangements directly with my son as he was annoyed at being expected to write things down for me. My relationship with him, some family members, and my friends were all under strain at that time. I was lost. It also became clear that my son was not coping. Although he knew the rudiments of Auslan, it was not enough for us to communicate sufficiently. His behaviour at school deteriorated and one night he became so frustrated trying to talk to me that he started to pull out his own hair. I calmed him and asked him to write down for me what he was feeling and he wrote down ‘It is like you died. It is like I don’t have a Mum now’. It was now clear to me that although I still had my friends, nobody including myself knew what to do. I realised I had to find someone who could understand my situation and I knew now it had to be a Deaf person. Fortunately, by this stage I was back learning Auslan again at La Trobe University. The week after the conversation with my son, I told my Auslan teacher what had happened. To my relief she understood my situation immediately. She told me to bring my son to class, at no cost, and she would teach him herself. I did and my life started to turn around. My son took to Auslan with such speed and application that he was able to not only converse with her in one month but immediately started using Auslan with me at home to get the things he wanted. We were able to re-establish the mother/son relationship that we both needed. I was also able to help my son talk through and deal with all the changes that me becoming deaf had foisted upon him. He still uses Auslan to talk to me and supplements it using speech, copious finger spelling, notes and diagrams. More than anything else, this relationship has kept me anchored to my long-term goal of becoming a clear signer. Encouraged by my son’s success, I put all my energy into learning Auslan and enrolled in a full time TAFE Auslan course. I also joined a chat group called ‘Here to Hear’ (H2H). The perspectives in the group ranged from strongly oral to strongly Deaf but for me, trying to find a place to fit in any of it, it was invaluable. Almost daily I chatted with the group, asking questions and invariably someone responded. The group acted as a safety net and sounding board for me as I worked out the practicalities of living life deaf. The day of my fateful interview and the ABI humiliation, I came home so shaken that I used the Irish remedy of a couple of swigs of whisky, and then went online and posted an account of it all. I can still remember the collective indignation of the group and, as I read the responses, beginning to see the funny side of it . . . something I could not have done alone. I also made use of easy access to Deaf teachers at TAFE and used that to listen to them and ask advice on situations. I found out for example, that if I instructed my son to stand behind me when people in shops insisted on addressing him, they had no alternative but to talk to me; it was a good clear message to all concerned that my son was the child in this relationship. About this time, I discovered the Disability Discrimination Act (DDA) that Elizabeth Hastings had worked so hard on, filed my first DDA complaint, and received my first apology at the mediation session that followed. My personal life also improved, relationship by relationship as everyone adjusted. Slowly the ice melted in most of my relationships; some relationships faded and were replaced with new ones with signing people, and eventually hearing people again. My life moved forward. Through a member of ‘Here to Hear’, I was invited to apply for my first post deaf job—covering holiday leave at a Deaf sports organisation. I practically finger-spelt my way through the interview but not only did they offer me the job, they were delighted to have me. I was able to buy a few things with the money I earned, and suddenly it felt as if everything was possible again. This acceptance of me by Deaf people had a profound impact on me. I mixed with people more, and it was not too long before I was able to use my basic signing skills to use Auslan interpreters and re-enter the workplace. I have discovered over time that living in silence also has advantages—no more noisy parties or rubbish trucks clanging at dawn and in its place a vastly heightened visual awareness that I enjoy. Before I was deaf I thought it would be lonely in the silence but in fact many of life’s best moments—watching rain hit and then run down a window, swimming in the sea, cooking and being with good friends—do not rely upon sound at all; they feel the same way they always did. Sometimes I have felt somewhat of an outsider in the Deaf community. I have sometimes been taken aback by people’s abruptness but I have learned over time that being succinct is valued in Auslan, and some people like to come straight to the point. At crisis points, such as when I asked for help at the Victorian Deaf Society and my Auslan class, it has been a huge relief to talk to Deaf people and know immediately that they understand just from reading their eyes. Having access to an additional world of deaf people has made my life more enjoyable. I feel privileged to be associated with the Deaf community. I can recall a couple of Christmases ago making dinner for some signing friends and suddenly realising that, without noticing, everything had become alright in my world again. Everyone was signing really fast – something I still struggle with; but every now and then someone would stop and summarise so I felt included. It was really relaxed and simply felt like old times, just old times without the sound thrown in. Le Page and Tabouret-Keller, two ethnographers, have this to say about why people communicate the ways they do: The individual ... creates for himself the patterns of his linguistic behaviour so as to resemble those of the group or groups with which from time to time he wishes to be identified, or so as to be unlike those from whom he wishes to be distinguished ... . We see speech acts as acts of projection; the speaker is projecting his inner universe, implicitly with the invitation to others to share it ... he is seeking to reinforce his models of the world, and hopes for solidarity from those with whom he wishes to identify. (181) This quote neatly sums up why I choose to communicate the ways I do. I use Auslan and speech in different situations because I am connected to people in both groups and I want them in my life. I do not feel hugely different from anyone these days. If it is accepted that I have as much to contribute to the community as anyone else, becoming deaf has also meant for me that I expect to see other people treated well and accepted. For me that means contributing my time and thoughts, and advocating. It also means expecting a good level of access to interpreters, to some thought provoking captioned movies in English, and affordable assistive technologies so I can participate. I see this right to participate and engage in genuine dialogue with the rest of the community as central to the aspirations and identity of us all, regardless of who we are or where others think we belong. References Le Page, R.B., and Andree Tabouret-Keller. Acts of Identity: Creole-Based Approaches to Language and Ethnicity. London: Cambridge University Press, 1985. Moorhead, D. “Knowing Who I Am.” In S. Gregory, ed., Deaf Futures Revisited. Block 3, Unit 10, D251 Issues in Deafness. Open University, 1995.

Introduction On Saturday 6 February 1954, on the third day of the Australian leg of their tour of the Commonwealth, Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip, the Duke of Edinburgh, visited Sydney’s Bondi Beach. The specially-staged Royal Surf Carnival they witnessed—comprising a spectacular parade, surf boat races, mock resuscitations and even unscheduled surf rescues—generated extensive media coverage. Attracting attention from historians (Warshaw 134; Ford 194–196), the carnival lingers in popular memory as not only a highlight of the Australian tour (Conway n.p.; Clark 8) and among the “most celebrated events in Australian surf lifesaving history” (Ford et al. 5) but also as “the most spectacular occasion [ever held] at Bondi Beach” (Lawrence and Sharpe 86). It is even, for some, a “highlight of the [Australian] post-war period” (Ford et al. 5). Despite this, the fuller history of the Queen’s visit to Bondi, including the detailed planning involved, remains unexplored. A small round tin medal, discovered online, offered a fresh way to approach this event. 31mm in diameter, 2mm in depth, this dual-sided, smooth-edged medal hangs from a hoop on approximately 80mm of discoloured, doubled red, white, and blue striped ribbon, fastened near its end with a tarnished brass safety pin. The obverse features a relief portrait of the youthful Queen’s face and neck in profile, her hair loosely pulled back into a low chignon, enclosed within a striped symmetrical scrolled border of curves and peaks. This is encircled with another border inscribed in raised capitals: “Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II. Royal Visit to Waverley N.S.W.” The reverse features a smooth central section encircled with the inscription (again in raised capitals), “Presented to the Children of Waverley N.S.W. 1954”, the centre inscribed, “By Waverley Municipal Council C.A. Jeppesen Mayor”. Figs. 1 & 2: Medal, c.1954. Collection of the Author. Medals are often awarded in recognition of achievement and, in many cases, are worn as prominent components of military and other uniforms. They can also be made and gifted in commemoration, which was the case with this medal, one of many thousands presented in association with the tour. Made for Waverley Council, it was presented to all schoolchildren under 15 in the municipality, which included Bondi Beach. Similar medals were presented to schoolchildren by other Australian councils and States in Australia (NAA A462). This gifting was not unprecedented, with medals presented to (at least some) Australian schoolchildren to commemorate Queen Victoria’s 1897 Diamond Jubilee (The Age 5; Sleight 187) and the 1937 coronation of King George VI and Queen Elizabeth (“Coronation Medals” 6). Unable to discover any provenance for this medal aside from its (probable) presentation in 1954 and listing for sale in 2021, I pondered instead Waverley Council’s motivation in sourcing and giving these medals. As a researcher, this assisted me in surmounting the dominance of the surf carnival in the history of this event and led to an investigation of the planning around the Bondi visit. Planning Every level of government was involved in planning the event. Created within the Prime Minister’s Department, the Royal Visit Organisation 1954—staffed from early 1953, filling positions from within the Commonwealth Public Service, armed services and statutory authorities—had overall authority over arrangements (NAA 127, 134). National planning encompassed itineraries, travel arrangements, security, public relations, and protocol as well as fly and mosquito control, the royals’ laundry arrangements, and advice on correct dress (NAA: A1533; NAA: A6122; NAA: A9708, RV/DD Annex.15; NAA: A1838, 1516/11 Parts 1&2; NAA: A9708, RV/CD; NAA: A9708, RV/CQ; NAA: A9708, RV/T). Planning conferences were held with State officials who developed State visit programs and then devolved organisational responsibilities to Councils and other local organisations (NAA: A9708, RV/DD Annex.2; NAA: A9708, RV/DD Annex.3). Once the Bondi Beach location was decided, the Surf Life Saving Association of Australia received a Royal Command to stage a surf carnival for the royals. This command was passed to the president of the Bondi club, who organised a small delegation to meet with government representatives. A thirteen-member Planning Committee, all men (“The Queen to See” 12), was appointed “with full power to act without reference to any other body” (Meagher 6). They began meeting in June 1953 and, soon after this, the carnival was announced in the Australian press. In recognition, the “memorable finale” of a Royal Command Performance before the Queen in London in November 1953 marked the royal couple’s impending tour by filling the stage with people from Commonwealth countries. This concluded with “an Australian tableau”. Alongside people dressed as cricketers, tennis players, servicemen, and Indigenous people, a girl carrying a huge bunch of bananas, and a couple in kangaroo suits were six lifesavers dressed in Bondi march-past costumes and caps, carrying the club flag (Royal Variety Charity n.p.). In deciding on a club for the finale, Bondi was “seen the epitome of the surf lifesaving movement—and Australia” (Brawley 82). The Planning Committee worked with representatives from the police, army, government, local council, and ambulance services as well as the media and other bodies (Meagher 6). Realising the “herculean task” (Meagher 9) ahead, the committee recruited some 170 members (again all men) and 20 women volunteers from the Bondi and North Bondi Surf Clubs to assist. This included sourcing and erecting the carnival enclosure which, at over 200 meters wide, was the largest ever at the beach. The Royal dais that would be built over the promenade needed a canvas cover to shield the royal couple from the heat or rain. Seating needed to be provided for some 10,500 paying spectators, and eventually involved 17 rows of tiered seating set across the promenade, 2,200 deckchairs on the sand in front, and, on each flank, the Bondi Surf Club’s tiered stands. Accommodations also had to be provided at selected vantage points for some 100 media representatives, with a much greater crowd of 50–60,000 expected to gather outside the enclosure. Four large tents, two at each end of the competition area, would serve as both change rooms and shady rest areas for some 2,000 competitors. Two additional large tents were needed, one at each end of the lawns behind the beach, fitted out with camp stretchers that had to be sourced for the St John Ambulance Brigade to deal with first-aid cases, most of whom were envisaged to come from the crowds due to heat stroke (Meagher 6–7). The committee also had to solve numerous operational issues not usually associated with running a surf carnival, such as ensuring sufficient drinking water for so many people on what might be a very hot day (“The Queen to See” 12). With only one tap in the carnival area, the organisers had to lay a water line along the entire one-kilometre length of the promenade with double taps every two to three metres. Temporary toilets also had to be sourced, erected, and serviced. Self-financing and with costs adding up, sponsors needed to be secured to provide goods and services in return for advertising. An iced water unit was, for instance, provided on the dais, without cost, by the ElectrICE Commercial Refrigeration company. The long strip of red carpet laid from where the royals would alight from their car right through the dais was donated by the manufacturer of Feltex, a very popular Australian-made wool carpet. Prominent department store, Anthony Horden’s, loaned the intricately carved chairs to be used by the Royal couple and other officials, while The Bondi Diggers Club provided chrome plated chairs for other official guests, many of whom were the crew of royal yacht, the S.S. Gothic (Meagher 6). Fig. 3: “Feltex [Advertisement].” The Australian Home Beautiful Nov. 1954: 40. http://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-2985285882. The Ladies Committees of the Bondi and North Bondi surf clubs were tasked with organising and delivering lunch and drinks to over 400 officials, all of whom were to stay in position from early morning until the carnival concluded at 5 pm (Meagher 6). Girl members of the Bondi social clubs were to act as usherettes. Officials describe deciding who would meet, or even come in any close proximity to, the Queen as “most ticklish” and working with mayors and other officials a “headache” (“Socialites” 3). In Bondi, there were to be notably few officials sitting with the royal couple, but thousands of “ordinary” spectators seated around the carnival area. On her arrival, it was planned that the Queen would walk through a guard of honour of lifesavers from each Australian and New Zealand club competing in the carnival. After viewing the finals of the surf boat races, the Queen would meet the team captains and then, in a Land Rover, inspect the massed lifesavers and greet the spectators. Although these activities were not contentious, debate raged about the competitors’ uniforms. At this time, full-length chest-covering costumes were normally worn in march-past and other formal events, with competitors stripping down to trunks for surf races and beach events. It was, however, decided that full-length costumes would be worn for the entirety of the Queen’s visit. This generated considerable press commentary that this was ridiculous, and charges that Australians were ashamed of their lifesavers’ manly chests (“Costume Rule” 3). The president of the Bondi Life Saving Club, however, argued that they did not want the carnival spoiled by lifesavers wearing “dirty … track suits, football guernseys … old football shorts … and just about everything except proper attire” (ctd. in Jenkings 1). Waverley Council similarly attempted to control the appearance of the route through which the royals would travel to the beach on the day of the carnival. This included “a sequence of signs along the route” expressing “the suburb’s sentiments and loyalty” (“Queen in the Suburbs” 4; see also, “The Royal Tour” 9). Maintaining that “the greatest form of welcome will be by the participation of the residents themselves”, the Mayor sought public donations to pay for decorations (with donors’ names and amounts to be published in the local press, and these eventually met a third of the cost (“The Royal Tour” 9; Waverley Council n.p.). In January 1954, he personally appealed to those on the route to decorate their premises and, in encouragement, Council provided substantial prizes for the most suitably decorated private and commercial premises. The local Chamber of Commerce was responsible for decorating the transport and shopping hub of Bondi Junction, with many businesses arranging to import Coronation decorations from England (“Queen in the Suburbs” 4; “The Royal Tour” 9). With “colorful activity” providing the basis of Council’s plan (“Queen in the Suburbs” 4), careful choreography ensured that thousands of people would line the royal route through the municipality. In another direct appeal, the Mayor requested that residents mass along the roadsides, wearing appropriate rosettes or emblems and waving flags (“Queen in the Suburbs” 4; “The Royal Tour” 9). Uniformed nurses would also be released from duty to gather outside the War Memorial Hospital as the royals passed by (“Royal Visit” n.p.). At the largest greenspace on the route, Waverley Park, some 10,000 children from the municipality’s 18 schools would assemble, all in uniform and wearing the medal to be presented to them to commemorate the visit. Children would also be provided with large red, white, or blue rosettes to wave as the royals drove by. A special seating area near the park was to be set aside for the elderly and ex-servicemen (“Queen in the Suburbs” 4). Fostering Expectations As the date of the visit approached, preparation and anticipation intensified. A week before, a detailed visit schedule was published in local newspaper Bondi Daily. At this time, the Royal Tour Decorations Committee (comprised of Aldermen and prominent local citizens) were “erecting decorations at various focal points” throughout the municipality (“The Royal Tour” 9). On 4 February, the Planning Committee held their final meeting at the Bondi Beach clubhouse (Meagher 6). The next day, the entire beach was cleaned and graded (Wilson 40). The afternoon before the visit, the Council’s decoration competition was judged, with the winners a house alongside Waverley Park and the beachside Hotel Astra (“Royal Visit” n.p.), one of 14 Sydney hotels, and the only one in Bondi, granted permission to sell liquor with meals until the extended hour of 11.00 pm during the Royal visit (“State House” 5). On the day of the surf carnival, The Sydney Morning Herald featured a large photograph of the finishing touches being put to the official dais and seating the day before (“Stage Set” 15). In reality, there was still a flurry of activity from daybreak on the day itself (Meagher 7), with the final “tidying up and decorating still proceeding” (Meagher 7) as the first carnival event, the Senior boat race heats, began at 10.00 am (“N.Z. Surf” 15). Despite some resident anger regarding the area’s general dilapidation and how the money being spent on the visit could have been used for longstanding repairs to the Pavilion and other infrastructure (Brawley 203), most found the decorations of the beach area appealing (“Royal Visit” n.p.). Tickets to the carnival had sold out well in advance and the stands were filled hours before the Queen arrived, with many spectators wearing sundresses or shorts and others stripping down to swimsuits in the sunshine (“Royal Visit” n.p.). With Police Inspector Michael O’Neill’s collapse and death at a royal event the day before thought to be the result of heat exposure, and the thermometer reaching the high 80s°F (low 30s°C), a large parasol was sourced to be held over the Queen on the dais (Meagher 8). A little after 3:15 pm, the surf club’s P.A. system advised those assembled at the beach that the royal party had left Randwick Racecourse on time and were proceeding towards them (“Queen’s Visit to Races” 17), driving through cheering crowds all the way (“Sydney” 18). At Waverley Park, Council had ensured that the waiting crowds had been entertained by the Randwick-Coogee pipe band (“Royal Visit” n.p.) and spirits were high. Schoolchildren, wearing their medals, lined the footpaths, and 102-year-old Ernest Dunn, who was driven to the park in the morning by police, was provided with a seat on the roadway as well as tea and sandwiches during his long wait (“Royal Tour Highlights” 2; “Royal Visit” n.p.). The royal couple, driving by extremely slowly and waving, were given a rousing welcome. Their attire was carefully selected for the very warm day. The Queen wore a sunny lemon Dior-styled cap-sleeved dress, small hat and white accessories, the Duke a light-coloured suit and tie. It was observed that she wore heavier makeup as a protection against the sun and, as the carnival progressed, opened her handbag to locate her fashionable sunglasses (“Thrills” 1). The Duke also wore sunglasses and used race binoculars (Meagher 8). The Result Despite the exhaustive planning, there were some mishaps, mostly when the excitement of the “near-hysterical crowds” (Hardman n.p.) could not be contained. In Double Bay, for instance, as the royals made their way to Bondi, a (neither new nor clean) hat thrown into the car’s rear seat struck the Duke. It was reported that “a look of annoyance” clouded his face as he threw it back out onto the road. At other points, flags, nosegays, and flutter ribbons (long sticks tied with lengths of coloured paper) were thrown at, and into, the Royal car. In other places, hundreds raced out into the roadway to try to touch the Queen or the Duke. They “withstood the ordeal unflinchingly”, but the Duke was reportedly concerned about “this mass rudeness” (“Rude Mobs” 2). The most severe crowding of the day occurred as the car passed through the centre of Bondi Junction’s shopping district, where uniformed police had to jump on the Royal car’s running boards to hold off the crowds. Police also had to forcibly restrain a group of men who rushed the car as it passed the Astra Hotel. This was said to be “an ugly incident … resentment of the police action threatened to breed a riot” (“Rude Mobs” 2). Almost everything else met, and even exceeded, expectations. The Queen and Duke’s slow progress from Bondi Road and then, after passing under a large “Welcome to Bondi” sign, their arrival at the entrance to the dais only three minutes late and presence at the carnival went entirely to plan and are well documented in minute-by-minute detail. This includes in detailed press reports, newsreels, and a colour film, The Queen in Australia (1954). Their genuine enjoyment of the races was widely commented upon, evidenced in how they pointed out details to each other (Meagher 8), the number of times the Duke used his binoculars and, especially, in their reluctance to leave, eventually staying more than double the scheduled time (“Queen Delighted” 7). Sales of tickets and programs more than met the costs of mounting the event (Meagher 8–9) and the charity concert held at the beach on the night of the carnival to make the most of the crowds also raised significant funds (“Queen in the Suburbs” 4). Bondi Beach looked spectacularly beautiful and gained considerable national and international exposure (Landman 183). The Surf Life Saving Association of Australia’s president noted that the “two factors that organisation could not hope to control—weather and cooperation of spectators—fulfilled the most optimistic hopes” (Curlewis 9; Maxwell 9). Conclusion Although it has been stated that the 58-day tour was “the single biggest event ever planned in Australia” (Clark 8), focussing in on a single event reveals the detailed decentralised organisation which went into both each individual activity as well as the travel between them. It also reveals how significantly responsible bodies drew upon volunteer labour and financial contributions from residents. While many studies have discussed the warm welcome given to the monarch by Australians in 1954 (Connors 371–2, 378), a significant finding from this object-inspired research is how purposefully Waverley Council primed this public reception. The little medal discussed at the opening of this discussion was just one of many deliberate attempts to prompt a mass expression of homage and loyalty to the sovereign. It also reveals how, despite the meticulous planning and minute-by-minute scheduling, there were unprompted and impulsive behaviours, both by spectators and the royals. Methodologically, this investigation also suggests that seemingly unprepossessing material remnants of the past can function as portals into larger stories. In this case, while an object biography could not be written of the commemorative medal I stumbled upon, a thoughtful consideration of this object inspired an investigation of aspects of the Queen’s visit to Bondi Beach that had otherwise remained unexplored. References Brawley, Sean. “Lifesavers of a Nation.” 3 Feb. 2007: 82. [extract from The Bondi Lifesaver: A History of an Australian Icon. Sydney: ABC Books, 2007.] Clark, Andrew. “The Queen’s Royal Tours of Australia Remembered: Reflection.” The Australian Financial Review 10 Sep. 2022: 8. Connors, Jane. “The 1954 Royal Tour of Australia.” Australian Historical Studies 25 (1993): 371–82. Conway, Doug. “Queen’s Perennial Pride in Australia.” AAP General News Wire 26 Nov. 2021: n.p. “Coronation Medals Presented to School Children: 6000 Distributed in Rockhampton District.” Morning Bulletin 12 May 1937: 6. “Costume Rule for Queen’s Bondi Visit.” Barrier Miner 18 Dec. 1953: 3. Curlewis, Adrian. “Letter.” Bondi Surfer: Official Organ of the Bondi Surf Bathers’ Life Saving Club 2.7 (1954): 9. Ford, Caroline. Sydney Beaches: A History. Sydney: NewSouth Publishing, 2014. Ford, Caroline, Chris Giles, Danya Hodgetts, and Sean O’Connell. “Surf Lifesaving: An Australian Icon in Transition.” Australian Bureau of Statistics Year Book, Australia 2007. Ed. Dennis Trewin. Canberra: Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2007. 1–12. Hardman, Robert. Our Queen. London: Hutchinson, 2011. <https://www.google.com.au/books/edition/OurQueen/DySbU9r0ABgC>. Jenkings, Frank. “Editorial.” Bondi Surfer: Official Organ of the Bondi Surf Bathers’ Life Saving Club 2.6 (1954): 1. Landman, Jane. “Renewing Imperial Ties: The Queen in Australia.” The British Monarchy on Screen. Ed. Mandy Merck. Manchester: Manchester UP, 2016. 181–204. Lawrence, Joan, and Alan Sharpe. Pictorial History: Eastern Suburbs. Alexandria: Kingsclear Books, 1999. Maxwell, C. Bede. “Letter.” Bondi Surfer: Official Organ of the Bondi Surf Bathers’ Life Saving Club 2.7 (1954): 9. Meagher, T.W. “The Royal Tour Surf Carnival Bondi Beach, February 6, 1954.” Bondi Surfer: Official Organ of the Bondi Surf Bathers’ Life Saving Club 2.7 (1954): 6–9. National Archives of Australia (NAA): A462, 825/4/6, Royal tour 1954—Medals for School children—General representations, 1954. National Archives of Australia (NAA): A1533, 1957/758B, Royal Visit, 1953–1954. National Archives of Australia (NAA): A1838, 1516/11 Part 1, Protocol—Royal Visit, 1948–1954. National Archives of Australia (NAA): A1838, 1516/11 Part 2, Protocol—Royal Visit, 1954–1966. National Archives of Australia (NAA): A6122, 1861, Government Heads of State—Royal Visit 1954—ASIO file, 1953–1958. Canberra: Australian Security Intelligence Organization. National Archives of Australia (NAA): A9708, RV/CD, Fly and Mosquito Control. National Archives of Australia (NAA): A9708, RV/CQ, Laundry and Dry Cleaning and Pressing Arrangements. National Archives of Australia (NAA): A9708, RV/DD Annexure 2, Minutes of Conferences with State Directors, 22 January 1953–14 January 1954. National Archives of Australia (NAA): A9708, RV/DD Annexure 3, State Publications. National Archives of Australia (NAA): A9708, RV/DD Annexure 15, Report by Public Relations Officer. National Archives of Australia (NAA): A9708, RV/T, Matters Relating to Dress. National Archives of Australia (NAA). Royalty and Australian Society: Records Relating to The British Monarchy Held in Canberra. Research Guide. Canberra: Commonwealth of Australia, 1998. “N.Z. Surf Team in Dispute.” The Sydney Morning Herald 6 Feb. 1954: 15. “Queen Delighted by Carnival.” The Sun-Herald 7 Feb. 1954: 7. “Queen in the Suburbs: Waverley.” Sun 21 Jan. 1954: 4. “Queen’s Visit to Races: Drive in Suburbs.” The Daily Telegraph 6 Feb. 1954: 17. “Royal Tour Highlights.” The Mail 6 Feb. 1954: 2. Royal Variety Charity. “Coronation Year Royal Variety Performance.” London: London Coliseum, 2 Nov. 1953. <https://www.royalvarietycharity.org/royal-variety-performance/archive/detail/1953-london-coliseum>. “Royal Visit to Waverley.” Feb. 1954 [Royal Visit, 1954 (Topic File). Local Studies Collection, Waverley Library, Bondi Junction, LS VF] “Rude Mobs Spoil Happy Reception.” The Argus 8 Feb. 1954: 2. Sleight, Simon. Young People and the Shaping of Public Space in Melbourne, 1870–1914. Abingdon: Routledge, 2016. “Socialites in for Rude Shock on Royal Tour Invitations.” Daily Telegraph 3 Jan. 1954: 3. “Stage Set for Royal Surf Carnival at Bondi.” The Sydney Morning Herald 6 Feb. 1954: 15. “State House Rehearses Royal Opening.” The Sydney Morning Herald 27 Jan. 1954: 5. “Sydney.” Women’s Letters. The Bulletin 10 Feb. 1954: 18. The Age 24 Jun. 1897: 5. The Queen in Australia. Dir. Colin Dean. Australian National Film Board, 1954. “The Queen to See Lifesavers.” The Daily Telegraph 24 Aug. 1953: 12. “The Royal Tour.” Bondi Daily 30 Jan. 1954: 9. “Thrills for the Queen at Bondi Carnival—Stayed Extra Time.” The Sun-Herald 7 Feb. 1954: 1. Warshaw, Matt. The History of Surfing. San Fransisco: Chronicle Books, 2010. Wilson, Jack. Australian Surfing and Surf Lifesaving. Adelaide: Rigby, 1979.

Field fortifications became an important feature of the Atlanta campaign, evolving from minimal beginnings to major proportions by the time the armies crossed the Etowah River. The impetus behind this development came not from the highest commanders but originated on the corps, division, and brigade levels, and sometimes from regimental officers and the privates. Sherman adapted his operational style to accommodate this development, consciously using fieldworks to aid his offensive needs without getting bogged down in a defensive-mindedness that fieldworks were capable of fostering. Johnston, in contrast, allowed himself to develop a consistent defensive operational style, relying too heavily on strong earthworks and not taking enough risks to slow or stymy Federal advances. Hood waffled from a disdain of enemy earthworks, launching vigorous but unsuccessful assaults, to reverting to Johnston’s defensive mode. The actual digging was overwhelmingly done by the rank and file, not by black laborers or by pioneer or engineer troops.

This chapter focuses on Major General Sir Eyre Coote who served as a brigade commander during the deployment of Britain's expeditionary force to the Mediterranean. It addresses his frustration at the slow pace of operations, the seeming interminable drifting around the Mediterranean, sometimes searching for targets of opportunity but mostly cooped up aboard the flotilla of transports or spending time ashore in Gibraltar, Minorca or Turkey. His frustrations were widely shared, but, as the chapter stresses, in the course of the 18 months in which the force was deployed to the Mediterranean, the British Army was reborn. The chapter then explores how subordinates began to understand their general's intent, anticipate his decisions and work towards a common objective. As they got to know and trust one another more, knowledge exchange became more frequent. Those with extensive past experiences discussed their knowledge with their subordinates in a variety of settings. As a result, the chapter underlines that informal adaptation and innovation in the field was encouraged, offering new solutions to the challenges posed by France's revolutionary armies.

The Jockey Hollow section and the New Jersey Brigade Area of Morristown National Historical Park (MORR) are predominantly comprised of upland oak-hickory forests that have regrown over the past 200 years from previous land uses. The forest is being damaged by two major stressors, a large population of white-tailed deer and an abundance of non-native, invasive shrubs and herbaceous species. This study explores changes to the forest over 26 years and suggests management techniques to avoid future degradation. The forest is typical of many upland stands in the region, and studies here would be applicable to many lands controlled by the National Park Service and to many public and private land owners. In 1995, 18 vegetation experimental plots were established in the forest, each 20 x 20 m. Ten plots were in areas that had no non-native, invasive plants. The other eight plots had invasive species. All trees, shrubs and a sampling of herbs were recorded in each of the 18 plots. At that time, no GPS technology was available and handwritten maps were used to record locations. The plots were revisited and resurveyed in 2001; however, only 13 plots were found. This 2021 study is a new survey of the plot conditions. The investigators were able to relocate 17 of the original plots. New GPS locations were recorded for these 17 plots to facilitate future studies. The goal of the study was to test if changes over 26 years in forest conditions differed between the original invaded plots as compared to the uninvaded plots. Also, these data will allow us to measure the progress of invasion into previously uninvaded areas. Together, these results will allow the forest managers to focus attention on the most aggressive plant invaders and to understand the fate of this forest type that is being challenged by deer and non-native plants. Over the last 26 years there has been no hunting for deer here. Also, the plots were not within the few deer exclosures at MORR; deer were able to enter the landscape from surrounding heavily wooded areas. Data were collected in four layers of vegetation – mature trees, saplings, shrubs, and herbaceous groundcovers. The mature trees in the invaded forest plots demonstrated declining trends. The species richness declined by 6%, the average number of trees declined by 30%, white ash and flowering dogwood had the most losses, and basal area did not increase over time because very few new saplings grew into mature tree sizes. The uninvaded plots’ mature trees also revealed a 20% declined in richness, number of trees declined by 18%, the greatest losses occurred for red maple and black birch, but basal area increased slightly due to growth of large persisting trees. Saplings in the invaded forest experienced declines over the 26 years. Species richness declined by 38%, number of native saplings decreased by 44%, and number of invasive saplings increased by 600%. In the uninvaded forest, the conditions and trends were variable. Richness decreased by 21%, no invasive saplings found, number of native saplings increased by 37% (due to increases in American beech). With American beech excluded, the number of native saplings decreased by 60%. In both forest types, the declining number of native saplings was primarily caused by excessive deer damage. For the shrub layer in invaded plots, Japanese barberry stems increased by 122% by 2001 and 276% by 2021. Barberry became the dominant species. Similarly, wineberry stands increased 486% in 2001 and 157% for 2021. It is now the second most common species. However, in the uninvaded plots there was no significant increase in the number of barberry stems and wineberry was not present in 1995 or 2001, and only averaged 1.5 stems per plot in 2021. Neither species has a significant presence now and eradication is possible. A major finding is that the process of invasion of these shrubs over 26 years is very slow. For the herbaceous plants, in the invaded plots there was a sharp decrease in cover by 2021 due to the competitive impact by the abundant invasive shrubs. The invasive Japanese stiltgrass declined 86% in cover and native Carex (sedge) species declined by 78%. In the uninvaded forest plots, stiltgrass was present in very low amounts and did not increase significantly over 26 years. The number of quadrats with any stiltgrass only increased from 3 to 5 over the 26 years. These data show that stiltgrass invades slowly in the uninvaded plots, but in the invaded plots it was greatly replaced by invasive shrubs. Overall, the rate of change of the native herb cover was slow. Together, these data suggest that currently uninvaded forest areas can be protected by monitoring and rigorously eliminating any initial invasions by non-native shrubs and herbs. Once these species reach a significant presence in number of stems or cover in a plot they explode in number. Early intervention when invasive plants first appear is the most practical management tool. Reduction of deer density will also increase the reproductive potential and sustainability of our main forest tree species. Planting of new young canopy tree species, with protection from deer, can retard the ability of invasive plants to begin new populations.