Dr David Sutton

Dr David Sutton is a Senior Historian at the Australian War Memorial.

David began working as a historian at the Australian War Memorial in 2017 after working at the University of Wollongong, where he taught twentieth-century history and politics, and world history in the early modern period. His research focuses on Australian involvement in the Second World War, and Australian peacekeeping operations from 1947 to the present.

David was lead historian for the development of the Memorial’s new permanent galleries, Australian Peacekeeping: 1947–Today and RAAF C-130 Hercules. He has also worked on temporary Memorial exhibitions including The Courage for Peace, and “Gentle in manner; resolute in deed”: Australian Operations in Somalia.

Main areas of interest and research:

• Syria-Lebanon campaign (Second World War, 1941)
• Australian involvement in the air war over North Africa, the Atlantic Ocean, and Europe (Second World War)
• The Nazi-Soviet War (1941–1945)
• Australian peacekeeping operations 1947–present

Publication highlights 

Book 

Syria and Lebanon 1941: The Allied Fight Against the Vichy French, Osprey Publishing, 2022 

Articles and book chapters 

“The Russian Civil War” [with Stephen Brown], in Alexander Hill (ed.), The Routledge Handbook of Soviet and Russian Military Studies, Routledge, 2025 

“Complications and Compromise: The Paris Peace Conference and the End of the Great War”, in Paul R. Bartrop (ed.), The Routledge history of the First World War, Routledge, 2024 

“Was Stalin Necessary? Soviet Command in the Great Patriotic War” [with Stephen Brown], in Paul R. Bartrop (ed.), The Routledge History of the Second World War, Routledge, 2022 

“Stalin’s War or People’s War? Total War behind the Front Lines” [with Stephen Brown], in Paul R. Bartrop (ed.), The Routledge History of the Second World War, Routledge, 2022 

“Rwandan Tragedy: a small contingent of Australians deployed to provide assistance in horrifying conditions”, Wartime 94, 2021 

“Terms of Surrender: With the Third Reich About to Fall, the Terms of Nazi Surrender Became as Much about Politics as Combat”, Wartime 87, 2019 

“Australian Naval Activities in the Pacific at the End of the Great War”, in Carolyn Holbrook and Keir Reeves (eds), The Great War: Aftermath and Commemoration, UNSW Press, 2019 

“1941 and the National-Patriotic Revival in Russia”, The Journal of Slavic Military Studies, vol. 32, no. 1, 2019 

“Coastal Sacrifice”, Wartime, 2019 

“‘Don’t give an inch’: In 1943, Outnumbered Australian Forces at Wau Fought and Won a Remarkable Engagement Against the Japanese”, Wartime 83, 2018 Michael Bell