The Royal Australian Navy at Normandy
Australian sailors played many important roles in D-Day’s Operation Neptune.
Second World War 1939 - 1945
Dr Lachlan Grant
Dr Lachlan Grant is a Senior Historian at the Australian War Memorial.
Lachlan joined the Memorial in 2011 from Monash University where he completed his PhD and MA. He has published widely on Australian experiences of the Second World War, curated museum exhibitions, and led battlefield tours to Singapore, Gallipoli and the Western Front.
Lachlan is the author of Australian Soldiers in Asia–Pacific in World War II (2014); co-editor (with Joan Beaumont and Aaron Pegram) of Beyond Surrender: Australian Prisoners of War in the Twentieth Century (2015); and editor of For County, For Nation: An Illustrated History of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Military Service (2018); and The Changi Book (2015).
Most recently, Lachlan was the lead historian for the Australians in Bomber Command: 1939–1945; The Battle of Milne Bay; Sydney Harbour Under Attack; and Sydney–Emden Battle exhibitions. He is currently working on a book on Australians at D-Day and the battle for Normandy.
Main areas of interest and research:
- Second World War
- RAAF and RAN in Europe
- EATS and Bomber Command
- Prisoners of war (Europe and Asia)
Publication highlights
For Country, For Nation: An Illustrated History of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Military Service, Australian War Memorial, 2018
The Changi Book, NewSouth, 2015
Beyond Surrender: Australian Prisoners of War in the Twentieth Century [with J. Beaumont and A. Pegram], Melbourne University Press, 2015
Australian Soldiers in Asia–Pacific in World War II, NewSouth, 2014
Book chapters and articles
“Failed to Return": The RAAF Missing in the Second World War”, WM, Issue 1, 2025
“On a Nuremberg Moon: One Raid in 1944 Became Bomber Command’s Worst Night of the War”, Wartime 107, 2024
“Australia and the Second World War” [with K. James], in The Routledge History of the Second World War, Routledge, 2022
“Lancaster ‘G for George’”, Wartime 97, 2022
“Australians in Bomber Command”, Wartime 93, 2021
“Australia’s Confrontation with Indonesia, 1964–66” [with Michael Kelly], in Fighting Australia’s Cold War, ANU Press, 2021
“The Royal Australian Navy at Normandy”, Wartime 87, 2019
‘‘Given a second rate job”: Campaigns in Aitape–Wewak and New Britain, 1944–45” , in Australia 1944–45: Victory in the Pacific, Cambridge University Press, 2015
“Hellships: Prisoner Transport and Unrestricted Submarine Warfare in World War II”, in Beyond Surrender, Melbourne University Press, 2015
“Breaking Barriers: The Diversity of POW Camps in Japan and Australian Contacts with Japanese Civilians”, in Beyond Surrender, Melbourne University Press, 2015
“Remembering and Rethinking Captivity” [with J. Beaumont and A. Pegram], in Beyond Surrender, Melbourne University Press, 2015
“On the Great Crusade: Australian Participation in Normandy and the Liberation of Western Europe”, Wartime 66, 2014
“Operations in the Markham and Ramu Valleys”, in Australia 1943: The Liberation of New Guinea, Cambridge University Press, 2013
“Monument and Ceremony: The Australian ex-POW Memorial and the Anzac Legend”, in Forgotten Captives in Japanese Occupied Asia, Routledge, 2008
A full list of Lachlan’s publications can be found here.
The fighting Gunditjmara
Indigenous people have fought for Country and for nation, from frontier wars to world wars.
Failed to Return
The search for missing aircrew in the Second World War was painstaking and painful.
Second World War 1939 - 1945