Craig Tibbitts

Craig is a Senior Historian at the Australian War Memorial.

Craig has worked since 2000, including in the Research Centre as Senior Curator of Official and Private Records.  During much of that time he was also in charge of administration and research for the Memorial’s Roll of Honour.  

In 2016, Craig became Research Project Manager for an independent history of the Vietnam War’s medical legacies. The resulting book, The Long Shadow, Australia’s Vietnam Veterans Since the War, by Dr Peter Yule, was published in October 2020. 

Craig has studied the management of information, records, libraries and archives at University of Canberra from 1999, graduating with a Bachelor of Information Management in 2001. He studied military history at UNSW Canberra at ADFA and in 2024 was awarded a Master of Philosophy in War Studies, including his thesis “The Mental Wounds of War: Representations of Australia’s Experience of the First World War.”

Main areas of interest and research:

• Military Medicine (including mental war wounds)
• Vietnam War
• First World War (Western Front) 
• Second World War (North Africa, Greece)
• New Zealand Wars (1845-1872) 

Publication highlights

“Anzacs in Greece, 1941”, paper for the International Institute for Global Security Studies (Instituto Internacional de Estudios en Seguridad Global), forthcoming, 2026

“Paratroopers on Crete: For the Germans the Campaign Began Disastrously”, Wartime 103, 2023

“In the Nick of Time: Combined Arms at the Battle of Long Tan”, in Vietnam War: un análisis histórico military, Sotecza, 2023

“El Alamein: 80 Years On”, Wartime 101, 2023 

“The River and the Redoubts: Australians Took Part in Quelling the Hauhau During the New Zealand Wars”, Wartime 97, 2022

“Road to Dien Bien Phu: French Colonial Ambitions led to la sale guerre, France’s Dirty War in Indochina, 1946–54”, Wartime 92, 2020

“A Day to Remember: The Origins of Anzac Day’, Reveille, vol. 94, no. 1, March 2020

“Casualties of War: For Those Who Survived the Ordeal of Combat, the Medical Legacies Could Endure for a Lifetime”, Wartime 85, 2019 

“‘A Military Fervour Akin to Religious Fanaticism’: Scottish Military Identity in the Australian Imperial Force”, in David Forsyth and Wendy Ugolini (eds) A Global Force: War, Identities and Scotland's Diaspora, Edinburgh University Press, 2017 

‘“Good, Fearless Soldiers”’, Inside History, Jan–Feb 2014 

“‘The Toughest Battle of All’: The Beachhead Battles of Gona, Buna and Sanananda, 1942–43’”, Wartime 38, 2007 

“Australians in the First Battle of El Alamein, July 1942”, Sabretache, vol. 45, no. 1, March 2004