On H.M.A.S. Berrima. 1. Drilling. 2. Church Parade. 3. “Good-bye, Sydney Town.” Photographs by Signaller Henry Ellis in Reeves’ ‘Australians in Action’.

Scott Wilson uncovers a Mosman man whose photographs document some of the first Australian actions of the Great War.

Within Our Gates : ‘The Landing at Gaba Tepe’, soldiers landing on the beach and advancing to the cliffs. (National Film and Sound Archive 356093-1007)

Obelisk Bay served for Anzac Cove not long after the landing on 25 April 1915. The beach on the southern side of Middle Head was the location for Within Our Gates, a film also known as Deeds That Won Gallipoli, directed by Frank Harvey for the J. C. Williamson company. Only a few seconds of footage and a couple of stills survive, but the WWI diary of Percy Smythe can take us there again…

Few of the first AIF had the chance to show their dash in front of a home crowd but Garnet Malley did. This grainy photograph captures the Mosman birdman stunting over Martin Place in 1919.

Large crowds in the city during the luncheon hour yesterday were thrilled by the daring “stunts” performed by Captain Malley, M.C., in a Sopwith fighting machine. Approaching the city over Hyde Park, he accomplished three daring spiral dives. Over the city itself he flew so low that at times it seemed he must crash into some of the taller buildings; but he gracefully “hurdled” them all.

He went on to wow kids at Blacktown and Penrith and crowds across country NSW with his playful aerobatics. Even a crash landing in a Benalla backyard smaller than his ‘Pup’ couldn’t stop him.

A suitably military looking card catalogue box has been donated for the 1,800 index cards that form part of a collection bought by Mosman Library in March 2013.

Friday the 13th dawned fine in Northern France in April 1917 but it was to prove an inauspicious date for one of two flying aces with a Mosman connection, Captain Lancelot Lytton Richardson.