Mid-North Courier 1941-42

March 17, 2017 · in Photo Collections · 12 · 1.7K

Since a while I´m active at the Historical center in the little town of Riverton, South Australia. Filing and listing old newspapers sounds a bit boring but it is anything but for a history minded guy like me. Following photos are from the Mid-North Courier. It´s a weekly paper of 6-8 pages and contains mainly local news and ads but every now and then something of great national importance finds its way into the pages. When I started on the issues for 1939 I thought something would be written regarding the oncoming war. Nope, not much. 1940? Not really. Not until 1941 it became interesting with articles on the war in Europe and Northern Africa. One would think that huge events like the bombing of Pearl Harbor in 1941 or Darwin in 1942 would find its way into the paper, even if it is a very local one, but no. The only reason I can come to think of is they did not want to publish negative news. Anyway, it´s been a very interesting time reading all little articles in this newspaper. Some very small texts look very insignificant but have at times a very strong content for a small town like Riverton as local lads went missing or were declared killed in action.

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23 additional images. Click to enlarge.


12 responses

  1. Those statistics that all total "3882" is quite ironic, isn't it?

  2. These local archives are a valuable historical resource. Thanks for posting.

  3. Thanks for posting these pieces of history! Greatly appreciated.

  4. Stellan, I archive at the museum I volunteer for. We get in boxes of items from families whose Father or Uncle is passed. It is the story of their lives. Like the newspaper, it is a window into the time, for those of us able to appreciate it. The one I remember was for a guy who trained as a fighter pilot for the Navy, after he went thru the civilian pilot training program prewar Uncle Sam had for those who wanted to fly. I had his logs, manuals, and instructors syllabus for when he was training others at NAS Memphis. There was a nice litho of a Yellow Peril. One of several thousand stories from WW II.

    • Good on you. I think many stories worth telling are being lost because of battle traumas or the low ranking soldiers belief there is nothing special what he witnessed. If you come by a former soldier, airman or sailor try interview him even if it will just be very short basic questions and answers. Thanks for stopping by.

      • Stellan, we've just been talking about that. We had a museum guy from the Netherlands Holocaust Museum visiting us for two momnths last Summer. He was researching Rosie the Riveters working at Glenn L. Martins in WW II. Not only do we have some records and photos, but there is an association locally of them, so he got to visit and talk to them. They meet at the museum, and are a diminishing group, unfortunately. Their daughters and grandaughters come, and dress the part. It is a sight to see. We have a rivet gun on display, and one of them recognized it as hers! That was a moment!

  5. Very interesting, thanks for sharing.

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