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Alan K | all galleries >> Canberra >> Australian War Memorial (Gallery) > 20141231_1680 Diorama: Semakh 1918 (I)
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31-Dec-2014 AKMC

20141231_1680 Diorama: Semakh 1918 (I)

Australian War Memorial, Campbell (Canberra), ACT

You've probably never heard of Semakh before. That's because it no longer exists, so you won't find it on Trip Advisor. At the time of the battle it was a small mud village on the southern end of Lake Tiberias a.k.a. the Sea Of Gallilee and serviced a railway running from Haifa (now in Israel) to Damascus in what is now Syria.

The allies were planning an assault on Damascus and had to capture Semakh which was part of the Ottoman domain, and where the Germans had added reinforcements including machine gunners to the town. I'll allow the official AWM commentary to fill in the rest:

The 4th Light Horse Brigade, under Brigadier General William Grant, was sent to capture Semakh. As they approached the south of Semakh just before dawn on 25 September, the forward troops were heavily fired upon. The Australian troops charged the town, with two squadrons of the 11th Light Horse Regiment attacking the eastern end of Semakh and two squadrons of the 12th Light Horse attacking the western end. The town was captured by 5.30 am and 365 prisoners taken - half of them German.

What that page omits is the fact that the 11th was made up of South Australian and Queenslander troops, many of which were Aboriginal. Australian casualties were 43 killed or wounded.

In this part of the diorama we see men crossing the rail line to assault the station.

I didn't recall having seen this one on previous visits. An entry in the AWM blog indicated that it had been in storage for decades and had only just been returned to view for the refurbished WWI exhibit reflecting 100 years since the war began.

Ah yes, I remember it well.

Olympus OM-D EM-1 ,Olympus M.ZUIKO DIGITAL ED 12-40mm f2.8 PRO
1/10s f/4.5 at 40.0mm iso1000 hide exif
Full EXIF Info
Date/Time31-Dec-2014 11:02:09
MakeOlympus
ModelE-M1
Flash UsedNo
Focal Length40 mm
Exposure Time1/10 sec
Aperturef/4.5
ISO Equivalent1000
Exposure Bias0.00
White Balance0
Metering Modematrix (5)
JPEG Quality (6)
Exposure Programaperture priority (3)
Focus Distance

other sizes: small medium original auto
Julie Oldfield24-Jan-2015 18:28
Beautifully exposed.
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