Mark Baker

Nov 11, 2024 | insidestory.org.au | Mark Baker

They called it the “Mini Tet” offensive. In late April 1968 the Viet Cong and North Vietnamese Army launched a second wave of audacious attacks on Saigon and across the south in what would become the deadliest month of the Vietnam war for the United States and its allies. In early May, the 1st Australian Task Force deployed two battalions to an area twenty kilometres north of Bien Hoa city to intercept and disrupt the enemy forces withdrawing from Saigon.

Nov 10, 2024 | insidestory.org.au | Mark Baker

Eighty years ago, 350 kilometres north of the Arctic Circle and far from home, the greatest battleship ever built — and the pride of Adolf Hitler’s fleet — met an inglorious end, blown apart and capsized in the shallows of a remote Norwegian fjord near the fishing port of Tromsø.

Nov 3, 2024 | insidestory.org.au | Mark Baker

When John Howard announced in late 2007 that Australians were heading for the polls I was editing the Canberra Times. I had been hired when the paper was flagship of Rural Press, the regional and rural publishing house built by John Brehmer Fairfax — great, great grandson of the founder of the family newspaper empire. The company would soon merge with John Fairfax Holdings, publisher of the Age and the Sydney Morning Herald.

Sep 16, 2024 | insidestory.org.au | Mark Baker

It was not quite a “mission accomplished” moment, but there were echoes of George W. Bush’s hubristic declaration in May 2013 that the United States invasion of Iraq had largely met its goals — not long before the country descended into bitter sectarian warfare and eight years before the last US combat troops were able to withdraw.

Aug 24, 2024 | canberradaily.com.au | Mark Baker |Neil Mercer |Tony Park

This week, Jeff Popple reviews three great Australian books for Father’s Day! More of Jeff’s reviews can be found on his blog: murdermayhemandlongdogs.comAllen & Unwin, $34.99Dads who like military history will appreciate Mark Baker’s Buckham’s Bombers. Bruce Buckham was the captain of a Lancaster bomber crew during World War II and is one of Australia’s most highly decorated pilots.