Bob Breen - Australian Force Somalia: 1992-1993

His Excellency General, the Honourable David Hurley AC DSC (Retd), has once again been generous with his time and has provided insights into the AFSs history. His focus has always been on recognising others performance and identifying lessons for the Australian Defence Force (ADF). I arrived in Somalia in April 1993 at short notice to analyse operational performance and record the AFS history. Lieutenant Colonel Hurley trusted me with unrestricted access to 1RAR Group personnel and records. I am grateful to AFS members who told of their experiences truthfully and forthrightly. They wanted the ADF to learn lessons and for their efforts to be understood and not forgotten. Records show that staff officers and public servants working at the strategic and operational levels of command in Australia inadvertently increased risk and stress for their compatriots in Somalia. The ADF was slow to recognise that traumatic incidents, unrelenting mental pressure and exposure to moral harm could precipitate Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD).

This publication is my fourth iteration of the AFS story. I published A Little Bit of Hope with Allen and Unwin in 1998, an updated second edition of that book with Echo Books in 2018 and then an account for Volume IV of the Official History of Australian Peacekeeping, Humanitarian and Post-Cold War Operations in 2019. I am grateful to all those who collaborated with me for those publications. For this book, I received excellent and professional support from Tim Gellel, Head, Australian Army History Unit, and staff, especially Sophie Jerapetritis, Miesje de Vogel, cartographer Conway Bown, and editor Sarah Randles. At Big Sky Publishing, Denny Neave provided superb professional advice and assistance. He has wanted to publish a book on Australian operations in Somalia in 1993 for several years. I trust that I have met his expectations.

Finally, I wish to acknowledge the contribution of George Gittoes, Gary Ramage and Terry Dex who took most of the photographs used to illustrate this book. The story would be incomplete without their images.

Bibliographic Note: This history of the Australian Force Somalia is informed by primary sources from Department of Defence files, accessed for the purposes of operational analysis by the author in 1993, when he was serving at Land Headquarters, Sydney. He conducted field research in Somalia in AprilMay 1993, recording interviews, copying folios from AFS files and gathering copies of donated personal records, usually personal diaries and correspondence. All of these sources, as well as source material gathered for the operational analysis of Operation Solace and other ADF operations, were donated to the Australian War Memorial in 2014 when the author retired from the Army. Unless otherwise specified, copies of unpublished documents listed below can be found in the series AWM 388 Papers of the Official Historian of Australian Peacekeeping, Humanitarian and Post-Cold War Operations, located in Mitchell, ACT. Ranks of individuals are those held at the time of Operation Solace, JanuaryMay 1993.