Military Historian, Author, Restorer
Michael Cecil was born in Melbourne, Australia in 1955. His tertiary studies were at Monash University (Clayton campus) where he graduated with two degrees: a Batchelor of Science with Honours and a Batchelor of Arts. He later studied at Canberra Institute of Technology, where he graduated with a Certificate IV in Museum Practice.
Following graduation from Monash University, he held various positions in both the public service and in private consulting. These included research assistant to the ‘Atlas of Victoria’ project, various tertiary teaching positions, and technical administration appointments.
Always passionate about history, he has been researching Australian military history - particularly the technical history of vehicles and equipment - since the early 1970s. This translated into publication of articles in the late 1980s, and his first book in the early 1990s.
My first book!
In 2000, he commenced work at the Australian War Memorial in Canberra as an Assistant Curator in the Military Heraldry and Technology Section. Within a year, he was promoted to Curator, and shortly afterwards, to Senior Curator. In 2004, he was appointed Acting Head of Military Heraldry and Technology, with confirmation as Head of Military Heraldry and Technology several months later.
While at the AWM, Michael was involved in several significant acquisitions, including large items from HMAS Brisbane. Prior to the ship’s decommissioning, Michael led a small group of staff in recording aspects of ship operations while at sea, and identifying those parts of the ship that would be suitable for inclusion in the National Collection. A field trip with similar aims of identifying items for inclusion in the National Collection was undertaken to Kuwait and Iraq in May 2008, in the company of two members of the Army History Unit. Michael was the first AWM curator to be deployed to a war zone in modern times, and has been followed by several others since then. He also successfully completed a two-week course in Leopard tank driving and maintenance at the School of Armour, Puckapunyal, and is one of few civilians to hold an Army AFV drivers licence. Michael retired from the AWM in mid-2010, when he and artist wife Krystii Melaine (www.krystiimelaine.com) moved to the United States of America.
Overlooking Baghdad from the Australian observation point in the International Zone in 2008. Mike Cecil was the first member of the curatorial staff of the AWM to deploy to a war zone in modern times.
Michael began publishing books on Australian Military History in the early 1990s. His books include the Australian Military Equipment Profiles series: ‘Australian Field Artillery 1939 to 45’ (1992); ‘Local Pattern Carriers 1939 to 1945’ (1992); ‘Australian Scout and Armoured Cars 1933 to 1945’ (1993); and ‘The M113 and M113A1 APC in Australian Service 1962 to 1972’ (1994). ‘Battlegroup Leopard: Australian Armour Exercises in the North’ was published in 1998. ‘Mud and Dust: Australian Army Vehicles and Artillery in Vietnam’ was published in 2009. Since his retirement, he has continued to research and publish. 'Australian Military Abbreviations, Acronyms and Codes’ was published in January 2014 and ‘Australian Army Units and Unit Serials of the Second World War’ later the same year. In 2015, ‘Leopard AS1 in Australian Service’ and ‘Pioneers of Australian Armour in the Great War’ were both published, the latter with co-author David Finlayson. Four titles have been published with Trackpad Publishing in the UK, including Sentinel and Fire!
Michael has also published many articles in magazines such as ‘Army Motors’, ‘Ironsides’ and ‘Military Machines International’. He is a long-standing member of the Military Vehicle Preservation Society (MVPA), the Australian Armoured Vehicle Association (AAVA), and a life-member of the National Rifle Association (NRA).
He has had a long association with the Army Tank Museum, serving on the Museum Advisory Committee for several years, and was the inaugural Chairman of the Light Horse and Armour Memorial Foundation, the civilian company raised to assist the museum in the 1990s.
Signing documentation to bring the Light Horse and Armour Memorial Foundation into existence, with the Director of Armour, Colonel Gordon Jones.
In August 2013, Michael was awarded a ‘Certificate of Appreciation’ by the Royal Australian Armoured Corps for his lengthy and significant contribution to recording the history of the Corps.
Certificate of Appreciation awarded to me by the Royal Australian Armoured Corps in 2013. Quite a thrill!
Vehicle Restorations
Michael restores military vehicles and has owned a variety over the years, including a Marmon-Herrington ‘Dingo’ Scout Car, Ford ¼ ton Model GPW ‘jeep’, a Ford 1 ton 01Y utility, and a Canadian Military Pattern (CMP) Ford F15 GS truck. He is currently restoring a 1941 Ford Series 1 Model GP ‘prototype jeep’.
One of my restorations - a 1942 Ford F15 4x2 15cwt truck.
Krystii and I fording a shallow stream in our 1944 Ford GPW "jeep", another restoration.
In March 2015, Michael delivered the annual address to attendees at the National Military Vehicle Rally at Corowa, NSW. He regularly provides information to other restorers, researchers, and the public around the world, both by direct correspondence or through forums such as Maple Leaf Up (http://www.mapleleafup.net/forums/index.php), REMLR (http://remlr.com/forum/index.php) and G503 (http://g503.com/forums/). He continues to provide contract consulting services through the Canberra-based company Significance International. (www.significanceinternational.com).
In 2019, the Military Vehicle Preservation Association (MVPA -https://www.mvpa.org/ ), one of the largest military vehicle collecting and restoration societies, honoured Mike Cecil with the annual Bart Vanderveen Distinguished Service Award for 'contributing greatly to the preservation of historic military vehicles worldwide.'
Michael continued his association with the museum world by serving on the Board of Trustees of the North West Museum of Arts and Culture in Spokane, Washington (https://www.northwestmuseum.org/). He served on the Board, the Exhibitions and Collections sub-committee, and the Museum Policy Review sub-committee.
Michael and Krystii live in Cody, Wyoming, USA.
Research
I’ve always had an interest in military technology, which I suppose was fostered by my father’s days in the Citizens' Military Forces Royal Australian Artillery in the 1950s and 1960s, and by my Uncle who was a regular army Captain in the Royal Australian Engineers. I have great memories of both the Swan Street Engineer Depot and the Batman Avenue Artillery Depot in Melbourne, Victoria, playing on the various pieces of equipment whenever I got the opportunity.
I started "research" at an early age! Discovering the complexities of a 25 pdr field gun in the 2nd Field Regiment lines at Puckapunyal in the early 1960s.
More intensive research began in the early 1970s. An avid reader, I was always disappointed with the coverage of Australian subjects. My tertiary education introduced me to primary sources – original documents and images – and how these could be interpreted and used. It was about that time that I discovered the National Archives of Australia through my 'day job’. Long before the internet and Recordsearch, in those days it was a matter of attending the archives' reading room and laboriously working through packing lists of file titles. Any title that seemed to offer an interesting subject possibility was ordered and reviewed. Items of interest were then copied and the copies indexed.
Documents and images are indexed and stored in easy to access folders. In more recent times, many documents are held in electronic form, which takes up a fraction of the space!
The indexes for all the documents and images are compiled as MS WORD documents using an alpha-numeric system and keywords. This means that the ‘Find’ function can be used to locate every document number in which the same keyword is used. There are currently around 20,000 documents recorded on the indexes.
These documents and images, together with many other sources such as manuals, recorded interviews with veterans, and research notes, are the basic tools used in writing articles and books, and for providing assistance to others in their research.
Organising the Data
But documents and images don’t tell the full story. The data that these contain needs to be organised in such a way that the inter-relationships and chronological associations become obvious. To achieve this, I started using database computer programs in the late 1980s, beginning with DBASE and progressing through various programs to Microsoft ACCESS today. Migrating the data into the next generation of program each time certainly presented its challenges!
The main databases are organised on either of two bases:
1. Single-entry, for example those compiled by military vehicle registration number . There are several: AIF vehicles, two for AMF vehicles (1939 to 1972, and post-1972); RAN and RAAF vehicles. In these databases, each registration number is given a single entry, recording such things as vehicle make, model, wheelbase, body configuration, chassis and engine number. There are also similarly configured databases for wartime shipping.
2. Type-specific databases with multiple entries by military vehicle registration number and date. These include databases for Leopard Tanks and Land Rovers. Each database contains multiple entries for each registration number, recording such details as date, location, notes regarding the event, the unit the vehicle was assigned to at the time, call sign, and so on. This allows for searches on any registration number, date, location, etc. New information, copies of documents and images on these subjects are always welcome!
Data Sources
The places where information can be gathered are many and varied. Certainly, it is true to say that there is not a ‘one stop shop’ for finding out the history of any military vehicle or piece of equipment. Fortunately, in Australia, the Army vehicle registers have survived and are publicly accessible at the Research Centre of the Australian War Memorial.
Most data, however, is derived from laboriously leafing through pages of archival files, and extracting any relevant information which is then transferred to the relevant database. Files are held by widely scattered public institutions, including the National Archives in each state of Australia, the Australian War Memorial, the National Archives of New Zealand, the National Archive in the United States of America, and in the Public Records Office/National Archives in the United Kingdom. Many museums also hold relevant files and information sources. These include the various museums within the Australian Army Museum Network, the RAAF Museum, and the RAN Museum. I know ... I’ve visited them all, some many, many times!
Private collections have also yielded many pieces of information, as have interviews with veterans. One particular source worth mentioning was when many of the Centurion tanks were sold in 1989 with their ‘AB417A Permanent Record Book for A Vehicles’, commonly known as the log book. This was possibly the first time that surplus military vehicles in Australia had been sold with their then-current record book. The purchaser, Combat Vehicles Australia, made the wise decision to retain the log books together, and not sell them with the tanks (or by now, many would be lost or at least scattered across the world, since tanks have been sold all over Australia, New Zealand and the United States, and not just to enthusiasts. What industrial user or movie studio would be bothered retaining the log book?)
While both Tim Vibert, the Managing Director of Combat Vehicles Australia, and I had high expectations for the data we thought would be contained in the log books prior to the finalization of the tender process, the later, more detailed study of them after the contract had been awarded proved disappointing in many ways. There were gaps and incomplete entries, and some entries proved to be just plain wrong. They also covered a very limited period of each tank’s service with the earliest entries only starting in the 1960s (the tanks entered service in the early to mid-1950s). However, when the limited information that could be gleaned from them was added to the much more extensive information from other sources, it helped to provide a picture of the history of each vehicle. There are also Centurion log books held in other private collections and in public institutions such as the AWM and the Army Tank Museum. I’ve been fortunate to have tracked down and examined many of them in detail, transcribing the information they contain into my database.
Field observations have also been a great source of information, and I’ve had the opportunity to visit many units while on exercise, or at their depots. Being able to record call signs, registration numbers and hull/chassis numbers has provided considerable data that, in isolation, is almost meaningless, but when added to the database, helps considerably in building a picture of the history of that piece of equipment. I've also visited many museums around the world, where I have been able to examine various equipment in detail. More recently, Krystii and I, in company with our friend and extremely knowledgeable historian Brad Manera, toured parts of Belgium and France researching where a number of First AIF personnel served and, in some cases, died. That research trip contributed to 'Warriors' Chapel', published in 2019.
Me near the Windmill site north of Pozieres on the road to Bapaume, France, during a research trip to Europe in early 2016.
Using the Data
But what does all this data collecting achieve? I have used the document and image collections, and the data compiled into databases, as the basis for writing books and articles, and to assist others in their research.
I’ve published 17 books, and am always working on the next one.
Desert Sand to Jungle Mud - Australian Military Vehicles of the Second World War is a new series being co-authored with Keith Webb, and will provide information about the majority of vehicle types used by Australian Forces during the Second World War. Volume 1: Trucks, 1/4 ton ('jeep) and Trailers is due for release in February 2024.
I’ve also been consistently writing articles since the late 1980s, and have had around 200 published in various journals and magazines. Magazines include:
- Khaki Vehicle Enthusiasts (KVE) Newsletter, which can be found here: https://www.corowaswim-in.org/kve-newsletters
- Army Motors, the magazine of the Military Vehicle Preservation Association (MVPA).
- Ironsides, the annual journal of the Royal Australian Armoured Corps (RAAC).
- Command Reconnaissance, the magazine of the Military Jeep Club of Queensland
- RAEME Info, a website started by my friend WO1 Bob 'Thommo' Thompson (rtd) in an effort to preserve the Royal Australian Electrical and Mechanical Engineers (RAEME) experience. There are many very interesting articles on the site, which can be found at www.raeme.info
Assisting Others
I have been approached many times for information about particular military vehicles and equipment, and I’m generally happy to assist. One particular example was that of a lady who called me wanting to know the registration number of the M113A1 that her partner had driven while on operations in South Vietnam. She later published the story in the 3rd Cavalry Regiment Association newsletter, some of which is reproduced here:
‘Avid readers of SITREP will recall an appeal for help I made in 1999 as part of my search for the Armoured Personnel Carrier that my partner, Vic .... , drove in Vietnam 29 years ago. ......Armed with only a small amount of information I quickly realised that the essential fact I needed to discover about “The Ugly” was its ARN (Army Registration Number). .... As I began telephoning around a pattern developed in the conversations I was having with people ... “you want to do what??” and then “Sorry, I can’t help but try phoning ....”
Ten months and a few hundred dollars worth of phone calls later I was given the phone number of the author of a book ‘Australian Military Equipment Profiles’ all about APCs, especially in Vietnam (thanks Paul Anderson).
Michael Cecil didn’t think I was crazy and within 3 days had not only found the APC's ARN, but had located it at 5th/7th Battalion RAR in Palmerston, NT. All it took was the right person with the right information! ... Thanks to Mike Cecil for his invaluable information.’
I’d actually identified the APC for her during the initial phone call, but, being just a little incredulous it had been so ‘easy’, she needed confirmation which took a couple of days! When she and her partner visited the vehicle at the unit, Vic quickly confirmed it was ‘his’ carrier. It was certainly a feel-good situation for me, and vindication of the many hours of research that went into compiling the database.
Identifying Australian Centurion Tank 169064
An instance where there was mutual assistance was that of positively identifying Centurion tank registered 169064. The tank had been purchased by Paul Scott, and the strip-down phase of the restoration was well underway when Paul and I made contact. Paul had purchased the tank under the impression that it was 169091, that being the registration number painted on the front. He had little idea of the history of the vehicle, and at that stage, was primarily interested only in its restoration. However, it became obvious to me early on that something was not quite right. The combat damage Paul was uncovering was not consistent with the history of 169091 as I knew it from my database. We discussed it at some length by email, and when I was next in Australia, I visited Paul. Between his now intimate knowledge of all the scrapes, bumps, gouges and external repairs on the tank, and my knowledge of the history of the Centurion fleet, it soon became obvious that Paul actually had Centurion tank 169064 – one that had a particularly interesting history including combat service in South Vietnam.
It was quite a surprise, as the available records all indicated that 169064 had ended its days as a range target, yet here it undoubtedly was! Further investigation revealed that there had been a switch of registration numbers in the early 1970s when the vehicle was being refurbished at 4th Base Workshop at Bandiana. A tank with registration number 169064 had certainly gone to a firing range and been destroyed, but not the original 169064, which had survived under another registration number!
Consequently, Paul’s interest in the vehicle’s history deepened. Fortuitously, I had been in contact with two former crew members some years before, and was able to put Paul in contact with them. One, together with members of the crew he served with, has since visited Paul and 169064. Paul is doing an outstanding restoration, and as he is happy to admit, he’s now much more interested in the tank’s history thanks to our discussions and correct vehicle identification.
Paul Scott's restoration of 169064.
The interest in 169064 has also extended internationally to the UK and New Zealand. Master Modeller Stephen White is in the advanced stages of super-detailing an Armortek 1/6 scale model of a Centurion tank. He chose to model the Australian Mk.5/1 tank 169064, as it was in South Vietnam in 1969-1970. I have been one of a triumvirate of people assisting Stephen: Paul Scott with detailed images and measurements of the actual tank, Allan Bowers in New Zealand with superb scale drawings, and me in the United States with historical data and technical information. The discussions between us have resulted in all of us learning new things about Centurion tanks. Stephen has also received very valuable input from former crewmen of 169064, and others with operational experience in South Vietnam. Stephen’s superb modelling skills can be seen on the Armortek Forum thread ‘My Beaut Aussie Cent’ at http://www.armortek.co.uk/Forum3b/viewtopic.php?f=23&t=3931.
Stephen White's model of 169064.
These are just a few instances where the use of the database has helped veterans and current owners of historic military vehicles. I’ve also provided vehicle histories to many veterans, owners, restorers and museums, such as the Australian War Memorial in Canberra and the Australian Armour and Artillery Museum in Cairns, Queensland.
In the latter’s case, the museum acquired Centurion 169052 in 2014, and soon after it arrived I provided them with a history of the vehicle from my Centurion database, and a history of the M113A1 FSV with ARN 134704 from my M113A1 database. The FSV had been purchased from the Littlefield Collection in the United States, and was yet to arrive at the museum. The museum owner, Rob Lowden emailed me on 31 August 2014 (with a copy to his museum manager): ' Hi Mike, Thank you for the information it will prove very useful...'. This was followed up in early November with a request for markings details, which I provided to the assistant manager, Jason Belgrave. Jason emailed his thanks on 5 November: 'Thanks for the information ... it makes a little more sense now ... I had our Cent marked as 106, but considering it never went to Vietnam I have now changed it to 206.' So the museum has a much better knowledge of the vehicle's history from its arrival in 1955 to its sale in 1989, and using the information I provided, altered the markings to better reflect that service history.
Chapters in Books
Occasionally, I’ve been asked to write a specific chapter or article to be included in a book being edited by another author. There have been several, including:
Peter Branagan, et al, ‘Contact Tank ... Wait Out’, a compendium of articles tracing the history of 1st Armoured Regiment, Royal Australian Armoured Corps.
John Baines, et al ‘The AFV School. 70 Years of Training Australian Armour’, a compendium of articles tracing the history of the School of Armour, Royal Australian Armoured Corps.
Lloyd White ‘The Evolution of the Willys Overland MB Jeep’, where I provided Chapter 10: ‘The Trucks ¼ ton (USA) in Australia’.
Max Carmichael et al ‘With Skill and Fighting. Craftsmen of the Australian Army 1942-2014’, a history of the Royal Australian Electrical and Mechanical Engineers.
Acknowledgements from Other Authors
Usually, though, the assistance to other authors has been through answering their questions or providing information or images. There have been quite a number of instances of this, which usually results in being acknowledged in their publication.
Acknowledgements in books by other authors include:
Peter Stanley’s ‘Men of Mont St Quentin’
John Myszka’s ‘ASLAV – Australian Light Armoured Vehicle’ and ‘Australian Fire Support Vehicles’ and 'Australian M113A1 Family of Vehicles 1972-2013'
Shane Lovell’s ‘Australian Centurions in Vietnam’
Michael Shackleton’s ‘Leopard Trilogy’
David Finlayson’s ‘Green Fields Beyond’
Michael Nelmes’s ‘A Unique Flight’
Rebecca Britt’s ‘Stories of Love and War’
Ian McNeil and Ashley Ekin’s ‘On the Offensive’, a volume of the official history
Ashley Ekins with Ian McNeil: ‘Fighting to the Finish’, a volume of the official history.
Bruce Cameron’s ‘Canister! On! Fire!’
A few words about ‘Canister! On! Fire!’
Canister! On! Fire!. My close association with the writing of this book spanned some 10 years.
While most assistance to other authors has been answering a few specific questions or providing small blocks of data, in the case of ‘Canister! On! Fire!’ the collaboration stands out as it was an unusually long one of some 10 years.
During that time, the author was given access to my research collection including taped interviews, images, and the information contained in databases, documents, and Centurion log books. I also read many drafts of each chapter, making suggestions for improvement, correcting factual errors, and ‘value adding’ to facts already in the text. We exchanged many, many emails over the years he was writing the book, saw each other fairly regularly to discuss progress, and went on a research trip together to the School of Armour at Puckapunyal. For the penultimate draft, I provided some 50 pages of comments, corrections and suggestions, a number of which were incorporated into the final text.
Just one example of the value of this effort to the final book can be gathered from the story behind 169013, a tank that had sustained two mine attacks in 1968. On 31 March 2003, the author emailed me that "... there is a signal on file [at the AWM] referring to 169013 being in 106 Wksps from 14-21 Oct (and likely to be there another two weeks) with a distorted RBJ from a mine incident. This fits with your OPDAM entry [Operational Damage entry in my Centurion database] for 33Bravo. Would you be able to check the log book for 169013 and see if there is any mention of repair work at this time?"
I looked at the log book, other documents and interview notes I had and provided the following answer on 3 April 2003 "...Re 169013: I looked at the data last evening when I got home, and this is an interesting tank. The following dates are relevant: 10/11/1968: RBJ modified as hull was bent. Entry in log book, at 106FdWks. 11/11/68: 2 left suspension stations fitted, also 106Fdwks; 30/9/1968: listed as battleworthy....... 22/2/70: issued to Peter Rosamond, but tank rejected due to hull mine damage. This was a pers comm from Peter when I spoke to him some years ago: he stuck his neck out and refused to use the tank due to cracks in the floor, and eventually they provided a replacement tank. 1/6/70: RTA BLR [Return to Australia Beyond Local Repair] due to cracks in hull floor."
The above resulted in the following footnote 117, page 254 of 'Canister! On! Fire!’:
‘117: J. M. Atkins (Corporal), letter, September 1968. Damage to the hull (which may have been responsible for cracks found later) is evidenced by the following entry in ARN 169013's logbook: '10/11/68: RBJ modified as hull is bent'. M. K. Cecil, personal communication., 3 April 2003.’
I am proud of my close and long-term association with this publication, an association which was acknowledged by the author in the book when he wrote ‘Mike Cecil was Head of Military Heraldry and Technology Section at the Australian War Memorial (AWM) for most of the time the draft was being written; his extensive knowledge of military equipment was invaluable. He also generously provided access to his personal records and interviews.’
I was later honoured to be presented with a signed copy of this book by 1st Armoured Regiment.
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