Reg Saunders (An Indigenous War Hero)

Reg Saunders MBE not only survived the World War II battlefields in the Middle East, North Africa, Greece, Crete, and New Guinea, but excelled as a military leader. He was recommended for officer training and, in 1944, returned to New Guinea as a platoon commander—the first Aboriginal Australian to serve as a commissioned officer. What happened during the war to transform a determined young soldier from country Victoria into a war hero—one who would go on to serve with distinction in the Korean War, and become a pioneering figure for Indigenous rights?