Date: Tuesday 22 April 2025
Time: starting from 12noon
Venue: Macquarie Room
Ticket: $95pp


The annual Royal Automobile Club Anzac Day lunch convened by the Australasian Pioneers Club on behalf of the Club will be held from 12 noon on Tuesday 22 April 2025. The topic will be ‘Reflections of the First Gulf War’ given by club member Commodore Richard Menhinick AM CSC RAN (Retd) who was the HMAS Brisbane’s Direction Officer during the First Gulf War.

It is now some 34 years since Australia fought the First Gulf War to remove Saddam Hussein and Iraqi forces from Kuwait. This was a full-on conflict and one that was authorised by the United Nations Security Council, something that had not occurred before and has certainly not happened since. It was waged in the afterglow of the end of the Cold War, the collapse of the Soviet Union and with a weakened and nascent democracy in Russia. A pertinent question is whether the lessons and reflections on the Gulf War, especially the maritime side of it, are still relevant to us today? Commodore Menhinick went on to command HMAS Warramunga and HMAS Anzac (attending the 90th anniversary in 2005 of the Gallipoli Landing), and served in many senior appointments before retirement from the permanent Navy in 2016.


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