Biographic Details and Topic for this week's Speaker

Dr Michael James Bendon holds post-graduate qualifications in Archaeology, History, Linguistics, Maritime Archaeology, Education and Cultural Heritage. He has worked for a great number of years as an archaeologist on numerous sites around the Mediterranean and Europe including Israel, Portugal, Germany and Greece. More recently, he has been assisting a colleague in investigations on Phalasarna, a large Classical/Hellenistic maritime city in Western Crete, as well as working on the excavation of the first Minoan shipwreck to be discovered.

His most recent research has revolved around two British WWII wrecks located off shore from the ancient Phalasarna site. After some five years of research, Michael has found out some amazing stories of the involvement of these craft in the Mediterranean campaigns of 1941. The talk presents a story of secretly developed vessels and the part they played in not only supporting ANZAC troops in North Africa and Crete but also in saving many thousands of troops from the hands of the invading German forces. Until the publication of his recent book, “The Forgotten Flotilla”, virtually nothing was known of these craft and the work they carried out.