Dr Ali Yousuf Hijazi explores the efforts of Australian forces during World War Two to liberate Lebanon from the Axis powers, and the structures they built which are still standing.
In 1941, the Australian army’s 7th Division - along with a coalition of British, Free French, Indian, Czech, and Arab Legion forces - liberated Lebanon and Syria from the Nazi-aligned Vichy French government. The campaign to remove Vichy forces during the Second World War led to the independence of both Lebanon and Syria, in 1943 and 1944 respectively. On July 15, 1941, Beirut was liberated after Vichy forces surrendered to the Allies.
More than eight decades after the campaign, Lebanon continues to embrace the monuments that testify to the presence of Australian forces on its soil, and perhaps the most important of these is the railway line between Beirut and Tripoli, which is in a state of disrepair. Many of the crumbling bridges and pillars that make up the line still bear the emblem of the Australian Imperial Forces and the engineering units that oversaw its construction.
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