Great Australian World War II Stories PDF Download

Author: John Gatfield
Publisher: HarperCollins
ISBN: 1460703596
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
True stories of Aussie courage and mateship in World War II from the annals of the RSL From the annals of the RSL come these riveting true stories, written by World War II Diggers, POWs, nurses and other eyewitnesses and capturing the impact of war on those who took part. With eyewitness accounts ranging from the Fall of Singapore to the Kokoda Track, and from Greece to the Middle East, in the air and at sea, these stories bring the Australian experience of World War II to life with humour, pathos and vivid detail. In these pages, you'll find memories of the Japanese POW camps, the Burma Railway, Sandakan, air raids on Berlin, life as a Rat of Tobruk and so much more. Collected in one volume for the first time, these stories are a must-read record of the Australian experience of World War II.

Author: Mark Johnston
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9780521523233
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 304

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Book Description
At the Front Line draws on a plethora of letters, diaries and documents written by over 300 Australian soldiers in the field to present a picture of the hardships and triumphs of their wartime experience. Mark Johnston analyses the suffering of front-line soldiers caused not only by the opposing force, but also by the conditions imposed by their own army. The book details the physical and psychological pressures of life at the front and shows how soldiers survived or surrendered to unbearable environments, fear, boredom and the constant threat of impending death. The myths of mateship and equanimity are brought under scrutiny. Much hostility can be explained by competition between ranks and the perceived hostility of superiors. The author investigates the immense strain that led to many breakdowns and the characteristic forebearance that saw so many others through.

Author: George H. Johnston
Publisher: Westholme Pub Llc
ISBN: 9781594161513
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 240

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Book Description
“No other writer has turned out a book on the fighting in New Guinea that can match Mr. Johnston's. Superior literary quality projects this work far in advance of those earlier and more hasty accounts. Mr. Johnston is a young Australian war correspondent who lived through most of the action he describes. The reader will know that from the first page and is apt to find himself tensely hunched up as he is carried into the jungles by this writer's extraordinary reporting and artistry. As Mr. Johnston himself admits, the title sounds bombastic and the sensitive book purchaser might well shy from it. This would be a mistake, since the title is thoroughly honest.”—New York Times “It is a book of episodes which are fitted together into a pattern that tells his story in compelling fashion. Mr. Johnston is a brilliant descriptive writer and the full flavor of this extraordinary battle is in his book.”—Saturday Review of Literature Following their attacks on Pearl Harbor, the Dutch East Indies, and the Philippines, the Japanese invaded New Guinea in early 1942 as part of their attempt to create a Pacific empire. Control of New Guinea would enable Japan to establish large army, air force, and naval bases in close proximity to Australia. The Australians, with American cooperation, began a counterattack in earnest. The mountainous terrain covered with nearly impenetrable tropical forest and full of natural hazards resulted in an exceedingly grueling battleground. The struggle for New Guinea, one of the major campaigns of World War II, lasted the entire war, with the crucial fighting occurring in the first year. In The Toughest Fighting in the World, first published in 1943, Australian war correspondent George H. Johnston recorded the efforts of both the Australian and American troops, aided by the New Guinea native people, throughout 1942 as they fought a series of vicious and bitter battles against a determined foe. In one of the classic accounts of combat in World War II, the author makes a compelling case that the hardships endured by the soldiers in New Guinea from both nature and the enemy were among the most severe in the war.

Author: Peter Beale
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781921941023
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
Against the backdrop of the sweeping conquest of Western Europe by Hitler's mighty Panzer Divisons in WWII, Australia produced 66 cruiser tanks - the Sentinel tank - but none ever took the field of battle. The story of Australian tanks in WWII portrays governments under pressure and bureaucratic bungles that saw opportunities lost and precious resources squandered when the nation was under greatest threat. This careful dissection of government process in the crucible of war is a rare gem in an age when most wartime histories focus on the front-line soldier.

Author: John Gatfield
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780369320018
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 606

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Book Description
True stories of Aussie courage and mateship during World War II. From the annals of the RSL come these riveting true stories, written by a host of ordinary Australians - Diggers, POWs, nurses, entertainers, sailors, airman and many more - that capture the impact of war on those who took part. With eyewitness accounts ranging from the Fall of Singapore to the Kokoda Track and from Europe to the Middle East, these stories bring the Australian experience of the Second World War to life with humour, pathos and vivid detail. There's the ordeal of the 13 survivors of the sinking of HMAS Yarra as the sharks took their mates; life in the Japanese POW camps, Sandakan and on the Burma Railway; taking part in RAAF air raids on Berlin; a glimpse of life as a Rat of Tobruk - and much more. Collected in one volume for the first time, this is a must-read chronicle of Australians at war.

Author: Mark Johnston
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9780521782227
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 242

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Book Description
Fighting The Enemy, first published in 2000, is about men with the job of killing each other. Based on the wartime writings of hundreds of Australian front-line soldiers during World War II, this powerful and resonant book contains many moving descriptions of high emotion and drama. Soldiers' interactions with their enemies are central to war and their attitudes to their adversaries are crucial to the way wars are fought. Yet few books look in detail at how enemies interpret each other. This book is an unprecedented and thorough examination of the way Australian combat soldiers interacted with troops from the four powers engaged in World War II: Germany, Italy, Vichy France and Japan. Each opponent has themes peculiar to it: the Italians were much ridiculed; the Germans were the most respected of enemies; the Vichy French were regarded with ambivalence; while the Japanese were the subject of much hostility, intensified by the real threat of occupation.

Author: Hal Colebatch
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780980677874
Category : Australia
Languages : en
Pages : 340

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Book Description
Hal Colebatch's new book, AUSTRALIA'S SECRET WAR, tells the shocking, true, but until now largely suppressed and hidden story of the war waged from 1939 to 1945 by a number of key Australian trade unions against their own society and against the men and women of their own country's fighting forces at the time of its gravest peril. His conclusions are based on a broad range of sources, from letters and first-person interviews between the author and ex-servicemen to official and unofficial documents from the archives of World War II. Between 1939 and 1945 virtually every major Australian warship, including at different times its entire force of cruisers, was targeted by strikes, go-slows and sabo­tage. Australian soldiers operating in New Guinea and the Pacific Islands went without food, radio equipment and munitions, and Aus­tralian warships sailed to and from combat zones without ammunition, because of strikes at home. Planned rescue missions for Australian prisoners-of-war in Borneo were abandoned because wharf strikes left rescuers without heavy weapons. Officers had to restrain Australian and American troops from killing striking trade unionists.

Author: Barry Shaw
Publisher: Boolarong Press and Brisbane History Group
ISBN: 1925236315
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 26

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Book Description
Brisbane and World War II is the Brisbane History Group’s twenty-fourth volume of papers. It comprises the majority of papers presented at the seminar, ‘Brisbane’s Second World War’ held on 27 August 2011. For continuity and thematic reasons, the volume is divided into three sections. The first focuses predominantly on the home front, the second on front line activity and the third on various ways in which the war is recorded and remembered. The first section considers: • the heightened activities on the Brisbane River during World War II • the operations of the Advanced Land Headquarters in and around the University of Queensland • the significance of indicator loop technology as a defensive strategy against submarines • the US construction of an ordnance storage facility on Mount Coot-tha • the upgrading and strategic importance of Fort Lytton • the military and civilian roles undertaken by women Section two examines: • the exploits of the US submarines based in Brisbane • the valiant and dogged defence of Tobruk by the 2/15th Battalion during the Easter Battle in 1941 • the trials, torments and triumphs of the men of the 61st Battalion who finally halted the advance of the Japanese army at the Battle of Milne Bay • the achievements of Kenneth Fraser, who was responsible for effectively organising the treatment of casualties from the Middle East campaigns Finally, the third section relates: • the story of the creation of a war memorial for the 2/9th Battalion and its two dramatis personae, a Czech sculptor and his subject, an Aussie digger • the struggle to obtain heritage listing for Eagle Farm’s Hangar 7, a significant World War II facility • the importance of researching the military archives of the US in order to gain a better understanding of Brisbane during World War II. Written by amateurs, professionals and academics, the book presents a fascinating insight into Brisbane’s contribution during and after the tumultuous years of World War II.

Author: Richard Reid
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780648882312
Category :
Languages : en
Pages :

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Book Description
A photographic history of the aftermath of the Second World War, focusing on the experiences of Australian service men and women.

Author: Ian W. Shaw
Publisher: Macmillan
ISBN: 1466825960
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 245

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Book Description
When Singapore fell dramatically to the Japanese on 15 February 1942, hundreds of people scrambled to leave. Amongst the evacuees were 65 Australian nurses who boarded coastal freighter "Vyner Brooke" which Japanese bombers sank. The largest group of nurses that made it to shore gathered at Radji Beach. Eventually the shipwreck survivors surrendered to the Japanese rather than slowly starve to death. The Japanese did not accept their surrender and divided the Europeans into three groups and killed all in turn. The Australian nurses were in the third group, and 21 of them died in a hail of bullets as they walked into the waters off the beach. There was one survivor, Vivian Bullwinkel, and she went on to survive the various camps and diseases that took away several of her friends.