Where Soldiers Lie: The Quest to Find Australia's Missing War Dead by Ian McPhedran

$39.99 AUD

Category: Military

What drives veterans, military experts and forensic investigators to dedicate years to search for and identify the remains of fallen warriors? What does it mean to the families of the dead to be able to lay them to rest? Over thirty five thousand Australian soldiers and airmen are still listed as Missi ng In Action from the wars of the 20th Century. Telling the moving story of the determination and skill of the searchers who apply old-fashioned detective work and cutting-edge science to solve the mysteries of the missing and bring peace of mind and solace to their families and to all those who serve, Where Soldiers Lie follows these investigators and scientists on their mission to locate and identify unrecovered war casualties and to unlock their secrets. From the jungles of Vietnam, where one man led a decade-long battle to recover and bring home the final six, to Korea, Papua New Guinea and the fields of the Somme, Flanders and Fromelles, Where Soldiers Lie is a deeply human story of perseverance, luck and resolution, a story of incredible determination against difficult odds, of exacting forensic analysis and painstaking detective work, to uncover and identify the remains of Australian soldiers, in battlefield over the decades, and to bring their remains home. Powerful, moving and compelling reading. ...Show more

Anzac and Aviator: The Remarkable Story of Sir Ross Smith and the 1919 England to Australia Air Race by Michael Molkentin

$32.99 AUD

Category: Military

The story of extraordinary Australian, Ross Smith, who rode to war at Gallipoli on horseback and by the end of the war, was one of the most highly awarded fighter pilots.

The Oarsmen: The Remarkable Story of the Men Who Rowed from the Great War to Peace by PATTERSON, SCOTT

$34.99 AUD

Category: Military

At the end of the First World War, there were 270,000 demobilised Australian soldiers in Europe. Getting them home after the Armistice was a task of epic proportions that would take more than two years. In the meantime, how to keep these disgruntled, damaged men with guns occupied? In a word: sport. &nb sp; The Oarsmen tells the story of the servicemen who survived the war to row for the coveted King's Cup at the 1919 Royal Henley Peace Regatta. Competing against crews from the US, New Zealand, France, the UK and Canada, the Australians were a ragtag bunch of oarsmen thrown in an old-fashioned boat and expected to race. Many had seen the worst of the action during the war at Gallipoli and the Western Front, and carried scars both physical and psychological. The baggage they brought to the boat would soon threaten to capsize the whole endeavour.    Combining first-hand accounts with lively prose, this never-before-told story approaches the First World War from peacetime and illuminates history in vivid and compelling detail. Interweaving the soldiers' personal stories from before, during and after the war, The Oarsmen paints a fascinating picture of how these men, and society, transitioned from an unprecedented war to a new sort of peace.   ...Show more

Chastise: The Dambusters 1943 by Max Hastings

$34.99 AUD

Category: Military

A brand new history of the Dambusters raid from best-selling and critically acclaimed military historian, Max Hastings. Operation Chastise, the destruction of the Mohne and Eder dams in north-west Germany by the RAF's 617 Squadron on the night of 16/17 May 1943, was an epic that has passed into Britain' s national legend. Max Hastings grew up embracing the story, the classic 1955 movie and the memory of Guy Gibson, the 24-year-old wing-commander who led the raid. In the 21st Century, however, he urges that we should see the dambusters in much more complex shades. The aircrew's heroism was entirely real, as was the brilliance of Barnes Wallis, inventor of the 'bouncing bombs'. But commanders who promised their young fliers that success could shorten the war fantasised as ruthlessly as they did about the entire bomber offensive. Some 1,400 civilians perished in the biblical floods that swept through the Mohne valley, more than half of them Russian and Polish women, slave labourers. Hastings vividly describes the evolution of Wallis' bomb, and of the squadron which broke the dams. But he also portrays in harrowing detail those swept away by the torrents. He argues that what modern Germans call the Mohnekatastrophe imposed on the Nazi war machine temporary disruption, rather than a crippling blow. Ironically, Air Marshal Sir Arthur 'Bomber' Harris gained much of the public credit, though he bitterly opposed Chastise as a distraction from his city-burning blitz. Harris also made perhaps the operation's biggest mistake - failure to launch a conventional attack on the huge post-raid repair operation which could have transformed the impact of the dam breaches on Ruhr industry. Here once again is a dramatic retake on familiar history by a master of the art. Hastings sets the Dams Raid in the big picture of the bomber offensive and of the Second World War, with moving portraits of the young airmen, so many of whom died; of Barnes Wallis; the monstrous Harris; the tragic Guy Gibson, together with superb narrative of the action of one of the most extraordinary episodes in British history. ...Show more

The Stolen Maps by TREVOR TUCKER

$29.95 AUD

Category: Military

Honourable Exit: How a Few Brave Americans Risked All to Save Their Vietnamese Allies at the End of the War by Thurston Clarke

$49.99 AUD

Category: Military

In 1973 U.S. participation in the Vietnam War ended in a cease-fire and a withdrawal that included promises by President Nixon to assist the South in the event of invasion by the North. But in early 1975, when North Vietnamese forces began a full-scale assault, Congress refused to send arms or aid. By e arly April that year, the South was on the brink of a defeat that threatened execution or years in a concentration camp for the untold number of South Vietnamese who had supported the government in Saigon or worked with Americans. Thurston Clarke beginsHonourable Exitby describing the iconic photograph of the Fall of Saigon- desperate Vietnamese scrambling to board a helicopter evacuating the last American personnel from Vietnam. It is an image of U.S. failure and shame. Or is it? By unpacking the surprising story of heroism that the photograph actually tells, Clarke launches into a narrative that is both a thrilling race against time and an important corrective to the historical record. For what is less known is that during those final days, scores of Americans - diplomats, businessmen, soldiers, missionaries, contractors, and spies - risked their lives to assist their current and former translators, drivers, colleagues, neighbours, friends, and even perfect strangers in escape. By the time the last U.S. helicopter left Vietnam on 30 April 1975, these righteous Americans had helped to spirit 130,000 South Vietnamese to U.S. bases in Guam and the Philippines. From there, the evacuees were resettled in the U.S. and became American citizens, the leading edge of one of America's most successful immigrant groups. Into this tale of heroism on the ground, Clarke weaves the political machinations of Henry Kissinger advising President Ford in the White House while reinforcing the delusions of the U.S. ambassador in Saigon, who, at the last minute, refused to depart. Ground-breaking, page-turning, and authoritative, Honourable Exitis a deeply moving history of Americans at a little-known finest hour. ...Show more

Destination Casablanca - Exile, Espionage, and the Battle for North Africa in World War II by Meredith Hindley

$29.99 AUD

Category: Military

This rollicking and panoramic history of Casablanca during the Second World War sheds light on the city as a key hub for European and American powers, and a place where spies, soldiers, and political agents exchanged secrets and vied for control.   In November 1942, as a part of Operation Torch, 33,000 American soldiers sailed undetected across the Atlantic and stormed the beaches of French Morocco. Seventy-four hours later, the Americans controlled the country and one of the most valuable wartime ports: Casablanca.In the years preceding, Casablanca had evolved from an exotic travel destination to a key military target after France's surrender to Germany. Jewish refugees from Europe poured in, hoping to obtain visas and passage to the United States and beyond. Nazi agents and collaborators infiltrated the city in search of power and loyalty. The resistance was not far behind, as shopkeepers, celebrities, former French Foreign Legionnaires, and disgruntled bureaucrats formed a network of Allied spies. But once in American hands, Casablanca became a crucial logistical hub in the fight against Germany--and the site of Roosevelt and Churchill's demand for "unconditional surrender."Rife with rogue soldiers, power grabs, and diplomatic intrigue, Destination Casablanca is the riveting and untold story of this glamorous city--memorialized in the classic film that was rush-released in 1942 to capitalize on the drama that was unfolding in North Africa at the heart of World War II. ...Show more

Appeasing Hitler by Tim Bouverie

$35.00 AUD

Category: Military

On a wet afternoon in September 1938, Neville Chamberlain stepped off an aeroplane and announced that his visit to Hitler had averted the greatest crisis in recent memory. It was, he later assured the crowd in Downing Street, 'peace for our time? - a moment of theatre that was the culmination of over fi ve years of drama. Less than a year later, Germany invaded Poland and the Second World War began.Beginning with the advent of Hitler in 1933, Appeasing Hitler sweeps from the early days of the Third Reich to the beaches of Dunkirk. We enter the 10 Downing Street of Stanley Baldwin and Chamberlain, and the backrooms of Parliament where an unusual coalition of MPs - including the indomitable Winston Churchill - were among the few to realise that the only real choice was between 'war now or war later?. And as German troops enter the demilitarised Rhineland, march into Austria and threaten to invade Czechoslovakia, Bouverie takes us into the drawing rooms and dining clubs of fading imperial Britain, where Hitler enjoyed surprising support among the ruling class and even members of the Royal Family.Drawing on deep archival research, this is an unforgettable portrait of the ministers, aristocrats and amateur diplomats who, through their actions and inaction, shaped their country's policy and determined the fate of Europe. Both sweeping and intimate, Appeasing Hitler is not only eye-opening history but a timeless lesson on the challenges of standing up to aggression and authoritarianism - and the calamity that results from failing to do so. ...Show more

Places and Names: Dispatches of War by Elliot Ackerman

$39.99 AUD

Category: Military

'A superb, unique, and unforgettable story of war and death, fear and cruelty, above all the horrors and allure of combat' Simon Sebag Montefiore 'One of the most profound books I have ever read about the real nature of war and the abstract allure of the ideas and the bloodshed that fuels it' Jon Lee A nderson, author of The Fall of Baghdad An astonishing account of the nature of war from acclaimed novelist and decorated former US marine Elliot Ackerman   In a refugee camp in southern Turkey, Elliot Ackerman sits across the table from Abu Hassar, who fought for Al Qaeda in Iraq and has murky connections to the Islamic State. At first, Ackerman pretends to have been a journalist during the Iraq War, but after he establishes a rapport with Abu Hassar, he reveals that in fact he was a Marine. The two men then compare their fighting experiences in the Middle East, discovering they had shadowed each other for some time: a realisation that brings them to a strange kind of intimacy. Elliot Ackerman's extraordinary memoir explores the events that led him to come to this refugee camp and what, unable to forget his time in battle, he hoped to find there. Moving between his recent time on the ground as a journalist in Syria and his Marine deployments in Iraq and Afghanistan, he creates a work of astonishing atmospheric pressure, one which blends the American experience with the perspectives and stories of the Arab world, and draws a line between them. At once an intensely personal book about the terrible lure of combat and a brilliant meditation on the meaning of the past two decades of strife for the region and the world, Places and Names bids to take its place among our greatest books about modern war. ...Show more

Turning Point: The Battle for Milne Bay 1942 by Michael Veitch

$32.99 AUD

Category: Military

Told for the first time, this is the epic story of the Milne Bay campaign of 1942 - which saw Japanese land forces suffer their first defeat of the war - and has properly been called the RAAF's forgotten finest hour. September 1942 marked the high-point of Axis conquest in World War II. In the Pacific, Japan's soldiers had seemed unstoppable. However, the tide was about to turn. On Sunday, 6 September 1942, Japanese land forces suffered their first conclusive defeat at the hands of the Allies. At Milne Bay in Papua New Guinea, a predominantly Australian force - including 75 Squadron (fresh from their action in 44 DAYS) - fought for two weeks to successfully defend a vital airstrip against a determined Japanese invasion. The victorious Australian army units were crucially supported by two locally-based squadrons of RAAF Kittyhawks. The Battle for Milne Bay and victory for the Allies was a significant turning point in the Pacific War, but while it received worldwide publicity at the time, it has since been largely forgotten... It deserves to be remembered. Michael Veitch, actor, presenter and critically acclaimed author, brings to life the incredible exploits and tragic sacrifices of these Australian heroes in another fast-paced and thrilling tale. ...Show more

Operation Babylift: The Incredible Story of the Inspiring Australian Women who Rescued Hundreds of Orphans at the End of the Vietnam War by Ian W. Shaw

$32.99 AUD

Category: Military

In late March 1975, as the Vietnam War raged, an Australian voluntary aid worker named Rosemary Taylor approached the Australian Embassy seeking assistance to fly 600 orphans out of Saigon to safety. Rosemary and Margaret Moses, two former nuns from Adelaide, had spent eight years in Vietnam during the war, building up a complex of nurseries to house war orphans and street waifs as the organisation that built up around them facilitated international adoptions for the children. As the North Vietnamese forces closed in on their nurseries, they needed a plan to evacuate the children, or all their work might count for little ... Based on extensive archival and historical research, and interviews of some of those directly involved in the events described, Operation Babylift details the last month of the Vietnam War from the perspective of the most vulnerable victims of that war: the orphans it created. Through the story of the attempt to save 600 children, we see how a small group of determined women refused to play political games as they tried to remake the lives of a forgotten generation, one child at a time. ...Show more

Major Thomas: The Bush Lawyer who Defended Breaker Morant and Took on the British Empire by Greg Growden

$32.99 AUD

Category: Military