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Author: Bob Wurth
Publisher: Macmillan Publishers Aus.
ISBN: 1743289758
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 680
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Book Description
In early 1942 Australia lay weak and unprepared as an unprecedented succession of victories saw the rampant Japanese Imperial Army and Navy sweep southwards. The Battle for Australia had begun. It was a battle that would be fought in Malaya, Singapore, Sumatra, Java, Borneo, Timor and Ambon, and across New Guinea and Papua, at Rabaul, Port Moresby, Kokoda, Milne Bay and Lae. It quickly spread to the skies over northern Australia and to the seas around and near Australia, including the Coral Sea. John Curtin was the new leader of Australia at this moment of greatest peril. As Curtin rallied the country to a stance of total war, his desperate calls for aid from both Britain - against the obstructiveness of Winston Churchill, who described the fight against Japan as the 'lesser war' - and the United States, produced consequences that would forever change the balance of Australia's strategic relationships. Yet Curtin was also a man mentally and physically on the brink of breakdown at this most crucial time. The Battle for Australia, researched in Australia, Britain and Japan, is a compelling and revealing narrative history of those dangerous days. Winner of FAW National Literary Awards's Excellence in Non-fiction Literature Award 2014
Author: Bob Wurth
Publisher: Macmillan Publishers Aus.
ISBN: 1743289758
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 680
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Book Description
In early 1942 Australia lay weak and unprepared as an unprecedented succession of victories saw the rampant Japanese Imperial Army and Navy sweep southwards. The Battle for Australia had begun. It was a battle that would be fought in Malaya, Singapore, Sumatra, Java, Borneo, Timor and Ambon, and across New Guinea and Papua, at Rabaul, Port Moresby, Kokoda, Milne Bay and Lae. It quickly spread to the skies over northern Australia and to the seas around and near Australia, including the Coral Sea. John Curtin was the new leader of Australia at this moment of greatest peril. As Curtin rallied the country to a stance of total war, his desperate calls for aid from both Britain - against the obstructiveness of Winston Churchill, who described the fight against Japan as the 'lesser war' - and the United States, produced consequences that would forever change the balance of Australia's strategic relationships. Yet Curtin was also a man mentally and physically on the brink of breakdown at this most crucial time. The Battle for Australia, researched in Australia, Britain and Japan, is a compelling and revealing narrative history of those dangerous days. Winner of FAW National Literary Awards's Excellence in Non-fiction Literature Award 2014
Author: Peter Stanley
Publisher: e-penguin
ISBN:
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 348
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Book Description
1942 was a key year in Australia's history. As its people had so long feared, White Australia, an outpost of empire, seemed about to be invaded by the Japanese. In that one year, Darwin was bombed, submarines torpedoed ships in Sydney Harbour and Australian Militiamen died on the Kokoda Trail. Each year, more and more Australians celebrate Anzac Day and honour the lives of those who fought for their country. There is even a push to create a new public holiday, in remembrance and celebration of the 'Battle for Australia'. But was there ever really such a battle, and how close did Australia actually come to being invaded? Invading Australia provides a comprehensive, thorough and well-argued examination of these and other pertinent questions. Peter Stanley writes compellingly about Australian attitudes to Japan before, during and after World War II, and uses archival sources to discuss Japan's war plans early in 1942. He also shows that rather than a 'Battle for Australia' there was a worldwide fight for freedom and democracy that has allowed the West to enjoy great prosperity in the decades since 1945.
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: Phillip Bradley
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781760878672
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 328
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Book Description
An enlightening re-examination of an important campaign following the experiences of the men from both sides. From the killing ground of Kaiapit to the treacherous heights of the Finisterre Range, for four months in 1943-44, the Australian army fought to drive the Japanese from their mountain strongholds. The most formidable position was the fortress-like Shaggy Ridge, it's steep sides rising sharply to a knife-edge crest where battle was joined on a one-man front. Based on the accounts of over 100 Australians, Americans and Japanese who served on, around and over the ridge, The Battle for Shaggy Ridge tells the story of this extraordinary struggle for control of the Ramu Valley in New Guinea.
Author: Nicholas Anderson
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1925675688
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 382
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Book Description
By 1942 the formidable Japanese military had conquered swathes of territory across south-east Asia and the Pacific Ocean. Despite its defeat at the Battle of Midway, Japan remained a potent enemy committed to the creation of a defensive arc to shield its captured possessions in the Pacific. The capture of Port Moresby would cement the southern border of this defensive arc and sever the vital lines of communication between Australia and the United States. It was the Japanese plan to seize Moresby that would set the course for the Battle of Milne Bay. Situated on the eastern tip of New Guinea, Milne Bay was a wretched hell-hole: swamp-riddled, a haven for malaria and cursed with torrential rain. It was here that General Douglas MacArthur ordered the secret construction of an Allied base with airfields to protect the maritime approach to Port Moresby. But the Japanese soon discovered the base at Milne Bay and despatched a task force to destroy its garrison and occupy the base. All that stood between the Japanese and their prize was a brigade of regular Australian soldiers untrained in tropical warfare and a brigade of Australian militia with no combat experience whatsoever. While the Kokoda campaign is etched in public memory, its sister battle at Milne Bay has long been neglected. However the bitter fighting over this isolated harbour played an equally important role in protecting Port Moresby and made a valuable contribution to shifting Allied fortunes in the Pacific War.
Author: Michael Veitch
Publisher: Hachette Australia
ISBN: 0733640567
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 244
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Book Description
The Battle for Milne Bay - Japan's first defeat on land in the Second World War - was a defining moment in the evolution of the indomitable Australian fighting spirit. For the men of the AIF, the militia and the RAAF, it was the turning point in the Pacific, and their finest - though now largely forgotten - hour. Forgotten, until now. In August 1942, Japan's forces were unstoppable. Having conquered vast swathes of south-east Asia - Malaya, Singapore, the Dutch East Indies - and now invading New Guinea, many feared the Empire of the Rising Sun stood poised to knock down Australia's northern door. But first they needed Port Moresby. In the still of an August night, Japanese marines sailed quietly into Milne Bay, a long, malaria-ridden dead end at the far eastern tip of Papua, to unleash an audacious pincer movement. Unbeknown to them, however, a secret airstrip had been carved out of a coconut plantation by US Engineers, and a garrison of Australian troops had been established, supported by two locally based squadrons of RAAF Kittyhawks, including the men of the famed 75 Squadron. The scene was set for one of the most decisive and vicious battles of the war. For ten days and nights Australia's soldiers and airmen fought the elite of Japan's forces along a sodden jungle track, and forced them back step by muddy, bloody step. In Turning Point, bestselling author Michael Veitch brings to life the incredible exploits and tragic sacrifices of these Australian heroes.
Author: Stan Grant
Publisher: HarperCollins
ISBN: 146070780X
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 159
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Book Description
'As uncomfortable as it is, we need to reckon with our history. On January 26, no Australian can really look away.' Since publishing his critically acclaimed, Walkley Award-winning, bestselling memoir Talking to My Country in early 2016, Stan Grant has been crossing the country, talking to huge crowds everywhere about how racism is at the heart of our history and the Australian dream. But Stan knows this is not where the story ends. In this book, Australia Day, his long-awaited follow up to Talking to My Country, Stan talks about our country, about who we are as a nation, about the indigenous struggle for belonging and identity in Australia, and what it means to be Australian. A sad, wise, beautiful, reflective and troubled book, Australia Day asks the questions that have to be asked, that no else seems to be asking. Who are we? What is our country? How do we move forward from here? Praise for Talking to My Country: 'A story so essential and salutary to this place that it should be given out free at the ballot box' The Australian 'Deeply disturbing, profoundly moving' Hobart Mercury 'Grant will be an important voice in shaping this nation' The Saturday Paper Talking to My Country won the 2016 Walkley Book Award and the Special Award at the 2016 Heritage Awards, and was shortlisted in the 2016 Queensland Literary Awards, the Nib Waverley Library Awards and the 2017 ABIA Awards.
Author: David W. Cameron
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781922615671
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 364
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Book Description
Within 24 hours of the Japanese invasion of northern New Guinea at Gona in July 1942, the Australian militiamen of 'B' Company, 39th Battalion, spent four weeks fighting a delaying action against a crack Japanese force outnumbered by three to one. By mid-August, the rest of the battalion had arrived, and these men took up a position at Isurava, in the heart of the cloud covered mountains and jungles of the Owen Stanley Range. At Isurava, this small militia force of the 39th Battalion now numbering around 300 men was determined to make a stand against a crack Japanese force of the 144th Regiment and supporting elements, numbering at least 1500. Then on the day the Japanese launched their attack, to the great relief of these militiamen, reinforcements from the 2nd AIF who had fought with great distinction in the Middle East began to arrive in the afternoon having spent days struggling up the track from Port Moresby. Even so, the Australians were still outnumbered, as the Japanese also received reinforcements, and unlike the Japanese, the Australians had no supporting artillery or medium machineguns. The battle for Isurava would be the defining battle of the Kokoda Campaign and has rightfully been described as Australia's Thermopylae. It was here that Australia's first Victoria Cross in the Pacific war was awarded when the Japanese conducted several ferocious attacks against the Australian perimetre. Private Bruce Kingsbury led an Australian counterattack, rushing forward sweeping the Japanese positions with his Bren gun, saving he situation when all seemed lost -- he was killed leading the charge. Another two men were also nominated for the VC during the fighting at Isurava. The outnumbered and poorly equipped Australians managed to hold back the Japanese advance for almost a week; only then did these battle scared and weary men begin a month long fighting withdraw towards Ioribaiwa Ridge just north of Port Morsby. However, their sacrifice provided time for the Australian 25th Brigade to be brought forward -- finally forcing the Japanese to withdrawal just as they glimpsed the lights of Port Morseby.
Author: Peter Alexander Thompson
Publisher: Virago Press
ISBN: 9780733308963
Category : Americans
Languages : en
Pages : 242
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Book Description
Recounts the World War II conflict between American soldiers in Australia and their Australian counterparts. Examines the street fight dubbed the Battle of Brisbane, in which an American military policeman shot dead an Australian soldier and wounded six other soldiers. Draws on eyewitness accounts and unpublished documents from the Naional Archives. Includes sources. Thompson was deputy editor of the 'Daily Mirror', editor of the 'Sunday Mirror' and a director of Mirror Group Newspapers. Previous titles include biographies of Jack Nicholson and Robert Maxwell. Macklin has worked on the 'Courier Mail', 'Age' and 'Bulletin' and is currently associate editor of the 'Canberra Times'. Previous titles include 'The Queenslander' and 'Juryman', adapted into the movie 'Storyville'.
Author: Craig Stockings
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1921941197
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 215
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Book Description
On the morning of 3 January 1941, Australians of the 6th Division led an assault against the Italian colonial fortress village of Bardia in Libya, not far from the Egyptian-Libyan frontier. The ensuing battle was the second of the First Libyan Campaign, but the first battle of the Second World War planned and fought predominantly by Australians. The fortress fell to the attackers a little over two days after the attack began, in what could only be described as a remarkable victory. At a cost of 130 killed and 326 wounded, the 6th Division captured around 40,000 Italian prisoners and very large quantities of military stores and equipment. The victory was heralded at the time in Australia as one of the greatest military achievements of that nation's military history. Quite soon afterwards, however, overshadowed perhaps by Rommel's subsequent desert advances, the tragedy in Greece, and the war in the Pacific, Bardia slipped from the public mind. Very few Australians today have heard of the battle. This book attempts to bring Bardia back into the light.
