Australia War

In mid-2017, whispers from Australia's most secretive and elite military unit reached Walkley Award-winning journalist Nick McKenzie. McKenzie and veteran reporter Chris Masters began an investigation that would not only reveal shocking information about Australia's most famous and revered SAS soldier but plunge the two reporters into the defamation trial of the century.

"This is more than a charming Irish memoir. The voice of a spirited young girl sets the perfect tone to deliver Irish history, the determination of a family to make their way into another country, and the importance of music." - New York Times best selling author Jacqueline Sheehan. "A delightful and satisfying read".- The Jamaica Gleaner A captivating memoir that vividly brings to life growing up in a large, quirky and ambitious Irish immigrant family during the Depression and War time in Australia. After years of periodic imprisonment in Ireland for their fight for independence, John and ...

The incredible account of Sister Betty Jeffrey OAM and the Australian war nurses who survived the bombing of evacuation ship SS Vyner Brooke in February 1942, and subsequently spent three years in Japanese prison camps in Sumatra. During those perilous years surviving in squalid conditions, Sister Jeffrey kept a secret diary of day-to-day events which, after the war, was turned into a hugely successful book and radio serial: White Coolies. Sisters in Captivity builds on those diaries.

The epic World War II story of Australia's 75 Squadron - and the 44 days when these brave and barely-trained pilots fought alone against the Japanese. In March and April 1942, RAAF 75 Squadron bravely defended Port Moresby for 44 days when Australia truly stood alone against the Japanese. This group of raw young recruits scrambled ceaselessly in their Kittyhawk fighters to an extraordinary and heroic battle, the story of which has been left largely untold.

The true story of Deng Adut - Sudanese child soldier, refugee, man of hope. Movingly narrated by Blessing Mokgohloa. Deng Adut's family were farmers in South Sudan when a brutal civil war altered his life forever. At six years old, his mother was told she had to give him up to fight. At the age most Australian children are starting school, Deng was conscripted into the Sudan People's Liberation Army.

The story of eight courageous women who had the courage and strength for which the Anzacs are renowned and the compassion and tenderness that only a woman can bring. One brave nursing sister, Hilda Samsing, became a whistle blower. Nursing aboard the hospital ship Gascon, outraged by the bungled evacuation of wounded Anzacs which was censored out of the press, she let her diary be shown in high places, which raised questions in the House of Commons.

This is the story of an Irish migrant family and their struggle to buy their own stud farm in Australia towards the end of the 19th Century. Kieran O'Reilly, the 14 year old son of a horse breeder and trainer, is delighted when his father, Dermot, secures a deal to rent a run-down stud farm on the Darling Downs from Old Man Purcell, a wealthy and unscrupulous Englishman who is shedding his farms to buy into a local brewery. The rent is high and much needs to be done on the farm. And to make matters worse, Purcell has laid down stringent conditions to the deal, the most crucial of which is a...

In the harsh Libyan desert in the middle of the second world war, Private Jim Moody, a signaller with the First Australian Machine Gun Battalion, found a starving puppy on a sand dune. Moody called the dog Horrie. Much more than a mascot, Horrie's exceptional hearing picked up the whine of enemy aircraft two minutes before his human counterparts and repeatedly saved the lives of the thousand-strong contingent.

In the summer of 1914, vigneron Jerome Méa heads off to war, certain he'll be home by Christmas. His new bride Sophie, a fifth-generation champenoise, is determined to ensure the forthcoming vintages will be testament to their love and the power of the people of Épernay, especially its strong women. But as the years drag on, authorities advise that Jerome is missing, considered dead. When poison gas is first used in Belgium by the Germans, British chemist Charles Nash jumps to enlist.

In March 1945 Reg Cleworth, a navigator on PBY Catalina seaplanes flying out of Darwin, went missing in action. No details were ever given about the incident that took his life, nor the reason his plane went down. For Reg’s younger brother, Robert, the news came as a prophecy fulfilled. The last time they saw each other, Reg confided in Robert, ‘I don’t think I’m coming back’.

Shocking real-life stories of murderous women who used rat poison to rid themselves of husbands and other inconvenient family members. After World War II, Sydney experienced a crime wave that was chillingly calculated. Discontent mixed with despair, greed with callous disregard. Women who had lost their wartime freedoms headed back into the kitchen with sinister intent and the household poison thallium, normally used to kill rats, was repurposed to kill husbands and other inconvenient family members.

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.

In 1936, intrepid young Australian journalist Nancy Wake is living in Paris after witnessing firsthand the terror of Hitler’s rise in Europe, firing her resolve to join the fight to defeat the Nazis. When Nancy falls in love with a handsome French industrialist, no sooner has she become Mrs. Henri Fiocca than the Germans invade and Nancy adopts another name, a codename - the first of many.

It was the summer of 1944 as liberating Allied forces surged toward Paris following the D-Day landings. For a large group of downed airmen being held in that city’s infamous Fresnes Prison, they were about to face evacuation into the blackest, bloody heart of Germany and experience the most acute evil of the war. Amid great secrecy, those 168 airmen—including several from Australia and New Zealand—were transported on a filthy, overcrowded nightmare train journey which ended at the notorious Buchenwald concentration camp, accompanied by orders for their execution.

THE EXPLOSION BROUGHT DOWN THE ENTRANCE TO THE TOMB, BURYING THE CHINESE PEASANTS, BUT KEEPING THE BULLION SAFE UNTIL THE JAPANESE MILITARY CAN RETURN. Hidden inside a long-forgotten ancient mountainside tomb, lies a small part of the 6,000 tons of gold looted by Japanese forces from Nanking during the Second World War. A letter written by Sergeant Ichiro to his father lies forgotten, finally emerging into the light of day seventy-one years later. The strands of destiny weave themselves together, drawing a young Australian and his part-Japanese girlfriend towards the death and wealth which ...

Lachlan Macquarie is credited with shaping Australia's destiny, transforming a harsh, foreboding penal colony into an agricultural powerhouse and ultimately a prosperous society. He also helped shape Australia's national character. An egalitarian at heart, Macquarie saw boundless potential in Britain's refuse, and under his rule many former convicts went on to become successful administrators, land owners and businesspeople.

A touching story of eternal love, unbroken promises, and life after death. When young Australian nurse and widow Annie Wilkins leaves for London to assist with the war effort, she promises the three children she leaves behind that she will always be there. Each and every night, Annie diligently writes a letter home to remind her children that she will never be gone as long as she remains in their hearts. As Annie settles into her new life in war-torn London, she faces challenges that she'd never anticipated but the thought of seeing her children again keeps her moving forward. Life at the ...

On 11 August 1914, just days after war had been declared, Australian Captain J.T. Richardson boarded a German merchant vessel fleeing Melbourne's Port Phillip and audaciously seized a top-secret naval codebook. The fledgling Australian Navy had an opportunity to immediately change the course of the war. But what exactly had they found? Enter the Australian code breakers ...

It was the evening of 16 May 1943. Nineteen modified Lancaster bombers from 617 Squadron RAF, under the command of youthful Wing Commander Guy Gibson, roared into the night sky from their Lincolnshire base. They were on a top-secret Bomber Command mission, codenamed Operation Chastise, now regarded as one of the most dangerous and audacious bombing raids of World War II - an attack on the formidable, well-defended dams of Germany’s Ruhr Valley. Slung beneath the belly of each aircraft was one of the war’s greatest secrets - a bouncing bomb.

The bombing of Darwin by the Japanese in 1942 was Australia's Pearl Harbor. Faith and her brother, Joe, escape the devastation and chaos aboard Joe's island trading ketch, Faraway, along with Joe's lifelong friend Koko, an Australian-born Japanese fleeing internment. They are soon separated by the fortunes of war and face their own personal battles against espionage and injustice: Joe in a special army unit serving in the inhospitable wilds of the Northern Territory against a brutal, covert enemy; Koko in a POW camp against a society that appears to have deserted him, and Faith against the ...