'I had two paddocks to look after,' said Les Gilpin, 'one of 1800 acres, one of 1000 acres. My job was to keep the rabbits down.' Les left school when he turned fourteen and went to work as a rabbiter, living in a corrugated iron hut, on a remote corner of a property. This was Australia in 1945. Les stuck it out at the Back Hut, as his little home was called, for six years. His voice is the authentic voice of Australia.Before he went to war in 1939, Geoff Sheehan had hardly ever be...

A tour de force about the impact of war on one family over the twentieth century.Working at the Australian War Memorial for many years, Michael McKernan had heard and written about many stories of war. For him, war was never about the big picture; it always came down to the individual. Yet little did he know when he met his future wife in 1989 that her father would soon be telling him, over many leisurely afternoons, his own story, of being made a slave to the Nazi...

Nearly one million Australians out of a total population of just seven million people joined the armed forces in World War II. They made an enormous contribution to the allied war effort; they inflicted the first land defeat of the Japanese at Milne Bay in New Guinea during that war and played a crucial part in the Battle of El Alamein in North Africa, the first defeat on land of the Germans.These victories in battle were only made possible by their support from home. Still recover...

Jack Fothergill worked on Melbourne's trams before he went to war and was killed on Pine Ridge on 25 April 1915. In Gallipoli, Michael McKernan tells Jack's story and that of his family, who never recovered from their grief. He also tells the stories of journalist Charles Bean, Chaplain Bill McKenzie, John Treloar and General Ian Hamilton, capturing the essence of what it was really like for the men who fought on the Gallipoli peninsula during that long campaign.While saluting the ...

A compelling and passionate account of Australians in World War II, both on the home front and on the battle fronts. Nearly one million Australians out of a total population of just seven million people joined the armed forces in World War II. They made an enormous contribution to the allied war effort; they inflicted the first land defeat of the Japanese at Milne Bay in New Guinea during that war and played a crucial part in the Battle of El Alamein in North Africa, the first defeat on la...

This book provides both practical touring information on Gallipoli for the independent traveller, and a guide to the amazing First World War Anzac battlefields. Written by a serving Australian Army officer with over 30 years soldiering experience, and now a historian with the Australian Army History Unit, Lieutenant Colonel Glenn Wahlert presents a unique view of the campaign and of the key events that occurred on the ground. It includes detailed information on the key sites at Gallipoli, ...

'As gritty as it is real. An amazing book about ordinary Australians made extraordinary by the times they lived through . . .' - Peter FitzSimonsAbout 1300 Australians died in the desert campaigns of World War I, while another 3500 died in North Africa and the Middle East during World War II. Thousands more carried the wounds of war for the rest of their lives. Countless families were left behind to mourn the dead and comfort the injured. A ripple effect of grief passed down the ge...

The must-read story of the boy from Brisbane who became a wartime hero and aviation trailblazer.In an action-packed life, the indomitable 'Smithy' went from fighting as a soldier amid the carnage of Gallipoli and the Western Front to taking to the skies against the likes of the Red Baron - for which he won the Military Cross for gallantry - before becoming the greatest peacetime aviator of his generation.Along with Charles Ulm, he was the first to conquer the Pacific by air...

At Fromelles in July 1916 two divisions – one British and one Australian – within a few weeks of arriving in France – went into action for the first time. Their task was to prevent the Germans from moving troops to the Somme where a major British offensive was in progress, but the attack on 19/20 July was a disaster with nearly 7,000 casualties in a few hours. This account explores this battle which for many epitomises the futility of the Great War. In those few hours many...

Australians remember the dead of 25 April 1915 on Anzac Day every year. But do we know the name of a single soldier who died that day? What do we really know about the men supposedly most cherished in the national memory of war?Peter Stanley goes looking for the Lost Boys of Anzac: the men of the very first wave to land at dawn on 25 April 1915 and who died on that day. There were exactly 101 of them. They were the first to volunteer, the first to go into action, and the first of t...

For much of the First World War, the opposing armies on the Western Front were at a stalemate, with an unbroken line of fortified trenches stretching from the Belgian coast to the Swiss border. The Allied objective after the bloody Battle of the Somme drew to a close in November 1916 was to decisively break through the German 'Hindenburg Line' and engage the numerically inferior German forces in a war of movement. The Arras offensive was conceived to achieve this breakthro...

In the third volume of Thomas Keneally's unique history of Australia - where he shines a light on the lives and deeds of our countrymen and women, both known and unknown - he takes up the story at the end of the Great War and explores our development as a nation during the tumultuous 20th century.Australia emerged from World War I into a decade of profound change, characterised by a revolution in behaviour amongst the young; by the first great age of consumerism; a...