The extraordinary story of the heroic doctor whose courage and leadership were a lifeline for thousands of Australian prisoners-of-war on the infamous Thai-Burma Railway of World War II - brilliantly told by Australia's favourite storyteller, Peter FitzSimonsIn September 1939, young Australian surgeon Edward 'Weary' Dunlop was working in London when the dogs of war were unleashed. Signing up, he was commissioned a captain in the Australian Army Medical Corps (AAMC)...

Captain James Cook is one of the most recognisable in Australian history - an almost mythic figure who is often discussed, celebrated, reviled and debated. But who was the real James Cook?The name Captain James Cook is one of the most recognisable in Australian history - an almost mythic figure who is often discussed, celebrated, reviled and debated.But who was the real James Cook?This Yorkshire fa...

Batavia is the greatest story in Australia�s history. The Shipwreck of the Batavia combines in just the one tale the birth of the world's first corporation, the brutality of colonisation, the battle of good vs evil, the derring-do of sea-faring adventure, mutiny, ship-wreck, love, lust, blood-lust, petty fascist dictatorship, criminality, a reign of terror, murders most foul, sexual slavery, natural nobility, survival, retribution, rescue, first contact with native peoples and so much more...

The gripping true story of the woman who became the Gestapo's most wanted spyIn the early 1930s, Nancy Wake was a young woman enjoying a bohemian life in Paris. By the end of the Second World War, she was the Gestapo's most wanted person.As a naïve, young journalist, Nancy Wake witnessed a horrific scene of Nazi violence in a Viennese street. From that moment, she declared that she would do everything in her power to rid Europe of the Nazis. What began as a...

An Australian hero torn between family and country'Put Les Darcy in a uniform and the men of Australia will march to hell behind him.' that was the message trained on Australia's great 'Blacksmith Boxer', as debate about conscription raged in the middle of World War I. the problem was that Les Darcy didn't want to march at the fore of such a procession, nor to such a destination. He wanted to continue what he had been doing to extraordinary acclaim before the war began - taking on t...

On 25 April 1915, Allied forces landed on the Gallipoli Peninsula in present-day Turkey to secure the sea route between Britain and France in the west and Russia in the east. After eight months of terrible fighting, they would fail...To this day, Turkey regards the victory as a defining moment in its history, a heroic last stand in the defence of the Ottoman Empire. But, counter-intuitively, it would come to signify something perhaps even greater for the defeated allies, in...

Our heroes can come from the most ordinary of places. As a shy lad growing up in country Victoria, no one in the district had any idea the man Albert Jacka would become.Albert 'Bert' Jacka was 21 when Britain declared war on Germany in August 1914. Bert soon enlisted in the Australian Imperial Force and the young private was assigned to 14th Battalion D Company. By the time they shipped out to Egypt he'd been made a Lance Corporal.On 26 April 1915, 14th Battalion landed at ...

Eureka Stockade - the unfinished revolution . . . In 1854, Victorian miners fought a deadly battle under the flag of the Southern Cross at the Eureka Stockade. Though brief and doomed to fail, the battle is legend in both our history and in the Australian mind. Henry Lawson wrote poems about it, its symbolic flag is still raised, and even the nineteenth-century visitor Mark Twain called it: � a strike for liberty�. Was this rebellion a fledgling nation�s first attempt to assert its indepen...

The incredible true story of one of the most extraordinary and inspirational prison breaks in Australian history.New York, 1874. Members of the Clan-na-Gael - agitators for Irish freedom from the English yoke - hatch a daring plan to free six Irish political prisoners from the most remote prison in the British Empire, Fremantle Prison in Western Australia. Under the guise of a whale hunt, Captain Anthony sets sail on the Catalpa to rescue the men ...

An affectionate and hilarious tribute to the childhood of another era, from one of Australia's favourite authorsA memoir of love, laughter, loss and billycarts Peter FitzSimons's account of growing up on the rural outskirts of Sydney in the 1960s is first and foremost a tribute to family. But it is also a salute to times and generations past, when praise was understated but love unstinting; work was hard and values clear; when people stood by each other in adversity. Above all, in t...

In the early 1930s, Nancy Wake was a young woman enjoying a bohemian life in Paris. By the end of the Second World War, she was the Gestapo's most wanted person. As a naive, young journalist, Nancy Wake witnessed a horrific scene of Nazi violence in a Viennese street. From that moment, she declared that she would do everything in her power to rid Europe of the Nazis. What began as a courier job here and there became a highly successful escape network for Allied soldiers, perfectly camoufla...

In the early days of April 1941, the 14,000 Australian forces garrisoned in the Libyan town of Tobruk were told to expect reinforcements and supplies within eight weeks... Eight months later these heroic, gallant, determined 'Rats of Tobruk' were rescued by the British Navy having held the fort against the might of Rommel's never-before defeated Afrika Corps. Like Gallipoli and Kokoda, the siege of Tobruk is an iconic battle in Australia's military history. Under ceaseless attack from Romm...