In John Bede Cusack's fictionalised military memoir 'They Hosed Them Out', fact and fiction intersect to tell the powerful story of one man's experience as an air gunner during the Second World War. Cusack transcends the limitations of non-fiction and traditional war literature to evoke not only the well-documented horrors of war but also the adventure. Written with a profound mixture of bitterness and cynicism, humour and camaraderie, Cusack's sardonic Australian humour offers a unique an...

More than 10,000 Australians served with Bomber Command, a highly trained band of elite flyers who undertook some of the most dangerous operations of World War II. They flew raid after raid over France and Germany knowing that the odds were against them. Stretched to breaking point, nearly 3500 died in the air. Their bravery in extreme circumstances has barely been recognised.Peter Rees traces the extraordinary achievements of these young aviators. He tells their hair-raising stori...

"thoroughly researched and compelling . . . a chilling account' The Sun-HeraldAn eye-opening account of Australian combat history, untold . . . until now.In 1969 a ragtag unit of 39 men were thrown together at Nui Dat, Vietnam. It was so slapdash a group it didn’t even have an officer or sergeant in charge. A rugged ex-Royal Marine stepped forward to take the lead. Jim Riddle was only an acting corporal but he knew enough of war to...

The truth about the battle that came to define our Vietnam War - from the men who were there.18th August, 1966. 1pm…D Company entered the plantation. They thought that, if they were lucky, they were closing in on perhaps 30 or 40 VC. They were horribly wrong.Over twelve long, bloody and brutal hours, 105 Australian soldiers and three New Zealanders fought off mortar attacks and heavy machine-gun fire, unaware they were facing up to 2500 Viet Cong a...

From retired Air Force pilot Marshall Harrison comes a remarkable memoir of aerial warfare in Vietnam. In his third combat tour, Harrison found himself converted from the high performance world of jets to the awkward-looking OV-10 Bronco and assigned as a FAC forward air controller. A captivating tale of valor, brotherhood, and patriotism unravels in the pages of A Lonely Kind of War, Forward Air Controller, Vietnam, a posthumous release by this published author through Xlibris. Harrison i...

Our Lancaster raced over the perimeter track and then tore down the slope through the dispersal area... with its wheels thumping on the grass but still firmly on the ground. It now seemed that nothing could save us and that, in the next couple of moments, we would disappear in a great explosion. I could hear Bob saying "Get off the ground, you bastard, get off," while Harry just said nothing..."Into the Darkness" is the true story of a young Australian thown into the crucible of th...

Flying at 120 knots with the unique roar from its aerodynamic rotors and twin turbines the AH64 Apache is the world's most fearsome attack helicopter its pilots refer to it as 'Riding the Dragon'. The Taliban would more often than not flee rather than suffer its 30mm cannon, 2.75 rockets or Hellfire missiles. Some of the Apache systems are truly amazing such as being able to read a car number plate at 4.2Km away with its 127 times-magnification day TV camera. A thermal camera so powerful i...

During World War II fighter pilots were, at times, detailed to perform out-of-the-ordinary operations. "Duck Hunting in a Hurricane" was an event that resulted in just such an operation in order to recover the Hurricane and bring back the ducks.

'We make and we break.'They were the forward scouts, the mine clearers, the bridge builders and the tunnel rats. They were frequently not just on the front line, but right at the sharp end of the action. They were the legendary Aussie sappers, the army engineers, who were literally everywhere in the fighting against the Vietcong.This special breed of soldier lived hard and played hard. They were there at the beginning of the war. They were also among the last to le...

Most of us have heard of the battered and muddy troops who 'saved' Australia on the Kokoda Track during the darkest hours of the Pacific war. Far fewer know of the Australian pilots and aircrew of 75 Squadron who first checked the Japanese advance into the South West Pacific, in desperate air fighting that swirled over the jungles of New Guinea and the base at Port Moresby, fully six months before the land campaign began. Storm Over Kokoda tells how Australian crews, in a handful ...

This is Mike Sadler’s story, one of five true-life recollections from the Second World War in Tales From The Special Forces Club.The Special Forces Club is a fabled gentlemen’s club, based in the heart of London. It has a closely guarded secret: you have to be a genuine hero to be a member.Mike Sadler was in Rhodesia working on a farm when he decided to join up and fight Hitler. He would become one of the legendary men in the Long Range Desert Group, roaming behind Erwin Ro...

Robert le Page flew with the Fleet Air Arm from 1940 to 1945, mostly in 816 Squadron flying carrier-based Fairey Swordfish. He saw action mine-laying off Cherbourg, hunting U-boats, escorting convoys in the North Atlantic and Arctic seas and covering D-Day. Much of his early war years were aboard HMS Dasher and he was lucky to be ashore when the carrier mysteriously exploded and sank in the Clyde. This decimated 816 Squadron which was eventually re-equipped and then worked up to operationa...