'The Japanese attacked us, they mortared us, they shelled us...they did everything.'On 21 July 1942, a large Japanese reconnaissance mission landed along the north-eastern coastline of Papua, it would soon turn into an all-out attempt to capture Port Morseby. This is the powerful story of the three weeks of battle by a small Australian militia force, the 39th Battalion, supported by the 1st Papua Infantry Battalion and the Royal Papuan Constabulary, to keep the Japanese at bay. Out...

Anzac Day 2024 represents the 73rd anniversary of the critical battle of Kapyong (23 to 25 April 1951) This book for the first time tells the full story of the Australian, Canadian, New Zealand and American units involved. Fewer than 1,000 Australian and Canadian infantrymen, supported by New Zealand artillery and 15 American Sherman tanks fought off an entire Chinese Division of over 12,000 men and contributed significantly to defeating the great Chinese August offensive.The battle...

In New Guinea’s jungles, a fierce battle turned the tide of the Pacific War—the first major land defeat for the unstoppable Japanese forces.By mid-August 1942, Imperial Japanese forces dominated the Southeast Asian and Pacific theatres, seemingly unstoppable in their advance. While the Japanese South Seas Force pushed north toward Port Moresby along the Kokoda Track, they launched an operation against Milne Bay at the eastern tip of New Guinea. Their objective: to seize the crucial...

Commemorating the 80th Anniversary of the Battles in New Guinea David W. Cameron one of Australia's leading military historians new Kokoda Campaign series will take you from the Battle for Isurava to Port Morseby and finally the retaking of Kokoda. For the first time, these significant battles of Australian troops are comprehensively explored.After taking Kokoda Plateau in late July 1942, Japanese forces entered the Owen Stanley Range, their mission was to capture Port Moresby. Afte...

Detailing the development of the prison and its outlying stations, including its dreaded coal mines and providing an account of the changing views to convict rehabilitation, Convict-era Port Arthur focuses in on a number of individuals, telling the story through their eyes. Charles O’Hara Booth, a significant commandant of Port Arthur; Mark Jeffrey, a convict who became the grave digger on the Island of the Dead; and William Thompson, who arrived just as the new probation...

With the Australian troops crossing of the Kumusi River in mid-November 1942, after pushing the Japanese back along the Kokoda Track to the north coast of Papua New Guinea, the time had come to face the entrenched Japanese at their beachhead at Gona, Buna and Sanananda.The end of the Kokoda Campaign in mid-November 1942 marked a turning point for the Australians, but the fighting was far from over. Within days, the battles for the Japanese beachheads would commence. The fighting for...

Japanese Major General Horii Tomitarô, commanding the South Seas Force, had the Australians on the back foot. Australia was holding the last defendable ridge in the Owen Stanley ranges, Imita Ridge. Horii to his distress was then given orders from Imperial Headquarters in Tokyo that he was to fall back across the mountains to the Japanese beachheads at Gona, Sanananda, and Buna, leaving a force between Templeton’s Crossing and Eora Creek to stop any Australian advance through the mountains...

The August Offensive or ‘Anzac Breakout’ at Gallipoli was an attempt to break the stalemate of the campaign. It saw some of the bloodiest fighting since the landing as Commonwealth and Turkish troops fought desperate battles at Lone Pine, German Officers’ Trench, Turkish Quinn’s, The Chessboard, The Nek, The Farm, Hill Q, Chunuk Bair, and Hill 971. The offensive was designed to allow the allied forces to ‘break out’ of the Anzac beachhead below the Sari Bair Range.The capture of Chu...

This book focuses on the last three months of Robert O’Hara Burke, William John Wills, and John King on Cooper’s Creek. The original expedition which set out in August 1860 was to explore the centre and northern reaches of the Australian continent. The expedition essentially concluded with the death of Burke and Wills on Coopers Creek from starvation and illness in late June and early July 1861.The tragedy was a sliding doors moment in history. Burke, Wills, and King arrived back at...

With the Australian troops crossing of the Kumusi River in mid-November, after pushing the Japanese back along the Kokoda Track, the time had come to face the entrenched Japanese at their beachhead at Gona, Sanananda and Buna.The end of the Kokoda Campaign in mid-November 1942 marked a turning point for the Australians, but the fighting was far from over. Within days, the battles for the three Japanese beachheads would commence. These battles where the first combined large-scale ope...

Our Friend the Enemy is the first detailed history of the Gallipoli campaign at Anzac since Charles Bean’s Official History. Viewed from both sides of the wire and described in first-hand accounts. Australian Captain Herbert Layh recounted that as they approached the beach on 25 April that, once we were behind cover the Turks turned their .. [fire] on us, and gave us a lively 10 minutes. A poor chap next to me was hit three times. He begged me to shoot him, but luckily for him a f...

On 4 June 1942, one of the most powerful figurers of the Nazi Third Riech, Reinhard, Heydrich, the ‘Butcher of Prague’ and architect of the ‘Final solution’, died from wounds suffered in an assassination attempt carried out just days before. His death caused shockwaves in the Nazi State, and resulted in savage reprisals, with Hitler ordering the annihilation of two village populations thought to be involved in assisting the assassins. Thousands of others were sent to concentration camps wh...