On a pitch-black night in September 1943, a daring Australian commando unit launches a covert raid on Singapore Harbour, sinking and damaging numerous Japanese ships. Operation Jaywick – an epic mission that passed into Australia’s national legend – sets in motion a brutal crackdown by Japan’s dreaded military police, the Kempei Tai.Tasked with finding the culprits of the attack, Major Sumida Haruzo intensifies his hunt for the saboteurs, weaving a deadly web that ensnares dozens o...

Sometimes the slow road can be the fastest way to sort things outRelationship-challenged, with the résumé of a vagrant, Tom Trumble is at one of life's crossroads. So he takes up an offer to go on a seriously long walk – the ancient Christian pilgrimage of the Camino de Santiago de Compostela, the domain of the devout.Despite his good intentions, Tom's route takes him into every bar along the way while crossing paths with the loopy and the wise, the pious and the dis...

On a November morning in 1943, escaped Australian POW Ian Busst comes within a day's march of Allied lines after journeying hundreds of miles on foot through war-torn Italy. The young man is starving and hypothermic, and the German 10th Army stands between him and freedom.Years later, 95-year-old Busst – the unlikely survivor – can still recall his wartime experiences in the Royal Australian Engineers in incredible detail, from the sound of a strafing Messerschmitt to the appalling ...

February 1942. The Japanese invasion of Timor has begun and attempts to evacuate a group of 29 Australian airmen, charged with keeping an airfield operational until the last moment, are thwarted.Under the leadership of Bryan Rofe, a 24-year-old meteorological officer, the airmen make for remote jungle along the northwest coast. All attempts to rescue the group fail. Malaria-ravaged and starving, these men are taken to the limits of their endurance for 58 days. When a 300-strong Japa...

On a pitch-black night in September 1943, a daring Australian commando unit launches a covert raid on Singapore Harbour, sinking and damaging numerous Japanese ships. Operation Jaywick - an epic that passed into Australia's national legend - sets in motion a brutal crackdown by Japan's dreaded military police, the Kempei Tai.Tasked with finding the culprits of the attack, Major Sumida Haruzo intensifies his hunt for the saboteurs, weaving a deadly web that ensnares dozens of Britis...

The Second Battle of Krithia has existed largely in the shadows of the bigger Gallipoli story. It is, however, one of the most poignant and tragic tales of World War I. The fascinating story has been brought to light at last by bestselling military historian Mat McLachlan, author of The Cowra Breakout**.**In May 1915 during World War I, British units tried to capture the village of Krithia on the southern tip of the Gallipoli peninsula. Au...

With three Military Crosses, three Croix de guerre, a L�gion d'honneur and a papal knighthood for his heroics during the Second World War, Sir Tommy Macpherson is the most decorated living soldier of the British Army.Yet for 65 years the Highlander's story has remained untold. Few know how, aged 21, he persuaded 23,000 SS soldiers of the feared Das Reich tank column to surrender, or how Tommy almost single-handedly stopped Tito's Yugoslavia annexing the whole of north-east Italy. T...

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...

This is Harry Verlander’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.Harry had volunteered aged 16 in 1942. By 1944, he was parachuting into France on D-Day as part of the Jedburgh espionage teams. His main adventure, though, was in the jungles of Burm...

Nicky Barr never deliberately sought danger or adventure, but when confronted with it he had the courage to face it and survive.In 1939, at the age of 23, Nicky Barr was chosen to represent Australia in the international rugby world tour. The day after the squad arrived in England, war was declared and the tour was cancelled. Nicky immediately signed-up to become a fighter pilot in the RAAF and while fighting Rommel's famed Afrika Korp in North Africa, quickly rose through the rank...

At the age of nineteen, Glasgow-born John McCallum signed up as a Supplementary Reservist in the Signal Corps. A little over a year later, he was in France, working frantically to set up communication lines as Europe once more hurtled towards war. Wounded and captured at Boulogne, he was sent to the notorious Stalag VIIIB prison camp, together with his brother, Jimmy, and friend Joe Harkin. Ingenious and resourceful, the three men set about planning their escape. With the help of Traudl, a...

Three days later a Japanese force landed at night. They ambushed a 26-man patrol, cutting the Marines down with hidden machine guns. The three survivors who made it back told their fellow Marines that the wounded had been hacked to death with sabres. From then on, the Marines decided they would be every bit as brutal...Read about the US Marine Landings on Guadalcanal; the desperate fight to take and defend Henderson Field; and the long bloody Final Assaults in this 3 in 1 True Comb...