Vic Petersen was a member of the 2/11th Battalion A.I.F., Army number WX 571 and found himself in the Battle of Crete on May 20th, 1941 against the Germans. He was in a section of the Allies that defended Retimo, on the Island of Crete during the German airborne invasion. Many thousands were captured by the Germans. Many others were told by Commanders to make for Sfakia on the other side of the island in the hope of being evacuated. They were instructed to smash their rifles to make them o...

Crete 1941, Autumn, the final group of Allied Prisoners of War was being rounded up to be shipped to Germany. They were gathered at Iraklion but instead of continuing to Greece the group was split. One hundred and thirty six were placed in a convoy of lorries and sent south over the mountains. Where were they going and what were they going to be doing at their destination?No-one knew the fate of the men who were spirited away for the next eight dec...

Look closely at a crocodile, not too closely, and you will see that it has a cheeky but menacing smile. What is this smile all about? Find out in the entertaining tale Why Crocodiles Smile. You will also discover that nature is wonderful and intriguing.The story is another children's picture book in the Cric Croc series. Cric goes to visit his grandfather and sees nature in all its splendour and beauty. The little crocodile discovers the magical interaction of the animals in a rive...

Cric Croc and the Bedraggled Pony is a story that will break your heart. Cric Croc loves horses and wants to learn to ride. His trip to the local stables is so sad when he discovers a badly neglected and bullied pony. Cric's kindness comes to the fore as he tries to help. Cric befriends the pony and sets about mucking out the stall and fetching clean hay and water. Over the following months Cric's companionship and kindness sees the pony grow healthy and stronger. Throughout all this time ...

This is the third book of the series Destiny in Disguise. The Johnsonfamily, after a decade, has fled the inhospitable environment of theDaintree Rainforest in North Queensland, Australia. The tragic deathof their eldest daughter, Madeline leaves the parents, Burton andMarion believing bad luck has caught up with them.The two boys Keith and Max are still at logger heads after theirexperience with the crocodile in the billabong. A...

Cric Croc and the Bedraggled Pony is a story that will break your heart. Cric Croc loves horses and wants to learn to ride. His trip to the local stables is so sad when he discovers a badly neglected and bullied pony. Cric's kindness comes to the fore as he tries to help. Cric befriends the pony and sets about mucking out the stall and fetching clean hay and water. Over the following months Cric's companionship and kindness sees the pony grow healthy and stronger. Throughout all this time ...

As a 19-year old Black Watch conscript Tom Renouf's war began with some of the most vicious fighting of the conflict - against Himmler's fanatical 'Hitler Youth' SS Division. It ended with the capture of Himmler himself and Tom taking a trophy he still treasures - the Gestapo commander's watch.Seriously wounded and later decorated with a Military Medal for gallantry, Tom Renouf witnessed the death and maiming of countless of his teenage comrades and saw the survivors transformed in...

'One of the best half-dozen personal accounts of the Normandy campaign' - Richard HolmesStuart Hills embarked his Sherman DD tank on to an LCT at 6.45 a.m., Sunday 4 June 1944. He was 20 years old, unblooded, fresh from a public-school background and Officer Cadet training. He was going to war. Two days later, his tank sunk, he and his crew landed from a rubber dinghy with just the clothes they stood in. After that, the struggles through the Normandy bocage in a re...

"From the Battle of France through to the German unconditional surrender . . . A very welcome addition to the available direct accounts of WWII" ( Firetrench).Fighting Hitler from Dunkirk to D-Day is the compelling story of a man belonging to a group of which there are now very few survivors. Jeff Haward MM was a pre-war Territorial Army soldier who enlisted and fought throughout the entirety of the Second World War. He became a "Die Hard," the hi...

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 ...

The invasion was launched to round off Hitlers Balkan Campaign against Crete in May 1941. The Island was important to Britains control of the Eastern Mediterranean and Churchill was determined that the Island would be held.The British garrison was largely made up of New Zealand and Australian troops who had been evacuated from Greece, with little more that what they stood up in. On the other hand the German Commander, Kurt Student, had overwhelming air superiority, which negated the Allied...

A World War II memoir of a clerk who put down his pen and took up a weapon, rising through the ranks to become an elite Special Air Service soldier.Roy Close's wartime experiences make breathtaking reading. Mobilized in 1939 he became part of the BEF and was fortunate to avoid death or captivity during the German blitzkrieg and escape through Dunkirk. Sent to North Africa, he joined the Paras and, from there, to the SAS. In 1944 he operated behind enemy lines with t...