As I sit in my study in 2024, in the autumn, if not the winter, of my life, I often reflect on how it all happened.I was born in the coal-mining town of Greta but avoided the pits when my parents moved to Sydney. I started school in Glebe, which, at the time, was a very working-class suburb. The high school I attended finished at the end of the third year, and I imagined working as a clerk.Then life changed when my parents were granted a Housing Commission house in North Ry...

Six gentlemen, one goal: the destruction of Hitler's war machineIn the spring of 1939, a top-secret organization was founded in London: its purpose was to plot the destruction of Hitler's war machine through spectacular acts of sabotage.The guerrilla campaign that followed was every bit as extraordinary as the six men who directed it. One of them, Cecil Clarke, was a maverick engineer who had spent the 1930s inventing futuristic caravans. Now, his talents w...

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...

"What would it be like to keep a secret for fifty years? Never telling your parents, your children, or even your husband?"Codebreaker Girls: A Secret Life at Bletchley Park tells the true story of Daisy Lawrence. Following extensive research, the author uses snippets of information, unpublished photographs and her own recollections to describe scenes from her mother's poor, but happy, upbringing in London, and the disruptions caused by the outbreak...

An illustrated history of the English manor house and grounds that were home to the famous World War II codebreakers.The huge success of Sinclair's The Secret Life of Bletchley Park—a quarter of a million copies sold to date—has been symptomatic of a similarly dramatic increase in visitors to Bletchley Park itself, the Victorian mansion in Buckinghamshire now open as an engrossing museum of wartime codebreaking. Aurum is publishing the first comprehensive i...

The ultimate collection of unbelievable true Australian stories: the unknown, the forgotten, and the surprising.Did you know that in 1932 the Australian army was called out to wage war on an invading army of 20,000...emus? Or that the first royal personage to arrive in Australia was the King of Iceland and he came as a convict? And how about the spooky phenomenon of the mischief-making Guyra Ghost?From Jim Haynes, one of our most successful and prolific tel...

A colorful catalogue of objects that illustrate what everyday life was like in wartime Britain.A lifesaving gas mask. A ration book, essential for the supply of food. A shelter stove that kept a family warm while they huddled in their Anderson shelter. A leaflet dropped by the Luftwaffe that was designed to intimidate Britain's populace during the threat of invasion. A civilian identity card over-stamped with the swastika eagle from the occupied Channel Islands. A r...

Shot down in 1942, young Australian fighter pilot John Williams DFC became a POW in the notorious Stalag Luft III camp in Germany. John had joined the air force shortly before the outbreak of war and, in the larrikin tradition, led his squadron into air combat over the deserts of Libya and Egypt dressed in sandals and shorts.John and his best mate Rusty Kierath were among the 76 POWs who tunnelled their way out of the supposedly escape-proof camp under the noses of their German gua...

From Simpson’s donkey and the Emu War to Vietnam and Ben Roberts-Smith, Australian military history is full of events that didn’t happen the way most people think they did. In his inimitable style, award-winning author Mark Dapin sets the record straight.Australia has many stories and statues ‘lest we forget’ our military past. But from Simpson’s donkey to Ben Roberts-Smith, our history is fullof events that didn’t happen the way most people think they did.

What is Australian signals intelligence? Why do we have a national signals intelligence agency and why are our three armed services involved? What do they all do and why is it controversial? And how significant are our ties with, the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada and New Zealand, the formidable Five Eyes partnership?

The story of the first 25 years of Australia's national signals intelligence organisation, told for the first time.'This story has never been told, because in the secret world we could not, and cannot, share what we do all day, even with family and loved ones.' - from the foreword by Rachel Noble, Director-General, Australian Signals DirectorateAt the end of World War II, it was clear that the nation must never aga...

The first full history of the highly trained and ruthless civilian volunteers secretly trained across Britain to be deployed in the case of a German invasion.The narrative surrounding Britain's anti-invasion forces has often centered on 'Dad's Army'-like characters running around with pitchforks, on unpreparedness and sense of inevitability of invasion and defeat. The truth, however, is very different. Top-secret, highly trained and ruthless civilian volunteers were being recruited ...