Where Soldiers Lie: The Quest to Find Australia's Missing War Dead (HB) by Ian McPhedran

$22.99 AUD

$39.99 (42% off)

Category: MILITARY | Reading Level: 4 Non Fiction

What drives veterans, military experts and forensic investigators to dedicate years to search for and identify the remains of fallen warriors? What does it mean to the families of the dead to be able to lay them to rest? Over thirty five thousand Australian soldiers and airmen are still listed as Missin g In Action from the wars of the 20th Century. Telling the moving story of the determination and skill of the searchers who apply old-fashioned detective work and cutting-edge science to solve the mysteries of the missing and bring peace of mind and solace to their families and to all those who serve, Where Soldiers Lie follows these investigators and scientists on their mission to locate and identify unrecovered war casualties and to unlock their secrets. From the jungles of Vietnam, where one man led a decade-long battle to recover and bring home the final six, to Korea, Papua New Guinea and the fields of the Somme, Flanders and Fromelles, Where Soldiers Lie is a deeply human story of perseverance, luck and resolution, a story of incredible determination against difficult odds, of exacting forensic analysis and painstaking detective work, to uncover and identify the remains of Australian soldiers, in battlefield over the decades, and to bring their remains home. Powerful, moving and compelling reading. ...Show more

The Long Shadow: Australia's Vietnam Veterans since the War by Peter Yule

$49.99 AUD

Category: MILITARY

'Most veterans were either alcoholics or workaholics and I fitted into the latter category.' — Chris Cannin (6RAR, 1967; 7RAR, 1967-68) 'When I look back and I see what I used to do … there were a lot of things wrong that I would never ever admit to at the time … I thought I was fine, but I wasn't.' — A lan Thornton (17 CONSTRUCTION SQUADRON, 1968–69)The medical and psychological legacies of the Vietnam War are major and continuing issues for veterans, their families and the community, yet the facts about the impact of Agent Orange, post-traumatic stress disorder and other long-term health aspects are little understood. The Long Shadow sets the record straight about the health of Vietnam veterans and reveals a more detailed and complex picture.Profiling the stories of the veterans themselves, this comprehensive and authoritative book is a pioneering work of history on the aftermath of war. It takes a broad approach to the medical legacies, exploring the post-war experiences of Vietnam veterans, the evolution and development of the repatriation system in the post-Vietnam decades and the evolving medical understanding of veterans' health issues. ...Show more

The Battle of Polygon Wood 1917 (#19 Australian Army Campaigns) by Jonathan Passlow

$19.99 AUD

Category: MILITARY | Series: Australian Army Campaigns Ser.

Buoyed by the success of the 1st and 2nd Australian divisions in the Battle of Menin Road, the men of the 4th and 5th Australian divisions filed into the front line ready for the next phase of the battle. Ahead of them lay the blackened remnants of Polygon Wood, a desolate expanse of splintered stumps s hattered by the devastating shellfire. The view across no man's land revealed lines of German barbed wire and a criss-cross of heavily defended trenches. Here and there the Australians could also see solid concrete pillboxes dotted around the landscape. In the centre of the battlefield sat a huge man-made mound of earth - the Butte. Once the stop-butte for an old artillery range, this dominating feature was fortified with machine-guns, laced with barbed wire and riddled with tunnels and dugouts.The Battle of Polygon Wood was the second phase in the British forces' advance on Passchendaele. Success at Polygon Wood would place Broodseinde Ridge within the Second Army's reach. But the entire operation was almost blindsided by a German counter-attack on the eve of the battle. The critical situation on the Anzac Corps right was only saved by Pompey Elliott's 15th Brigade whose desperate efforts to contain the German attack and seize the Second Army's objectives turned a 'fine success' into a 'splendid victory'. But, as author Jonathan Passlow describes in Polygon Wood 1917, this was a victory that was by no means assured and in which luck would play its part. ...Show more

Bill the Bastard: The Story of Australia's Greatest War Horse by Roland Perry

$27.99 AUD

Category: MILITARY

An epic yarn based on the true story of a great Australian war horse who rode with bravery and valour at Gallipoli, the desert campaigns of Egypt, and Palestine.

Australian Code Breakers: Our Top-Secret War with the Kaiser's Reich by James Phelps

$34.99 AUD

Category: MILITARY

The extraordinary story of a headmaster turned cryptographer, and our top-secret war with the Kaiser's Reich. On 11 August 1914, just days after war had been declared, Australian Captain J.T. Richardson boarded a German merchant vessel fleeing Melbourne's Port Phillip and audaciously seized a top-secret naval codebook. The fledgling Australian Navy had an opportunity to immediately change the course of the war. But what exactly had they found? Enter the Australian code breakers ...Recruited by savvy top brass, maths whizz and German speaker Frederick Wheatley worked night and day to fathom the basic principles of the code and start tracking the German Navy's powerful East Asia Squadron, led by the brilliant Maximilian von Spee. Soon Melbourne was a hub of international Allied intelligence. This is the untold story of how a former Australian headmaster and his mostly female team cracked one of Germany's most complex codes, paving the way for the greatest Allied naval victory of World War I. ...Show more

The Cut Out Girl: A Story of War and Family, Lost and Found by Bart van Es

$22.99 AUD

Category: MILITARY

The last time Lien saw her parents was in the Hague when she was collected at the door by a stranger and taken to a city far away to be hidden from the Nazis. She was raised by her foster family as one of their own, but a falling out well after the war meant they were no longer in touch. What was her s ide of the story, Bart van Es - a grandson of the couple who looked after Lien - wondered? What really happened during the war, and after? So began an investigation that would consume and transform both Bart van Es's life and Lien's. Lien was now in her 80s and living in Amsterdam. Reluctantly, she agreed to meet him, and eventually they struck up a remarkable friendship. The Cut Out Girl braids together a powerful recreation of Lien's intensely harrowing childhood story with the present-day account of Bart's efforts to piece that story together. And it embraces the wider picture, too, for Holland was more cooperative in rounding up its Jews for the Nazis than any other Western European country; that is part of Lien's story too. This is an astonishing, moving reckoning with a young girl's struggle for survival during war. It is a story about the powerful love and challenges of foster families, and about the ways our most painful experiences - so crucial in defining us - can also be redefined.  ...Show more

The Hindenburg Line Campaign 1918 (#26 Australian Army Campaigns) by Adam Rankin

$19.99 AUD

Category: MILITARY | Series: Australian Army Campaigns Ser.

In the last devastating months of the First World War, the British Fourth Army pursued the Germans to their final defensive position - the Hindenburg Line, a formidable series of defensive positions studded with concrete dugouts and thickly set barbed wire. The Hindenburg Line 1918 describes the two fie rcely fought set-piece battles which saw Fourth Army break through the German line, paving the way for the final pursuit which ended with the Armistice. The Australian Corps was a pivotal part of the offensive to breach the Hindenburg Line, culminating in the assault to capture Montbrehain, the last Australian battle of the war. By the time it reached the Hindenburg Line, the Australian Corps had been in the line for months, its units exhausted and depleted. Despite this, these final offensives saw the battle-hardened Australians demonstrate their skill in the use of infantry, artillery, machine-guns, tanks, aeroplanes and all the other implements of war that had altered so fundamentally since 1914. Australian commanders had likewise benefited from years of war and were highly skilled in planning complex operations that incorporated the latest tactics, techniques and procedures. But the scale of operations on the Western Front required close cooperation with British and Allied troops, and it was as part of this coalition that the Australian Corps would play its vital role in finally securing battlefield victory and bringing the war to an end. ...Show more

No Easy Day: The Only First-hand Account of the Navy Seal Mission That Killed Osama Bin Laden by Mark Owen

$19.99 AUD

Category: MILITARY

No Easy Day by Mark Owen with Kevin Maurer is the first-person account of Bin Laden's execution. For the first time anywhere, a first-person account of the planning and execution of the Bin Laden raid from inside the US Navy SEAL team who carried out the extraordinary mission to kill the terrorist maste rmind. No Easy Day puts readers inside the elite, handpicked twenty-four-man team known as SEAL Team Six as they train for the most important mission of their lives: the SEALs were going after bin Laden. From the crash of the Black Hawk helicopter that threatened the mission with disaster to the radio call confirming their target was dead, the SEAL team raid on bin Laden's secret HQ is recounted in nail-biting second-by-second detail. In No Easy Day, team leader Mark Owen takes readers behind enemy lines with one of the world's most astonishing fighting forces, in the only insider's account of their most spectacular mission. Praise for No Easy Day: "No Easy Day amounts to a cinematic account of the raid to kill Bin Laden: you feel as if you're sitting in the Black Hawk as it swoops in". (NY Times). "A blistering first-hand account". (The Sun). Mark Owen is a former member of the US Naval Special Warfare Development Group, commonly known as SEAL Team Six. In his many years as a Navy SEAL, he has participated in hundreds of missions around the globe, including the rescue of Captain Richard Phillips in the Indian Ocean in 2009. Owen was a team leader on Operation Neptune Spear in Abbottabad, Pakistan, on 1 May 2011, which resulted in the death of Osama bin Laden. Owen was one of the first men through the door on the third floor of the terrorist mastermind's hideout, where he witnessed bin Laden's death. Mark Owen's name and the names of the other SEALs mentioned in this book have been changed for their security. Kevin Maurer has covered special-operations forces for nine years. He has been embedded with the Special Forces in Afghanistan six times, spent a month in 2006 with special-operations units in east Africa, and has embedded with US forces in Iraq and Haiti. He is the author of four books, including several about special operations. ...Show more

Mosul: Inside Australia's Secret War Against ISIS by Ben Mckelvey

$34.99 AUD

Category: MILITARY

 From the best-selling author of The Commando and Born to Fight comes a fascinating investigation of modern warfare that combines methodical research and the fast-paced action of battle with the personal stories of the combatants on both sides of the line. Taking us from the suburbs of western Sydney and Australia's military army bases, to the battlefields of Afghanistan and Iraq, this is a remarkable book that reveals the as-yet untold story of the battle for Mosul and the secret involvement of Australians on both sides of the war - both our Commandos and Australian ISIS fighters. Mosul details the rise of ISIS influence in Australia, the Iran and Australia allegiance to fight Daesh and shows what led up to the battle and the ramifications that are still being felt at home - by our soldiers and the victims of that war. Ben Mckelvey has extraordinary access to SOOCOMD/2COMMANDO units - the most decorated modern Australian fighting unit; ISOF - Iraq's premier fighters; Yazidis women who had been slaves of ISIS; returned Commandos and their devastated families, and explains how petty criminals in Western Sydney became some of our worst jihadists who took their families to Iraq to fight for ISIS. Focusing on the stories of key figures like 2 Commando's Ian Turner and one of Australia's most infamous Jihadist, Khaled Sharrouf, Mckelvey takes us the heart of this brutal battle and brings history to life in an honest, thoughtful and compelling examination of modern warfare. A must-read for anyone interested in modern military history. ...Show more

Bill and Horrie: Australia's Greatest War Horse and War Dog by Roland Perry

$29.99 AUD

Category: MILITARY

Two bestselling stories of Australian animals during wartime, now in one volume.

Aircraft of the Royal Australian Air Force by Air Force History Branch

$49.99 AUD

Category: MILITARY

Aircraft of The Royal Australian Air Force tells the story of the RAAF's first one hundred years by describing the acquisition, operation, and service record of the multitude of aircraft types flown by the RAAF. The 176 aircraft types include the flimsy wood and canvas aircraft typical of World War I, t hrough the technological advances during and after World War II, to modern fifth-generation, complex aircraft like the F-35 Lightning II. Even before its formation Sir Richard Williams, the Father of the RAAF, had decided to employ an alpha-numeric numbering system to identify and account for each aircraft in service. This system started with A1, A2, A3 etc as each type of aircraft came into service. Each individual aircraft within each series was identified as A1-1, A1-2 and so on and the aircraft serial became known colloquially as the 'A-number'. With some exceptions over the century since the A-number system started, aircraft entered RAAF service in broadly the sequence of the A-numbers, and so this book is intended to assist in charting the 100-year history of the RAAF by listing aircraft operated in A-number sequence, rather than by listing them by role (such as Fighter, Bomber, Maritime, Trainer, Transport etc) or alphabetically by name or by manufacturer. The inclusion of a comprehensive Index and the Quick Reference Guide to aircraft by role is intended to facilitate the location of the entry for any specific type of aircraft for those who may not already know its A-number.  Aircraft of The Royal Australian Air Force is a must have for all those who have served in the RAAF, those with a passion for military aviation and aircraft in general, and the broader members of the public wishing to gain an appreciation of the Royal Australian Air Force in its centenary year. ...Show more

Yours Truly Came Up Smiling by HANDLEY

$29.99 AUD

Category: MILITARY