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

$39.99 AUD

Category: Military

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

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.

A Game of Birds and Wolves by Simon Parkin

$32.99 AUD

Category: Military

It's 1941. Imagine you're Winston Churchill. The Battle of the Atlantic is a disaster. Supply ships ferrying vital weapons, food and fuel from North America are being torpedoed by the German U-boats. You are lying to the country about the number of ships sunk. You are lying about the number of men kille d. Without the supply ships Britain will starve. The tide of the war is turning in Germany's favour. This is the story of the game of battleships that won the Second World War. In 1941 Prime Minster Winston Churchill gathered a group of unlikely heroes - a retired naval captain and eight brilliant young women, the youngest only seventeen years-old - to form a secret strategy unit. On the top floor of a ramshackle HQ in Liverpool, the Western Approaches Tactical Unit spent day and night playing war games to crack the U-boat tactics. A Game of Birds and Wolves takes us from the steamy fug of a U-boat as the German aces coordinate their wolfpack, to the tense atmosphere of operation room as the British team plot battles at sea on the map. The story of Operation Raspberry and its unsung heroines has never been told before. Investigative journalist Simon Parkin brings these hidden figures into the light in this gripping tale of war at sea. ...Show more

The Lost Boys: The untold stories of the under-age soldiers who fought in the First World War (HB) by Paul Byrnes

$45.00 AUD

Category: Military

They were just boys. And they were to face the horrors of a war more diabolical than any of them could have imagined. This is their story. Hundreds of Australian and New Zealander boys enlisted in the First World War, some as young as 13. No one knows how many went to war, but at least 150 Australians d id not come back. Their names are on the Roll of Honour, the record of war dead at the War Memorial in Canberra. Most died on the Western Front, in France and Belgium. They took part in every major battle in which the ANZACs fought - from Fromelles in July 1916, to the liberation of Villers-Bretonneux in 1918. Many died in the first wave at Gallipoli or at Lone Pine in August 1915. Why did they go and who allowed this to happen? We can only understand how if we look through their eyes and walk in their shoes. In The Lost Boys, their stories will be told for the first time. ...Show more

The Stolen Maps by TREVOR TUCKER

$29.95 AUD

Category: Military

Shadowplay: Behind the Lines and under Fire - The Inside Story of Europe's Last War by Tim Marshall

$22.99 AUD

Category: Military

The last of the devastating series of conflicts resulting from the breakup of Yugoslavia in the early 1990s, the Kosovo War saw more than 13,500 fatalities, with reports of atrocities, amid controversial intervention and bombing by NATO. Twenty years have passed since the war's end on 11 June 1999, yet Kosovo's status remains uncertain and questions remain about the possibility of future conflict on European soil. Tim Marshall, then diplomatic editor at Sky News, was on the ground covering the war. This is his captivating account of how events unfolded, exploring the inside story of the way MI6 and the CIA helped the Serbian people to overthrow Slobodan Milosevic, the president of Yugoslavia. It is also a thrilling journalistic memoir, revealing key strategic insights that went on to shape the ideas behind the million-copy international and no.1 Sunday Times bestseller Prisoners of Geography. Drawing on personal experience, eyewitness accounts, and interviews with intelligence officials from five countries, this is the definitive account of one of the major events in recent geopolitical history, the repercussions of which continue to be felt today. ...Show more

Fight to the Finish - The First World War - Month by Month by Allan Mallinson

$24.99 AUD

Category: Military

'Mallinson . . . combines the authority of a soldier-turned-military historian with the imaginative touch of the historical novelist.' Lawrence James, THE TIMESWe remember months, because months have names, because they are linked to the seasons, and because they have their own character. Looking at the First World War month by month reveals its complexity while preserving a sense of time. From the opening shots to the signing of the armistice, the First World War lasted almost 52 months. It was fought on land, sea and in the air. It became industrial, and unrestricted: poison gas, aerial bombing of cities, and the sinking without warning of merchantmen and passenger ships by submarines. Casualties, military and civilian, probably exceeded 40 million. Four empires collapsed during the course of the war - the German, Austro-Hungarian, Russian and Ottoman. The First World War is almost impossible to comprehend. Day-by-day narratives can be dizzying for the reader wanting to make sense of the conflict as a whole. Freer-flowing accounts, while helping to understand the broader trends and factors, can give less of a sense of the human dimension of time. The month is a more digestible gauge.Based on the Allan Mallinson's monthly commentaries in The Times throughout the centenary, Fight to the Finish is a new and original portrait of "The War to End War." ...Show more

The Fortress - The Great Siege of Przemysl by Alexander Watson

$65.00 AUD

Category: Military

In the autumn of 1914 Europe was at war. The battling powers had already suffered casualties on a scale previously unimaginable. On both the Western and Eastern fronts elaborate war plans lay in ruins and had been discarded in favour of desperate improvisation. In the West this resulted in the remorsele ss world of the trenches; in the East all eyes were focused on the old, beleaguered Austro-Hungarian fortress of Przemysl. The great siege that unfolded at Przemysl was the longest of the whole war. In the defence of the fortress and the struggle to relieve it Austria-Hungary suffered some 800,000 casualties. Almost unknown in the West, this was one of the great turning points of the conflict. If the Russians had broken through they could have invaded Central Europe, but by the time the fortress fell their strength was so sapped they could go no further. Alexander Watson, prize-winning author of Ring of Steel, has written one of the great epics of the First World War. Comparable to Stalingrad in 1942-3, Przemysl shaped the course of Europe's future. Neither Russians nor Austro-Hungarians ever recovered from their disasters. Using a huge range of sources, Watson brilliantly recreates a world of long-gone empires, broken armies and a cut-off community sliding into chaos. The siege was central to the war itself, but also a chilling harbinger of what would engulf the entire region in the coming decades, as nationalism, anti-semitism and an exterminatory fury took hold. ...Show more

Pearls Before Poppies: The Story of the Red Cross Pearls by Rachel TRETHEWEY

$27.99 AUD

Category: Military

The moving story of the 1918 Red Cross Pearl Necklace Appeal, and the women who donated pearls in soldiers' memory. In February 1918, Lady Northcliffe, wife of the owner of The Daily Mail and The Times had the idea of raising funds for the Red Cross by asking women to give a pearl as a tribute to the de ad and the wounded in the Great War. The plan was to create a necklace which would be auctioned at Christie's. However, the idea grew beyond her greatest expectations. It captured the public's imagination and over the next nine months nearly four thousand pearls poured in not just from Britain but from across the world. The pearls were discussed in drawing rooms, written about in The Times and even debated in Parliament. The story of the Red Cross Pearls is an historical gem which has never been told in detail before. Drawing on the archives of the Red Cross, Christie's and the Victoria and Albert Museum, this book traces the story of the Red Cross Pearl Appeal throughout the eventful year of 1918. Interweaving the story of the campaign with the personal stories behind individual pearls this book provides a snapshot of a world that was changed forever by the war. ...Show more

The Big Book of Australia's War Stories by Jim Haynes

$32.99 AUD

Category: Military

Here are the stories of Australia's iconic battles and campaigns from the time of federation to the Vietnam War. Some are still household names, although their historical significance may be a mystery to most Aussies. Others are barely remembered now, but are part in our history and deserve to be retold . Most importantly, this collection demonstrates the extraordinary courage, resilience, stoic humour, personal heroism and sacrifice that created the legend of the Aussie digger, soldiers, sailors and airmen who did things their own way and earned the undying respect of both their allies and their enemies. These are the stories that explain Australia's wartime reputation. Fifteen years before Gallipoli, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, writing of stoic Australian courage, would say, 'When the ballad makers of Australia seek for a subject, let them turn to Elands River'. Of Gallipoli, a British officer called the cheerful, insubordinate Aussies 'the bravest thing God ever made'. And before the Normandy invasion, Field Marshall Montgomery's chief of staff remarked, before the Normandy invasion, 'I only wish we had the Australian 9th Division with us this morning'. ...Show more

Destination Casablanca - Exile, Espionage, and the Battle for North Africa in World War II by Meredith Hindley

$29.99 AUD

Category: Military

This rollicking and panoramic history of Casablanca during the Second World War sheds light on the city as a key hub for European and American powers, and a place where spies, soldiers, and political agents exchanged secrets and vied for control.   In November 1942, as a part of Operation Torch, 33,000 American soldiers sailed undetected across the Atlantic and stormed the beaches of French Morocco. Seventy-four hours later, the Americans controlled the country and one of the most valuable wartime ports: Casablanca.In the years preceding, Casablanca had evolved from an exotic travel destination to a key military target after France's surrender to Germany. Jewish refugees from Europe poured in, hoping to obtain visas and passage to the United States and beyond. Nazi agents and collaborators infiltrated the city in search of power and loyalty. The resistance was not far behind, as shopkeepers, celebrities, former French Foreign Legionnaires, and disgruntled bureaucrats formed a network of Allied spies. But once in American hands, Casablanca became a crucial logistical hub in the fight against Germany--and the site of Roosevelt and Churchill's demand for "unconditional surrender."Rife with rogue soldiers, power grabs, and diplomatic intrigue, Destination Casablanca is the riveting and untold story of this glamorous city--memorialized in the classic film that was rush-released in 1942 to capitalize on the drama that was unfolding in North Africa at the heart of World War II. ...Show more

D-Day Girls - The Spies Who Armed the Resistance, Sabotaged the Nazis, and Helped Win World War II by Sarah Rose

$49.99 AUD

Category: Military

NATIONAL BESTSELLER * The dramatic, untold true story of the extraordinary women recruited by Britain's elite spy agency to help pave the way for Allied victory in World War II "Gripping. Spies, romance, Gestapo thugs, blown-up trains, courage, and treachery (lots of treachery)--and all of it true."--Erik Larson, author of The Devil in the White City and Dead Wake In 1942, the Allies were losing, Germany seemed unstoppable, and every able man in England was on the front lines. To "set Europe ablaze," in the words of Winston Churchill, the Special Operations Executive (SOE) was forced to do something unprecedented: recruit women as spies. Thirty-nine answered the call, leaving their lives and families to become saboteurs in France. In D-Day Girls, Sarah Rose draws on recently de­classified files, diaries, and oral histories to tell the thrilling story of three of these remarkable women. There's Andrée Borrel, a scrappy and streetwise Parisian who blew up power lines with the Gestapo hot on her heels; Odette Sansom, an unhappily married suburban mother who saw the SOE as her ticket out of domestic life and into a meaningful adventure; and Lise de Baissac, a fiercely independent member of French colonial high society and the SOE's unflap­pable "queen." Together, they destroyed train lines, ambushed Nazis, plotted prison breaks, and gathered crucial intelligence--laying the groundwork for the D-Day invasion that proved to be the turning point in the war. Rigorously researched and written with razor-sharp wit, D-Day Girls is an inspiring story for our own moment of resistance: a reminder of what courage--and the energy of politically animated women--can accomplish when the stakes seem incalculably high. Praise for D-Day Girls "Rigorously researched . . . [a] thriller in the form of a non-fiction book."--Refinery29 "Gripping history . . . thoroughly researched and written as smoothly as a good thriller, this is a mesmerizing story of creativity, perseverance, and astonishing heroism."--Publishers Weekly (starred review)  "The mission is this: Read D-Day Girls today. Not just for the spy flair--code names, aliases, and operating covers--but also because this history feels more relevant than ever, as an army of women and girls again find themselves in a fight for the common good."--Lily Koppel, author of The Astronaut Wives Club ...Show more