Aussie Soldier: Up Close and Personal by Denny Neave & Craig Smith

$9.99 AUD

$34.95 (71% off)

Category: Military

This book is a collection of short stories, diary extracts, letters, anecdotes and quotes from past and present serving soldiers. From WW1 to modern day conflicts, this book is an up close and personal perspective of what the soldier regards as his core values. These include compassion, mateship, courag e, initiative, loyalty, integrity and trust. Aussie Soldier includes a 30-page battle book that summarises some of Australia's most famous battles. ...Show more

Anzac Cove to Afghanistan: History of the 3rd Brigade by Glenn Wahlert

$14.99 AUD

$39.95 (62% off)

Category: Military

As the first Anzacs to land at Gallipoli on 25 April 1915 and among the last to serve in Afghanistan 100 years later, the men and women of the Australian Army's 3rd Brigade have a long and proud history. Initially raised in 1903, the 3rd Brigade served as part of the Australian Imperial Force during Wor ld War I, suffering appalling losses at Gallipoli. On the Western Front the brigade endured three years of horrendous trench warfare, its four infantry battalions alone incurring a casualty rate of over 300%. During the inter-war period the brigade was a militia force and was mobilized with Japan's entry into the war in 1941, serving in Darwin, Papua New Guinea and North Queensland. Disbanded in 1944 and re-formed as the 3rd Task Force in 1967, the soldiers of the 3rd Brigade have deployed to almost every theater in which the Australian Defence Force has seen action, including Vietnam, the South Pacific, Somalia, Cambodia, Rwanda, Bougainville, Timor-Leste, Solomon Islands, Iraq and Afghanistan. From 1980 the brigade has been the government's land force instrument of first choice in response to military or peacekeeping interventions throughout the world and natural disasters at home. This is a heritage of which all Australians can be justifiably proud. ...Show more

You Shouldn't Have Joined... by Peter Cosgrove

$49.99 AUD

Category: Military

General Sir Peter Cosgrove AK AC (Mil) CVO MC (Retd) is one of Australia's most significant public figures. As a soldier he saw action in Vietnam, winning the Military Cross, and rose to the very top of his profession, becoming Chief of the Defence Force. Soon after his retirement from the Army, he was invited to take charge of the huge relief and rebuilding operation in Queensland after the devastation of Cyclone Larry. In 2014, Cosgrove became Australia's Governor-General. As Governor-General he travelled far and wide, supporting Australians in times of crisis, sadness, joy or celebration, representing us on the world stage with humour, intelligence and a force of personal magnetism that was felt by everyone from prime ministers to presidents. When he retired in July 2019, it was as one of the most beloved and respected governors-general in Australia's history. Cosgrove embodies the traits we truly value: warmth, humanity, toughness and loyalty. His humour and empathy shone through the pomp and ceremony, and his time as Governor-General will be remembered as much for his laughter as for the usual dignities of the office. You Shouldn't Have Joined ... (an expression much used during his days as a soldier) is the story of Cosgrove's extraordinarily full and eventful life. It is also the story of those who have shared it with him, in particular his wife Lynne. His memoir allows us an incredible insight into the role and world of Australia's Governor-General. He was there as two prime ministers were toppled by their own party. He was there through disasters both natural and man-made, such as the destruction of MH17. He was there for world leaders, and for ordinary Australians. You Shouldn't Have Joined ... is a true reflection of the man himself, filled with intelligence, forthrightness, compassion and a brilliant eye for a telling anecdote. ...Show more

The Vietnam War Experience by Gerry Souter

$29.99 AUD

$59.99 (50% off)

Category: Military

The Vietnam War Experience is a dramatic guide to the suffering, sacrifice and heroism of the Vietnam War. It sees the highs and lows of the world's first televised war through the eyes of those who fought in it, both the generals commanding the war and the ordinary soldiers on the ground and in the air . An important contribution to current books about Vietnam, it is made unique through the inclusion of images of rare memorabilia. ...Show more

Danger Close: The Battle of Long Tan FTI by Robert Grandin; Bob Buick (Contribution by); David Sabben (Contribution by); Harry Smith (Contribution by); Geoffrey Martin Kendall (Contribution by); Francis Roberts (Contribution by); Maurice Stanley (Contribution by)

$22.99 AUD

Category: Military

An account of the most famous Australian battle of the Vietnam war by the six Australian commanders and one New Zealander commander of the units which made up the Australian fighting force.

D-Day New Guinea by Phillip Bradley

$32.99 AUD

Category: Military

The most complete telling of one of the most significant campaigns of the Pacific War and Australia's role in it.

The Oarsmen: The Remarkable Story of the Men Who Rowed from the Great War to Peace by PATTERSON, SCOTT

$34.99 AUD

Category: Military

At the end of the First World War, there were 270,000 demobilised Australian soldiers in Europe. Getting them home after the Armistice was a task of epic proportions that would take more than two years. In the meantime, how to keep these disgruntled, damaged men with guns occupied? In a word: sport.   T he Oarsmen tells the story of the servicemen who survived the war to row for the coveted King's Cup at the 1919 Royal Henley Peace Regatta. Competing against crews from the US, New Zealand, France, the UK and Canada, the Australians were a ragtag bunch of oarsmen thrown in an old-fashioned boat and expected to race. Many had seen the worst of the action during the war at Gallipoli and the Western Front, and carried scars both physical and psychological. The baggage they brought to the boat would soon threaten to capsize the whole endeavour.    Combining first-hand accounts with lively prose, this never-before-told story approaches the First World War from peacetime and illuminates history in vivid and compelling detail. Interweaving the soldiers' personal stories from before, during and after the war, The Oarsmen paints a fascinating picture of how these men, and society, transitioned from an unprecedented war to a new sort of peace.   ...Show more

The Doomsday Machine: Confessions of a Nuclear War Planner by Daniel Ellsberg

$29.99 AUD

$39.99 (25% off)

Category: Military

At the same time former presidential advisor Daniel Ellsberg famously took the top-secret Pentagon Papers, he also took with him a chilling cache of top secret documents related to America's nuclear program in the 1960s. Here for the first time he reveals the contents of those documents, and makes clear their shocking relevance for today. The Doomsday Machine is Ellsberg's hair-raising insider's account of the most dangerous arms buildup in the history of civilization, whose legacy--and renewal under the Obama administration--threatens the very survival of humanity. It is scarcely possible to estimate the true dangers of our present nuclear policies without penetrating the secret realities of the nuclear strategy of the late Eisenhower and early Kennedy years, when Ellsberg had high-level access to them. No other insider has written so candidly of that long-classified history, and nothing has fundamentally changed since that era. Ellsberg's analysis of recent research on nuclear winter shows that even a "small" nuclear exchange would cause billions of deaths by global nuclear famine. Ellsberg, in the end, offers steps we can take under a new administration to avoid nuclear catastrophe. Framed as a memoir, this gripping expose reads like a thriller with cloak-and-dagger intrigue, placing Ellsberg back in his natural role as whistle-blower. It is a real-life Dr. Strangelove story, but an ultimately hopeful--and powerfully important--book. ...Show more

Bastard Behind the Lines: The Extraordinary Story of Jock Mclaren's Escape from Sandakan and His Guerrilla War Against the Japanese by Tom Gilling

$29.99 AUD

Category: Military

He escaped from Singapore's Changi prisoner of war camp to become one of Australia's greatest World War II guerrilla fighters. 'The way I look at it is this...When you're behind the line and get yourself into trouble, you've got to get your bloody self out irrespective of anybody else. That's why I lik e it.'Scottish-born but a Queenslander to the bone, Jock McLaren was a true Australian hero. As a prisoner he escaped twice, first from Changi and later from the infamous Sandakan POW camp in Borneo. After paddling a dugout canoe across open sea, he fought for two years with American-led Filipino guerrillas, his exploits so audacious the Japanese put a price on his head.At the helm of his 26-foot whaleboat, the Bastard, McLaren sailed brazenly into enemy-held harbours, wreaking havoc with his mortar and machine guns before heading back out to sea. In early 1945 he joined Australia's secretive Z Special Unit, parachuting into Borneo to carry out reconnaissance and organise anti-Japanese resistance ahead of Allied landings. He cheated death on numerous occasions and saved his own life by removing his appendix without anaesthetic, using 'two large dessert spoons' and a razor blade. Drawing on Allied and Japanese wartime documents, Bastard Behind the Lines brings the story of a courageous digger vividly to life and throws light on a rarely explored aspect of Australia's Pacific war.  ...Show more

Promise Me You'll Shoot Yourself: The Mass Suicide of Ordinary Germans In 1945 by Florian Huber

$32.99 AUD

Category: Military | Reading Level: 4 Non Fiction

In 1945, as the army retreated, the German people were surrendered to the enemy with no means of defence. A wave of suicides rolled across the country as thousands chose death-for themselves and their children-rather than face the defeat of the Third Reich and what they feared might follow. Drawing on eyewitness accounts, historian Florian Huber tells of the largest mass suicide in German history and its suppression by the survivors-a fascinating insight into the feelings of ordinary people caught in the tide of history who saw no other way out. ...Show more