Australia War

With the introduction of Conscription in the 1960s, it was realised that Australia’s defence forces would now have access to a wider pool of talented men, other than those that normally volunteer for service. Major Jack Roberts was tasked by the defence department to form a small group from the National Servicemen to take on some unique tasks. He chose three young men that had shown signs of being able to work with anyone from different backgrounds or ethnic groups. These three men were a Christian, a Jew and a Moslem. After being whisked away from their regiment, as it sailed for Vietnam...

Submariners are a special breed. Not for them a life on the ocean wave, the fresh air and sunshine of other naval sailors. With stealth and daring they go deep and dark, alone and unseen, in often dangerous waters. They sometimes call themselves the Silent Service, with good reason. Submarines and the sailors who serve in them have been and remain the tip of the spear of Australia's defences. For the first time, this is their unique story.

In the aftermath of the Second World War, Private Joseph Caan, a young Jewish soldier stationed in Germany, seeks the truth about lost family members; in the 1960s a father focuses on his daughter’s wedding even as the Cuban Missile Crisis brings the world to the brink of disaster; in 2001, while planes fly into the Twin Towers, a maid working for US Embassy staff in London wonders if her birth on the day of the Kennedy assassination shaped her life.

Berlin, 1943. As the Allied forces edge closer, the Third Reich tightens its grip on its people. For 18-year-old Susanna Göttmann, this means her adopted family including the man she loves, Leo, are at risk. Desperate to protect her loved ones any way she can, Susie accepts the help of an influential Nazi officer. But it comes at a terrible cost - she must abandon any hope of a future with Leo and enter the frightening world of the Nazi elite.

Shocking real-life stories of murderous women who used rat poison to rid themselves of husbands and other inconvenient family members. After World War II, Sydney experienced a crime wave that was chillingly calculated. Discontent mixed with despair, greed with callous disregard. Women who had lost their wartime freedoms headed back into the kitchen with sinister intent and the household poison thallium, normally used to kill rats, was repurposed to kill husbands and other inconvenient family members.

The true story of Deng Adut - Sudanese child soldier, refugee, man of hope. Movingly narrated by Blessing Mokgohloa. Deng Adut's family were farmers in South Sudan when a brutal civil war altered his life forever. At six years old, his mother was told she had to give him up to fight. At the age most Australian children are starting school, Deng was conscripted into the Sudan People's Liberation Army.

A touching story of eternal love, unbroken promises, and life after death. When young Australian nurse and widow Annie Wilkins leaves for London to assist with the war effort, she promises the three children she leaves behind that she will always be there. Each and every night, Annie diligently writes a letter home to remind her children that she will never be gone as long as she remains in their hearts. As Annie settles into her new life in war-torn London, she faces challenges that she'd never anticipated but the thought of seeing her children again keeps her moving forward. Life at the ...

South Australia, 1914 When war against Germany erupts on the other side of the earth, a huge wave of suspicion, prejudice and persecution floods the community. There’s even a harsh concentration camp built for men branded as enemy aliens. Here in Adelaide, five diverse people are made vulnerable by the war. Elsie, gifted and ambitious child pianist, with German ancestry. Oskar, famous sportsman and businessman, also with German origins. Wilfred, a caring Anglican parish priest, opposed to the war. Pansy, an outsider by her very nature, but a fighter for justice to others. Little Neddy, a ...

March 1945. A handful of very young Allied operatives are parachuted into the remote jungled heart of the Japanese-occupied island of Borneo, east of Singapore, there to recruit the island's Indigenous Dayak peoples to fight the Japanese. Yet most speak next to no Borneo languages and know little about Dayaks, other than that they were once headhunters who might kill them on arrival. For their part, some Dayaks have never before seen a white face.

Young married private detectives, Debbie and Jeremy Hadley, discover that Debbie's family, the Danforths, have a family secret. Grandma Marie Danforth summons them because she fears that alienated family members and underworld characters will attempt to wrest control of the secret from her. The history of the secret begins at the American Civil War Battle of Gettysburg and develops through a century and a half of Danforth family twists and intrigues. Although written as a continuous story, Impending actually is two novels in one: the saga of how the secret developed from its inception to ...

LAST UPDATED MAY 2018 Prior to the Second World War, Japan and Australia had been successful trading partners, but after Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbour, Australia was soon at war with Japan. Various attacks by Japan soon followed and the citizens of Australia became afraid and were ready to bolt inland from the coastal regions. In 1942, General McArthur set up his headquarters for the Pacific in Brisbane and, as a result, the city needed a civilian population to ensure the smooth operation of its essential services. Due to its proximity to the Pacific battlefronts, it was a crucial ...

The war seems a long way away to Maggie Flanagan. Her brother is somewhere across the sea, flying to protect England from the Germans and the Italians. But Maggie is more interested in kicking the footy and finding out who's going to play for St Kilda this season. When the war comes to Australia and Maggie sees what she's sure is a Japanese spy plan in the skies of Melbourne, it all gets very real. The Japanese attack Australia up north and American soldiers start appearing on the streets. Worst of all, it looks like the football season will be cancelled!

From the author of the million-copy global best seller Lilac Girls, comes a captivating new historical novel, set during the American Civil War. It's a sweeping story of women caught in a country on the brink of collapse, in a society grappling with nationalism and unthinkable racial cruelty.

In October 1863, Ian Steele, having taken on the identity of Captain Samuel Forbes, is fighting the Pashtun on the north-west frontier in India. Half a world away, the real Samuel Forbes is a lieutenant in the third New York Volunteers and is facing the Confederates at the Battle of Mission Ridge in Tennessee. Neither is aware their lives will change beyond recognition in the year to come. In London, Ella, the love of Ian's life, is unhappily married to Count Nikolai Kasatkin.

Evelyn Varley has always been ambitious and clever. As a girl, she earned a scholarship to a prestigious academy well above her parents’ means, gaining her a best friend from one of England’s wealthiest families. In 1939, with an Oxford degree in hand and war looming, Evelyn finds herself recruited into an elite MI5 counterintelligence unit. A secret society seeks an alliance with Germany and, posing as a Nazi sympathizer, Evelyn must build a case to expose their treachery. But as she is drawn deeper into duplicity, some of those close to her become embroiled in her investigation.

In the immediate aftermath of the catastrophe of the Cuban Missiles War of October 1962 the British government and its surviving Commonwealth allies were in a state of shock. ‘Operation Manna’ is about what happened in the days and weeks after the first twenty-four hours of Armageddon. In Britain the priority was to restore the rule of law, to begin to piece together what was left of the country after the hammer blows which had obliterated London, Liverpool, Chatham, Gravesend, Canterbury and half-wrecked others. Operation Manna is the story of how the nation was saved; filling in the ...

Over a decorated 34-year career, Commodore Scott served in 10 submarines, passed the most demanding military command course in the world and served as the Head of Profession of the Submarine Arm of the Royal Australian Navy. During that time his character was forged by the challenges of naval service, success and failure as a leader, catastrophic onboard disasters while dived, and life-threatening traumas. Along the way, he also endured personal battles with self-doubt, addiction, depression and anxiety.

For many years, thousands of people have walked past an unassuming black timber fishing boat bobbing in the water down at the wharves of Sydney's Darling Harbour. But appearances can be deceptive. This humble little trawler played a key role in one of World War II's most audacious and successful commando raids. In September 1943, fourteen young Z special operatives sailed the small fishing boat from Australia to Japanese-occupied Singapore. Battling deadly tides, fierce storms, hostile ships and detection from the air, this little ship and its crew made it to the heart of the enemy stronghold.

In an isolated village in the mountains of Andalusia, a mysterious Frenchwoman begins work on a dangerous memoir. It is the story of a man she once loved in the Beirut of old, and a child taken from her in treason's name. The woman is the keeper of the Kremlin's most closely guarded secret. Long ago, the KGB inserted a mole into the heart of the West - a mole who stands on the doorstep of ultimate power. Only one man can unravel the conspiracy: Gabriel Allon, the legendary art restorer and assassin who serves as the chief of Israel's vaunted secret intelligence service.

There was a place far worse than Changi - Singapore's Outram Road Gaol. Deprivation here was so extreme that there really was a fate worse than death. Stubborn Buggers is the story of 12 Australian POWs who fought and survived the battle for Malaya, then captivity and slave labour, followed by the unimaginable hardships of Outram Road Gaol.

It is a story of how they dealt with the brutality of the Japanese military police, the feared Kempeitai.