Australia War

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.

Son of the renowned Sydney obstetrician, Dr William McBride raised the alarm on the anti-nausea drug thalidomide in the 1960s and was later struck off the medical register for falsifying research results in a bid to challenge the safety of another drug. David chose to study Law, firstly at Sydney University and then at Oxford. There he met some British army officers and decided that soldiering was his calling, going on to train at Sandhurst.

Saffron grows up on a sprawling Kenyan estate, under the watchful eye of her father, prominent businessman and distinguished war veteran Leon Courtney. Her childhood is idyllic, until a family tragedy forces her to grow up much faster than necessary. As she grows into a spirited teenager, her thirst for knowledge and adventure leads her to England, where she finds herself inevitably drawn into the heart of the gathering storm in the lead-up to World War II.

Under the fierce heat of the Australian outback, the laws of nature serve a rough justice. When a man vanishes deep in the Northern Territory, local police write it off. But his family suspect otherwise—and when the call for help goes out, Ben Hope and Jeff Decker are there to hear it. Ben’s instincts, honed by years of Special Forces missions, soon see the story told by a trail of bullet casings, rumours of a missing map and a lethal cocktail of greed, power and money.

1989: The Cold War is nearing its climax, but the hidden machinery of the Soviet Union’s espionage engine continues to run smoothly. Moscow decides it needs the top-secret software and hardware developed by Moss Electronics for its Viper remotely piloted vehicle, so the word goes out to the men who will do anything for personal gain, among them, Australian billionaire Rupert Halford. When the company’s equipment is stolen, Moss Electronics’ VP Max Moss is determined to find and retrieve it. The search takes him to Darwin, in Australia’s “Top End,” where the most important race ...

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 ...

In mid-2017, whispers from Australia's most secretive and elite military unit reached Walkley Award-winning journalist Nick McKenzie. McKenzie and veteran reporter Chris Masters began an investigation that would not only reveal shocking information about Australia's most famous and revered SAS soldier but plunge the two reporters into the defamation trial of the century.

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 ...

In an incredible 25-year career as a homicide detective, Ron Iddles' conviction rate was 99 percent. Yet that only partly explains why Iddles is known to cops and crims alike as 'The Great Man'. Tough, inventive and incorruptible, stoic in the face of senseless horror yet unafraid to shed tears for a victim, Ron has applied his country cunning and city savvy to over 320 homicide cases - some of them the most infamous, compelling and controversial crimes in the nation's history. To the victims of crime, Ron is both a shoulder to cry on and an avenging angel.

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.

In the spring of 1942, young Elzbieta Rabinek is aware of the swiftly growing discord just beyond the courtyard of her comfortable Warsaw home. But she has no idea what goes on behind the walls of the Jewish Ghetto nearby until she makes a discovery that propels her into a dangerous world of deception and heroism. Elzbieta comes face to face with the plight of the Gorka family who must give up their newborn daughter - or watch her starve. For Roman Gorka, this final injustice stirs in him a rebellion not even his newfound love for Elzbieta can suppress.

This is the wartime diary of J.D. McLauchlan, covering July 1943 to September 1944. In 1943, the Australian government sent a team to England to send back everything needed to build the Avro Lancaster in Australia. The mission was cloaked in secrecy, most of which still appears to be in place even now. While Australia never did build a Lancaster, the Lancaster’s replacement, the Avro Lincoln, was built after the war. Jim McLauchlan was sent to coordinate the flow of information back to Australia, and lived for a while in Manchester, traveling around England, Scotland, and Wales. This ...

The controversial Battle at Xa Long Tan was not only a critical episode in Australia's Vietnam involvement; it was also a textbook nightmare in the history of jungle warfare. Reconstructing this dramatic action from secret documents and the vivid recollections of many diggers who fought at Long Tan, Terry Burstall challenges the official army version.

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!

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.

In 1977, while she was still in her twenties, Robyn Davidson set off with a dog and four camels to cross 1,700 miles of Australian desert to the sea. The undertaking would make her world-famous. What sets a young woman off on a path like this – thrilling, but often dangerous and lonely? What kept her walking, and what had she left behind her that meant that she could not look back? In Unfinished Woman, Davidson embarks on another journey into uncharted territory: the past.

Australia's Greatest Escapes is a collection of stories about the most hazardous aspect of the prisoner of war experience - escape. Here is all the adventure, suspense, and courage of ordinary Australians who defied their captors; men who tunneled to freedom, crawled through stinking drains, or clawed a passage beneath barbed wire in a desperate attempt to flee captivity.

Facing not onlt the astounding courage they displayed amid death and chaos but also on the triumphs and pain of their personal lives, Susanna reveals how these 11 Australian women were as influential and heroic in civil life as they were in war.

Lachlan Macquarie is credited with shaping Australia's destiny, transforming a harsh, foreboding penal colony into an agricultural powerhouse and ultimately a prosperous society. He also helped shape Australia's national character. An egalitarian at heart, Macquarie saw boundless potential in Britain's refuse, and under his rule many former convicts went on to become successful administrators, land owners and businesspeople.

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 ...