Australian Military

While the Marine Corps island-hopped across the Pacific from Guadalcanal to Saipan to Iwo Jima, the U.S. Army was locked in a grueling, multiyear fight for the jungle island of New Guinea, which in Japanese hands threatened both Australia and the vital supply lines stretching to the United States. Forces under Douglas MacArthur intended to deny the Japanese this opportunity and use New Guinea as a stepping stone on the road back to the Philippines and, beyond it, Japan.

In 1768 Captain James Cook and his crew set out on a small British naval vessel in search of a missing continent. 2020 marks the 250th anniversary of that voyage, and Cook's 'discovery' of Australia. Captain Cook's Epic Voyage reveals the hardships and adventure of this remarkable quest, and the euphoria of discovering new lands.

On September 15, 1944, the United States invaded the tiny Pacific island of Peleliu, located at the Southern end of the Palau Islands. Boasting a large airfield from which the Americans could mount bomber campaigns, Peleliu was a strategically essential part of Gen. MacArthur's long-awaited liberation of the Philippines. With the famed 1st Marine Division making the amphibious assault, Pacific High Command was confident that victory would be theirs in just a few days. They were drastically wrong.

The Battle of Le Hamel on 4 July 1918 was an Allied triumph and strategically very important in the closing stages of WWI. A largely Australian force, commanded by the brilliant Sir John Monash, fought what has been described as the first modern battle - where infantry, tanks, artillery and planes operated together as a coordinated force. Monash planned every detail meticulously, with nothing left to chance. Peter FitzSimons brings this Allied triumph to life and tells this magnificent story as it should be told.

It was the afternoon of 18 August 1966, hot, humid with grey monsoonal skies. D Company, 6RAR were four kilometres east of their Nui Dat base, on patrol in a rubber plantation not far from the abandoned village of Long Tan. A day after their base had suffered a mortar strike, they were looking for Viet Cong soldiers. Then—just when they were least expecting—they found them. Under withering fire, some Diggers perished, some were grievously wounded, the rest fought on, as they remained under sustained attack. For hours these men fought for their lives against the enemy onslaught.

It’s now the 1990’s, Harold Cavill’s children are working to transform their massive corporation’s focus towards space exploration in an effort to make the Mars colony completely self-sufficient and protect humanity's future. This includes nurturing the career of a certain South African emigre to America who had spurred the US space program in the previous timeline. But a shadowy cabal that has struck against the Cavill family before is now working to encourage the most populous Muslim nation on Earth to launch a powerful military strike against Cavill Industries to destroy the ...

In November 1943, while on war patrol in the Makassar Strait, the USS Billfish submarine was spotted by the Japanese, who launched a vicious depth-charge attack. Explosions wracked the sub for 15 straight hours. With his senior officers incapacitated, diving officer Charlie Rush boldly assumed command and led key members of the crew in a heroic effort to keep their ship intact as they tried to escape.

The war in Europe is over. The new post-Nazi German leaders have agreed to a second Armistice after their victory over the Soviet Union. There is an uneasy peace now with the major combatants now struggling with massive wartime debts and the need to rebuild their battered economies. But the war in the Pacific continues. Only now, the Japanese are the ones using weapons of mass destruction in a desperate attempt to stave off defeat at the hands of the Allies. China, Australia and England have finally been joined by America in a final push to end the threat of the Japanese imperialists. ...

In May 1942, Admiral Jack Fletcher's Task Force 17 closed in for the war's first major clash with the Japanese Navy. The Neosho, a vitally important tanker, was escorted by a destroyer, the Sims. The ships were attacked by Japanese dive bombers, and when the smoke cleared, the Sims had slipped beneath the waves. Scores of sailors were killed or wounded while hundreds bobbed in shark-infested waters.

An epic tale of courage, camaraderie, and survival in the unforgiving jungles of Hat Dich. Corporal Chris Jackman and section of ANZAC soldiers are thrust into the heart of a vast offensive. Alongside their ARVN allies and the formidable U.S. 25th Infantry Division, known as Tropic Lightning, they must push deep into enemy territory to dismantle the Viet Cong's stronghold in the Suoi Da River Valley. From brutal ambushes and relentless artillery fire to desperate final stands, Brothers in Arms follows Jackman and his men as they navigate a harrowing campaign against a cunning and relentless...

‘Without Precedent’ is the military biography of army commando and fighter pilot, Phillip Zupp. One man who served in two very different wars. During World War Two, he saw combat on the ground in the Pacific before patrolling Hiroshima and Tokyo at the war’s end. In Korea, Phillip flew 201 combat sorties amid intense ground fire and the ever-threatening MiG fighters. Peace brought an aviation career that spanned the globe and the skies above it. All the while, aviation history had overlooked this intriguing story of the search for a downed airman, a damaged jet and the first ...

Havoc-06 is the call sign of former Australian Combat Controller Troy Knight. As a Royal Australian Air Force Airfield Defence Guard, Troy had not found the military adventure he sought: combat operations. His thirst for overseas deployment saw him privately contract his services in Iraq and South East Asia, but when he got whiff that the Australian Defence Force was raising a new defence capability, he couldn’t help but want to be part of it.

From the author of Pacific Payback comes the gripping true story of the Cactus Air Force and how this rugged crew of dive bombers helped save Guadalcanal and won the war. November 1942: Japanese and American forces have been fighting for control of Guadalcanal, a small but pivotal island in Japan's expansion through the South Pacific.

The harrowing, dramatic and profoundly moving story of the Australian and New Zealand nurses who served in the Great War. Now a major six-part television series. By the end of the Great War, 45 Australian and New Zealand nurses had died on overseas service and over 200 had been decorated. These were the women who left for war looking for adventure and romance but were soon confronted with challenges for which their civilian lives could never have prepared them.

The town of Wirrawee is emerging from war, slowly, like a flower after a cold snap. Businesses are starting to reopen, the school has re-commenced classes, and local farmers are gradually repossessing their land. But it's not the same Australia as before the war. A new nation exists just a few miles away, a new border that separates Australia from its invaders. Or does it?

A fascinating look at a neglected Allied front in the Southern hemisphere, Instructions for American Servicemen in Australia, 1942 follows its successful predecessors as a captivating historical document of a pivotal era in history.

‘Stop screaming, I'm scared too!' is not what you'd expect to see on the back of a loadmaster's helmet in a Chinook helicopter flying over southern Afghanistan, but for Rod Henderson it sums up his 22 years of service as a soldier in the Australian Army. This is not the story of a general or a Special Forces hero. It is the extraordinary memoir of a regular Australian soldier. Like so many others who have served their country with honour and distinction, the little-known stories of ordinary soldiers deserve to be told.

The study of past military figures provides a useful aid to meeting the leadership challenges today in the most demanding profession; the profession of arms. We may distil from the past lessons to apply now and into the future. Australians were engaged in military leadership in earnest at the time of Federation in the Second Boer War. This book is a collection of profiles of military leaders in challenging situations from the late 1890s to the present day, 120 years. Influenced by the writings of Homer, Plato, Aristotle and the Stoics, leadership is often explained in terms of qualities and...

On a pitch-black night in September 1943, a daring Australian commando unit launches a covert raid on Singapore Harbour, sinking and damaging numerous Japanese ships. Operation Jaywick - an epic that passed into Australia's national legend - sets in motion a brutal crackdown by Japan's dreaded military police, the Kempei Tai. Tasked with finding the culprits of the attack, Major Sumida Haruzo intensifies his hunt for the saboteurs, weaving a deadly web that ensnares dozens of British internees in Changi Jail and countless Chinese Singaporeans.

The epic World War II story of Australia's 75 Squadron - and the 44 days when these brave and barely-trained pilots fought alone against the Japanese. In March and April 1942, RAAF 75 Squadron bravely defended Port Moresby for 44 days when Australia truly stood alone against the Japanese. This group of raw young recruits scrambled ceaselessly in their Kittyhawk fighters to an extraordinary and heroic battle, the story of which has been left largely untold.