Index, bibliography, notes, ill (maps), p.816.In the Trenches of Hell On 19 July 1916, 7000 Australian soldiers - in the first major action of the AIF on the Western Front - attacked entrenched German positions at Fromelles in northern France. By the next day, there were over 5500 casualties, including nearly 2000 dead - a bloodbath that the Australian War Memorial describes as 'the worst 24 hours in Australia's entire history. Just days later, three Australian Divisions attacked German positions at nearby Pozi�res, and over the next six weeks they suffered another 23,000 casualties. Of that bitter battle, the great Australian war correspondent Charles Bean would write, 'The field of Pozi�res is more consecrated by Australian fighting and more hallowed by Australian blood than any field which has ever existed . . .' Yet the sad truth is that, nearly a century on from those battles, Australians know only a fraction of what occurred. This book brings the battles back to life and puts the reader in the moment, illustrating both the heroism displayed and the insanity of the British plan. With his extraordinary vigour and commitment to research, Peter FitzSimons shows why this is a story about which all Australians can be proud. And angry.world war 1914-1918 - campaigns - western front, world war 1914-1918 - australian participation - fromelles and pozieres

Index, bibliography, notes, ill (maps), p.565.non-fictionPasschendaele epitomises everything that was most terrible about the Western Front. The photographs never sleep of this four-month battle, fought from July to November 1917, the worst year of the war- blackened tree stumps rising out of a field of mud, corpses of men and horses drowned in shell holes, terrified soldiers huddled in trenches awaiting the whistle. The intervening century, the most violent in human history, has not disarmed these pictures of their power to shock. At the very least they ask us, on the 100th anniversary of the battle, to see and to try to understand what happened here. Yes, we commemorate the event. Yes, we adorn our breasts with poppies. But have we seen? Have we understood? Have we dared to reason why? What happened at Passchendaele was the expression of the 'wearing-down war', the war of pure attrition at its most spectacular and ferocious. Paul Ham's Passchendaele- Requiem for Doomed Youth shows how ordinary men on both sides endured this constant state of siege, with a very real awareness that they were being gradually, deliberately, wiped out. Yet the men never broke- they went over the top, when ordered, again and again and again. And if they fell dead or wounded, they were casualties in the 'normal wastage', as the commanders described them, of attritional war. Only the soldier's friends at the front knew him as a man, with thoughts and feelings. His family back home knew him as a son, husband or brother, before he had enlisted. By the end of 1917 he was a different creature- his experiences on the Western Front were simply beyond their powers of comprehension. The book tells the story of ordinary men in the grip of a political and military power struggle that determined their fate and has foreshadowed the destiny of the world for a century. Passchendaele lays down a powerful challenge to the idea of war as an inevitable expression of the human will, and examines the culpability of governments and military commanders in a catastrophe that destroyed the best part of a generation. Collapse summary world war 1914-1918 - campaigns - western front, france - campaigns - passchaendaele

Index, bibliography, notes, ill, p.287.non-fictionAustralia's long-standing love affair with the Diggers has blinded us to the dark side of the Anzac legend. This book tells the story of the Australian soldiers in the Great War who were not heroes, soldiers who committed offences and crimes, those who deserted, robbed and murdered their comrades and more.australian army - imperial force - 1914-1921 - history, australian army - military deserters - 1914-1921

Index, ill, p.313.non-fictionIn 1960 a team of archivists from the Imperial War Museum began the task of tracking down ordinary World War I veterans and interviewing them in detail about their war experiences. This text includes first-hand experiences from German, US, Canadian and ANZ soldiers.world war 1914-1918 - personal narratives, world war 1914-1918 - oral history

Index, bibliography, ill, maps, p.222non-fictionRepublished to coincide with the new ITV film, My Boy Jack? starring Daniel Radcliffe, this is the full account of the tragic life of John 'Jack' Kipling. On 27th September 1915 John Kipling, the only son of Britain's best loved poet, disappeared during the Battle of Loos. The body lay undiscovered for 77 years. Then, in a most unusual move, the Commonwealth War Graves Commission (CWGC) re-marked the grave of an unknown Lieutenant of the Irish Guards, as that of John Kipling. There is considerable evidence that John's grave has been wrongly identified.john kipling - 1897-1915, soldiers - great britain - biography

Index, notes, ill, maps, p.222.non-fictionIt would be hard to find anyone better qualified the "Sally Home of the "11th Hussars to tell the story of the Cavalry on the Western front during the First World War.soldiers - great britain - biography, world war 1914-1918 - western front - cavalry corps

Index, bibliography, ill, maps, p.187.non-fictionThe biography of Capt George Ingram VC, MM, the last Australian VC recipient of the First World War. From country childhood in Bagshot and Seville to a gunner with the Australian Garrison Artillery and the Tropical Force's Matupi Battery. He then served with the 24th Battalion AIF on the Western Front where he was awarded the Military Medal and the Victoria Cross. After the war he became a soldier settler, an original Shrine Guard and during World War Two he served with the Royal Australian Engineers. Throughout his life he carried the physical and mental scars of his service in the war.soldiers - victoria - biography, george ingram - biography

Index, bibliography, notes, ill, maps, p.712.non-fictionAbout 1300 Australians died in the desert campaigns of World War I, while another 3500 died in North Africa and the Middle East during World War II. Thousands more carried the wounds of war for the rest of their lives. Countless families were left behind to mourn the dead and comfort the injured. A ripple effect of grief passed down the generations. This is the story of Australia's desert wars as never before told. Using letters, diaries, interviews and unpublished memoirs, Desert Boys provides an intensely personal and gripping insight into the thoughts, feelings and experiences of two generations of Australian soldiers. In many cases these were fathers and sons going to successive wars with all the tragedy, adventure and hardship that brought.australian army - desert campaigns, desert warfare - 20th century

Index, ill, maps, p.584.non-fictionArmageddon tells the story of the climactic months of the Second World War, the destruction of Hitler's Germany. Max Hastings has researched archives in four countries and interviewed 170 witnesses to piece together a saga that is at once fascinating military history and the greatest human tragedy of the twentieth century." "This book follows Max Hastings's earlier acclaimed studies of the Second World War, including Overlord and Bomber Command, in examining a great sweep of history with massive research and a host of new insights." "Armageddon embraces the fates of more than a hundred million people, men and women, old and very young, from the tragic teenage fanatics who died in the ruins of Hitler's Reich to the British 'Tommies' who simply yearned to finish a painful job and go home. Few books on the Second World War have so vividly brought together the story of the battlefields, east and west, with the decisions of the generals and the impact of great events upon ordinary soldiers and civilians.world war 1939-1945 - battles - germany, world war 1939-1945 - history

Index, ill, p.445.non-fictionA collection of more than 150 true stories that bring to life the triumph and tragedy of teh second world war. Serving as a window into the lives of thsoe who experienced the war - soldiers and sailors, heroes and villains, leaders adn ordinary people - the book recounts in human terms the reality of a war that gripped the entire world. These inspiring, poignant, ironic and sometimes tragic stories and anecdotes make World War II come alive with the thoughts and feelings of those who were there.world war 1939-1945 - anecdotes, world war 1939-1945

Index, bibliography, ill, maps, p.288.non-fictionReaping the Whirlwind offers amazing insight into the events of World War II through the eyes of those who fought against the Allied forces in all theatres of the war. Readers will comb through many previously unpublished accounts of the war from German, Italian and Japanese soldiers, civilians and military leaders. The book covers every major arena of the war: Europe; the German invasion of Russia; Rommel's Afrika Korps; and the Pacific war between Japan and forces of the US, Australia and New Zealand. Reaping the Whirlwind uses the authentic voices of Germans and Japanese people caught up in the conflict and highlights the similar deprivations and dangers experienced by both victors and vanquished. world war 1939-1945 - participation - germany, world war 1939-1945 - participation - japan

Ill, p.144.non-fictionA photographic essay of a selection of those who performed acts of heroism during World War Twoworld war 1939-1945 - heroes - biographies, soldiers - biographies

Index, bibliography, ill, p.388.non-fictionA biographical honour roll of the Australian Light Horse 1939-1947, Australian Armoured Corps 1941-47, & Royal Australian Armoured Corps post-1947 regimental histories - australia, soldiers - australia - biographies

Index, bibliography, maps, ill, p.173.non-fictionThe German army in the Second World War sought to fight and win swift, decisive victories in a succession of short campaigns - blitzkrieg, or lightning war. Flexibility was as essential as the will to win. Battle groups, or shock troops, were created from miscellaneous, and often disparate military units to undertake a specific local operation; it was the army's skill in combining superior numbers, aggressive tactics and the battle group commander's ability to exploit the changing situation on the ground which brought success on the battlefield.

The actions described here cover all theatres of the war, and include battle groups large and small, deployed usually to smash a breach in the enemy line or seal off an enemy penetration. It covers operations in the first dynamic years when Wehrmacht forces defeated the armies of one European country after another in fast campaigns, through to the years after Stalingrad and Africa as they moved towards defeat. 

The battle groups' contribution to Wehrmacht fortunes offer powerful lessons in the tactics of battle management and this book by James Lucas, a military historian known for his close studies of the German soldier, is considered to be one of the most detailed and authoritative accounts on the subject. Collapse summary germany - armed forces - history, germany - regimental histories

Index, bibliography, notes, ill, maps, p.592.non-fictionEven Stalin was awed by D-Day. 'In the whole history of war, ' he wrote to Churchill, 'there has never been such an undertaking.' Those who took part in the great cross-Channel invasion, whether soldier, sailor or airman, would never forget the sight. It was by far the largest invasion fleet ever known.world war 1939-1945 - campaigns - france, operation overlord

Index, bibliography, ill, maps, p.396.non-fictionThe Victors is a breathtaking new work from bestselling historian Stephen E. Ambrose. It follows the momentous events of the war from D-Day, 6 June 1944, through to the final days when the Allied soldiers pushed the German troops out of France, chased them across Germany, and, on 7 May 1945, destroyed the Nazi regime. -- back cover. world war 1939=1945 - campaigns - europe, world war 1939-1945 - us involvement

Index, il, maps, p.218.non-fictionBritish soldiers tell their stories of life and death at the sharp endworld war 1939-1945 - personal narratives - british, world war 1939-1945 - campaigns - europe

Index, ill, p.486.non-fictionDrawing material from the Imperial War Museum's extensive aural archive, Joshua Levine brings together voices from both sides of the Blitz and the Battle of Britain to give us a unique, complete and compelling picture of this turbulent time. We hear from the soldiers, airmen, fire-fighters, air-raid wardens and civilians, people in the air and on the ground, on both sides of the battle, giving us a thrilling account of Britain under siege. With first-hand testimonies from those involved in Dunkirk and the Battle of Britain, Black Saturday on 7th September 1940 when the Luftwaffe began the Blitz, to its climax on the 10th May 1941, this is the definitive oral history of a period when Britain came closer to being overwhelmed by the enemy than at any other time in modern history.battle of britain 1940 - personal narratives, the blitz

p.275.non-fictionLawson Glassop a survivor of Tobruk, reveals the personal anguish, the fear and bravery - the humaneness - of the Australian soldiers who took part in the siege, as they strove to maintain dignity amid chaos. Above all, he captures their spirit of grim determination as they fought against great odds and in bloody battles.world war 1939 – 1945 – campaigns – north africa, siege of tobruk

Index, bibliography, ill, p.478.non-fictionIn Crisis in the Pacific acclaimed historian Gerald Astor draws on the raw experiences of marines, sailors, soldiers and airmen under fire - from generals and admirals to correspondents, line officers and enlisted men on both sides of the battle lines - to present a view of the critical struggle for the Philippines, the keystone to Japanese domination of the Pacific and to ultimate Allied victory. These accounts, many published here for the first time, are dramatic and graphic, brutal and awe-inspiring. Ranging from the diplomatic and nursing corps' experience of the Japanese conquest and occupation of the islands, to the Bataan death march and first-hand accounts of war crimes inflicted by the Japanese on prisoners of war, to the final push for the hills of Mindanao, Crisis in the Pacific is the first complete history, told in the words of the men and women who were there, of one of the most crucial battlegrounds of World War II.world war 1939 – 1945 – campaigns – phillipines, world war 1939 – 1945 – personal narratives

Ill, p.32.non-fictionAustralian army brochure describing the New Guinea campaign in 1942 -1943world war 1939 – 1945 – campaigns – new guinea, world war 1939 – 1945 – campaigns – kokoda

Index, bibliography, notes, ill, maps, p.691.non-fictionIn 1942 and early 1943 Papua New Guinea was 'a bastard of a place' to fight a war. This book gives us the final, all-encompassing story of the five battles that changed Australia forever. The compelling narrative resonates with the voices of both the well-trained AIF volunteer, and the young Militia conscript who triumphed together. The author interviewed hundreds of these soldiers and himself travelled the treacherous terrain and bloody battlegrounds where so many of their mates perished, and reveals the inside story of how Generals MacArthur and Blamey sacrificed many of the senior Australian field commanders as scapegoats to protect their own positions. A Bastard of a Place restores Milne Bay, Gona, Buna and Sanananda to their rightful place beside Kokoda to what they should collectively be for all Australians - sacred ground.world war 1939 – 1945 – campaigns – new guinea, world war 1939 – 1945 – campaigns – kokoda

Index, bibliography, ill, maps, p.179.non-fictionAn extraordinary story of a small force defeating a much larger one. It is the tale of 550 men of the 39th Militia Battalion. In eight short and brutal weeks, these soldiers slowed, and eventually stopped the advance of 6000 experienced Japanese troops.world war 1939 – 1945 – campaigns – kokoda, australian army - 39th battalion

Index, bibliography, notes, ill, maps, p.479.non-fictionKokoda, 1942. In the muddy, treacherous mountains of Papua New Guinea, a small force of young Australian soldiers - some of them still teenagers - are up against highly trained, experienced Japanese troops. Many believed that the all-conquering Imperial Japanese Army was unstoppable. But this is the story of how these brave young Aussies faced up to some of the world's best soldiers on a narrow, precarious jungle track - and defeated them.world war 1939 – 1945 – campaigns – kokoda, kokoda track 1942

Index, bibliography, notes, ill, maps, p.307.non-fictionThe biography of Ralph Honner, soldier and statesmanaustralian army - 39th infantry battalion, world war 1939 – 1945 – campaigns – new guinea

Index, bibliography, ill, maps, p.308.non-fictionThis detailed and accessible guidebook shares the personal stories of the individuals honoured in 250 of Victoria's key war memorials. Arranged geographically, with accompanying maps and photographs, this comprehensive book covers metropolitan Melbourne and regional Victoria, providing a unique insight into our wartime history and the local heroes who fought for our country.soldiers - monuments - victoria, military involvement - australia - history

Ill, p.210.non-fictionAn account of the author's experiences in two World Wars, as a Sergeant Major in a machine gun battalion and as a prisoner of the Japanese in Java, Singapore and Thailand. world war 1939 – 1945 – personal narratives – australia, prisoners of war - australia

Ill, p.266.non-fictionStory of the Malayan Campaign of 1942 and subsequent captivity in the hands of the Japanese from a private soldier's point of view. world war 1939 – 1945 - prisons and prisoners - japanese, prisoners of war - australia

p.220.non-fictionThe story of an Australian soldier who survived Auschwitz-Birkenau.world war 1939 – 1945 – personal narratives – australia, prisoners of war - australia

Index, appendix, ill (b/w) (maps)non-fictionWar is a noisy, confusing and frightening experience and it is the job of the soldier, usually against better judgement to walk through this storm and secure victory. war - psychological aspects, military art and science - australia