Historical information

This book reproduces the SRD Technical Handbook, which was a top secret equipment supply catalogue published for internal use within SRD in February, 1945. While many of the items in the handbook are British SOE “special stores” shipped over from London, a great deal of developmental and experimental work was done by SRD’s Technical Directorate at its technical research station at Mount Martha on Victoria’s Mornington Peninsula. A flick through these pages will show unusual items such as folding midget motorbikes, silenced pistols and machine guns, knuckle-knives, mini-submarines, booby trap devices and more. In fact, it contains just about everything a WWII-era commando or a spy required to successfully complete a secret mission. Lavishly illustrated with original wartime photographs, plans and diagrams, many never before seen publicly, the S.R.D. Technical Handbook is timely evidence that mankind is never as ingenious as he is during time of war.