Tracker dogs in Vietnam. 

Trackers is a gritty and moving account that reveals the Australian army's little known use of combat tracker dogs during the Vietnam war. A war veteran tells his story with vivid and compelling immediacy, blending the terror of hunting the elusive Viet Conk with the tender relationship between him and his larrikan labrador-kelpie cross.

212 pages

The moving experiences of the families of men missing in action in New Guinea

Three brothers wrote home from the filthy trenches and bloody battlefields of Gallipoli, Palestine and the Western Front.

Drawn from engagements ranging from World War I through to operations in East Timor and Iraq, the stories are taken from the Australians at War Film Archive, a collection of the memories of over two thousand Australians who have served, both on the front line and at home.Some are unbelievably, unbearably tragic, even after sixty or seventy years, others are the golden memories of happy, albeit unusual, times. And, more often than not, they are stories which have never been shared with others, even family members. There are stories from winners of the Victoria Cross; stories from the POW camps of Asia and Europe; from the patrols of Vietnam, through to those who served as peacekeepers in Rwanda and Somalia.There are stories from nurses, from those who have volunteered to serve with aid agencies and stories of ordinary Australians caught up by circumstances and by duty, in wartime. These are their words.

In the modern era, warfare entered a new phase. Technological innovation yielded evermore destructive weaponry, international communications and alliances greatly extended the reach of conflicts, and military strategists increasingly targeted infrastructure and civilians, while new media - first photography, then film and television - conveyed the horror and brutality of industrialised comabt to those who had the good fortune to live beyond the battle zones.
The War Chronicles: From Flintlocks to Machine Guns adopts the innovative and accessible format of its predecessor, which spanned the period from 500 BC to the American Revolution, to chart the astonishingly rapid evolution of modern warfare. In doing so, it traces the transformation of battle tactics, from the prearranged set-piece encounters of the Napoleonic Wars to the massive naval landings and aerial bombardments of World War II, explains the scientific innovations that yielded the machine gun, the tank, and the atom bomb, an vividly renders the key victories that turned the tide of war, from Waterloo to Gettysburd to D-Day. At the same time, it reiterates the constants of conflict: the slaughters and massacres, including the Holocaust and the little-known Taiping Rebellion, which killed up to forty million Chinese; the personal sacrifices made by those battling tyranny, among them the rebels of revolutionary France, Greece and Mexico; and the extraordinary influence of charismatic leaders, ranging from Napoleon and Pancho Villa to Mao Zedong and Hitler.
Sweeping in its scope, yet intimate in its insights into the motivations of politicians, strategists, commanders, and soldiers, this is a collection that will enhance your understanding of the modern world and your own place in it.

By Fred Lasslett. Fred was taken prisoner after he sinking of HMAS Perth. This book covers his initial capture, escape and re-capture, Changi, and the highs and lows of everyday prisoncamp life.

This extraordinary first-hand account of Sir Edward 'Weary' Dunlop's experiences as senior medical officer in the infamous prisoner-of-war camps in Java and on the Burma-Thailand Railway, is not only an account of great historical significance but also a testament to the ability of the human spirit to overcome the most unbearably cruel conditions.

504 pages

Throughout the 1990s our government and its partners in the UN stood by and watched whilst thousands of people were slaughtered. From the war zones of Somalia and Haiti to Rwanda , a lack of resources and trained troops, and the disregard of governments such as our own, ensured the UN peacekeepers were unable to halt murder and genocide. Time and again Linda Polman was witness to these failures. From the terrifying ordeals of the unsupported blue helmets on the ground to the cynical way resolutions are made and undermined by the Security Council, Polman devastatingly shows how and why the UN fails those whom it is charged to protect.

Well Done, Those Men attempts to make sense of what Vietnam did to the soldiers who fought there. It deals with the comic absurdity of their military training and the horror of the war they fought, and is unforgettably moving in recounting what happened to the author and his comrades when they returned home to Australia.

53 nurses survived the bombing of the ship evacuating them from Singapore. 21 were murdered, the remainder suffered incredible deprivation. 

Don Lee. While much has been written about sheep production in Australia, there has been very little written about the marketing of the golden fleece. The author worked in that field in Western Australia and abroad for fifty years, interrupted by serving in the AIF for five years of which three and a half years were spent as a P.O.W. of the Japanese. This section of the book is an equally valuable record. 157 pp.