Those Ragged Bloody Heroes: From the Kokoda Trail to Gona Beach 1942

Etukansi
Allen & Unwin, 1.8.2005 - 420 sivua
The Kokoda Trail is part of Australian military folklore.

During July to September 1942 the Japanese set about the capture of Port Moresby by an overland crossing of the Owen Stanley Range, and a landing in Milne Bay. To oppose a force of 10,000 crack Japanese troops on the Kokoda Trail, the Allies committed one under-trained and poorly-equipped unit - the 39th Battalion, later reinforced by Veterans of the 21st Brigade, 7th Division AIF. These were then men of Maroubra Force.

The Australians put up a desperate fight. They withdrew village by village, forcing the Japanese to fight for every inch of ground. Finally at Ioribaiwa, the Japanese turned away, beaten and exhausted. The Australian soldiers' reward for their remarkable achievement was denigration by the High Command - General Blamey called them 'running rabbits'.

Then in December 1942 when the fighting at the beachheads had produced little success, the former members of Maroubra Force captured Gona after heavy fighting - but at tragic cost.

Those Ragged Bloody Heroes is the story of those battles told as never before, through the eyes of the Australian soldiers who fought there. It is a story that raises serious questions about the planning and command of the Kokoda and Gona campaigns.

Those Ragged Bloody Heroes is a stirring history of triumph, tragedy and controversy set in the mud and steaming jungle of the Kokoda Trail and the fireswept beaches at Gona.

Kirjan sisältä

Sisältö

Peace in our time
1
The threshold of fear
11
The devils design
29
No doordie stunts
40
A desperate baptism
64
On our last bloody legs
91
Confident even cocksure
106
Unawed in the gates of death
121
this way
213
The rabbit that runs
229
To the beachhead
265
Not to reason why 186 265
277
Embarrassed to be alive
313
Silent
351
Afterword Neil McDonald
358
Notes
363

Ruperts clinic
156
Full of fight but utterly weary
168
A question of momentum
186
Bibliography
386
Index
392
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Suositut otteet

Sivu ix - This story shall the good man teach his son ; And Crispin Crispian shall ne'er go by, From this day to the ending of the world, But we in it shall be remembered ; We few, we happy few, we band of brothers...
Sivu viii - To-morrow is Saint Crispian : " Then will he strip his sleeve and show his scars, And say, " These wounds I had on Crispin's day." Old men forget: yet all shall be forgot, But he'll remember with advantages What feats he did that day. Then shall our names, Familiar in...
Sivu viii - This day is call'd the feast of Crispian. He that outlives this day, and comes safe home, Will stand a tip-toe when this day is named, And rouse him at the name of Crispian. He that shall live this day, and see old age, Will yearly on the vigil feast his neighbours, And say, "To-morrow is Saint Crispian." Then will he strip his sleeve and show his scars, And say "These wounds I had on Crispin's day.
Sivu viii - And rouse him at the name of Crispian. He, that shall live this day, and see old age, Will yearly on the vigil feast his friends, And say — to-morrow is Saint Crispian : Then will he strip his sleeve, and show his scars, And say, these wounds I had on Crispin's day.
Sivu 5 - It is my melancholy duty to inform you officially that, in consequence of a persistence by Germany in her invasion of Poland, Great Britain has declared war upon her, and that, as a result, Australia is also at war.
Sivu x - ... for its commemoration. For heroes have the whole earth for their tomb; and in lands far from their own, where the column with its epitaph declares it, there is enshrined in every breast a record unwritten with no tablet to preserve it, except that of the heart.
Sivu 324 - Were a star quenched on high, For ages would its light, Still travelling downward from the sky, Shine on our mortal sight. So when a great man dies, For years beyond our ken The light he leaves behind him lies Upon the paths of men.
Sivu x - For this offering of their lives made in common by them all they each of them individually received that renown which never grows old, and for a sepulchre, not so much that in which their bones have been deposited, but that noblest of shrines wherein their glory is laid up to be eternally remembered upon every occasion on which deed or story shall call for its commemoration.
Sivu xi - They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old: Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn. At the going down of the sun and in the morning We will remember them.

Tietoja kirjailijasta (2005)

Peter Brune is a leading authority and writer on the Australian campaigns in New Guinea in World War II. He has had exclusive access to much of the information he has gathered over recent years, including interviews with many of the survivors, several of whom have now passed away.

First published in 1991, Those Ragged Bloody Heroes was Peter's first book. He has gone on to write a number of bestsellers; The Spell Broken, We Band of Brothers, and A Bastard of a Place and has co-authored with Neil McDonald 200 Shots: Damien Parer and George Silk and the Australians at War in New Guinea

Peter Brune is a school teacher and lives in Adelaide.

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