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Abstract After 12 years of conflict, it is not surprising that many are beginning to ask what Australia has achieved in Afghanistan and whether Australians have really made a difference. The latter question is less pertinent for the Australian Defence Force (ADF) as, what happens in the years to come is largely a matter for the population of Afghanistan. What should concern the ADF however, is what it can learn from its longest war and its most dynamic foe. This article seeks to build on James Brown’s …

Anzac’s Long Shadow James Brown, Redback, 2014, ISBN 978163956390, 192pp, $19.99 Defence analyst and former army officer James Brown believes that Australia is expending too much time, money and emotion on the Anzac legend, and that today’s soldiers are suffering for it. Vividly evoking the war in Afghanistan, Brown reveals the experience of the modern soldier. He looks closely at the companies and clubs that trade on the Anzac story. He shows that Australians spend a lot more time looking after dead …

A Soldier’s Soldier: A Biography of Lieutenant General Sir Thomas Daly   Written by: Jeffrey Grey, Cambridge University Press, 2013, ISBN 9781107031272, 264pp   Reviewed by: Lieutenant Adam Chirgwin As author Jeffrey Grey observes in his opening to A Soldier’s Soldier: A Biography of Lieutenant-General Sir Thomas Daly , the Australian Army does not have a tradition of ‘great captains’. As a result, there is often a profound lack of knowledge and awareness of Australia’s leading military figures, both in …

Kidnap in Crete Rick Stroud, Bloomsbury, 2014 ISBN 9781408851753, 288pp, $32.99 In 1941 the German army invaded the strategically important Mediterranean island with the largest airborne force in history. The years of Nazi occupation that followed saw mass executions, widespread starvation and the brutal destruction of homes – but amid the horror, the Cretan resistance, the Andartes, with the support of a handful of British SOE agents, fought on heroically. This is the story of the abduction of General …

Australia 1943: The Liberation of New Guinea   Written by: Peter Dean (ed),  Penguin Australia, 2013, ISBN 9781107037991, 337pp,   Reviewed by: Matt Miller Australia 1943: The Liberation of New Guin ea is an excellent snapshot of both familiar and unexplored aspects of the war in New Guinea. New Guinea was a complicated battlefield with a vast geography and unfamiliar names which will challenge the uninitiated. The book endeavours to explore the battle for New Guinea from the strategic heights of political …

Fromelles the Final Chapters: How the Buried Diggers were Identified and Their Lives Reclaimed   Written by: Tim Lycett and Sandra Playle, Penguin Australia, 2013, ISBN 9780670075362, 288pp   Reviewed by: Brian Manns I began reading this book with great interest, keen to know how Tim Lycett and Sandra Playle planned to tell the story of ‘how the buried diggers’ recovered from several mass graves near Fromelles in France were identified. The process of exhumation and identification was so complex that I …

All the King’s Men: The British Redcoat in the Era of Sword and Musket   Written by: Saul David, Penguin, 2013, ISBN 9780141027937, 592pp   Reviewed by: Major Tim Inglis The centenary of the Gallipoli campaign is not the only military anniversary in 2015. It will also be the bicentenary of the battle of Waterloo, which ended the revolutionary era and drew the Napoleonic Wars to a close. It is therefore hardly surprising that military historians are busy revisiting the events that led up to the battle. One …

Don’t Mention the War: The Australian Defence Force, the Media and the Afghan Conflict   Written by: Kevin Foster, Monash University Publishing, 2013, ISBN 9781922235183, 168pp   Reviewed by: Tom Hill Kevin Foster’s Don’t Mention the War seeks to explain the lack of objective and erudite reporting on the Afghanistan conflict by the Australian media, arguing that the coverage was characterised by an absence of insight and investigation. Instead, the media were forced to perpetuate the ADF’s strategic and …

Afghan Sun: Defence, Diplomacy, Development and the Taliban   Stuart Yeaman, Boolarong Press, 2013, ISBN 9781922109910, 360pp   Reviewed by: Colonel David Connery Most books reviewed in this journal are written by detached observers and academics. Afghan Sun is different. It is the work of former Australian Army officer Colonel Stuart Yeaman, AM, and is a personal account of the unit he commanded in Afghanistan. This book will primarily interest readers with a connection to the unit or those with a deep …

Canister! On! FIRE! Australian Tank Operations in Vietnam   Written by: Bruce Cameron, Big Sky Publishing, 2012, ISBN 9781921941993, 968pp (two volumes)   Reviewed by: Lieutenant Colonel Scott Winter In November 2012, the 1st Armoured Regiment hosted the official launch of Canister! On! Fire! Australian Tank Operations in Vietnam . A contingent of the regiment’s veterans, led by author Bruce Cameron, MC, joined the men and women of the regiment for the occasion. After a stirring presentation by former …