World War II

When nobody is blown any good, it is indeed an ill wind. Much that was good blew my way as a soldier during the stormy years of World War II – but I was one of the lucky ones, although I did not think so during the Japanese bombing of the Darwin area in 1942. I say lucky because I not only survived the many bombings in a place where others did not, but was later posted to join the staff of Salt, a magazine that was a unique exercise in adult education, and entertainment, and one of the many available facilities offered to the armed forces by the Australian Army Education Service. Among these incidentally, was the circulating libraries division, a service patiently built up by Staff Sergeant Andrew Fabinyi appointed by the Army as national book purchasing officer. Andrew, bless him, in the immediate post-war years was, as Frank Cheshire’s publishing director, to seek out, encourage and launch me into, what has been so far, a wonderful thirty-three years developing with Australia’s book publishing industry.

New Guinea 1942–44 is frankly disappointing, not only to me but to those veterans of the campaign who have told me that they have read it. I missed New Guinea, but even so I was shocked by Hall’s account of the cannibalism of the Japanese, and retaliatory brutality by Australians. The pity is that Hall had all the potential for a great history, but fluffed it.

Crank back on roller, belt left front ...’ So begins the sequence. Stuart’s novel, the fifth in a series of six called The Conjuror’s Years, depicts Colin of Drought Foal and Wedgetail View following the instructions for preparing his Vickers gun to fire against the Vichy French in the 1941 AIF invasion of Syria.