Issue Details: First known date: 2018... 2018 Altruism and Mateship on the Run : Johnny Peck’s War behind the Lines
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AbstractHistoryArchive Description

'John Desmond Peck enlisted in the Australian Imperial Force (AIF) in October 1939. Although he was born on 17 February 1922, he declared he was born on 16 February 1919. Author Peter Monteath suggests that, like others of his generation, the 17-year-old’s motivation for early and under-age enlistment derived from a yearning for new challenges and adventure. As Escape Artist: The Incredible Second World War of Johnny Peckattests, the young serviceman encountered many challenges and much adventure during combat with the 2/7th Battalion AIF against Italian forces at Bardia and Tobruk, and against the Germans in Greece and on Crete, and as an evader and escaper behind the lines on Crete and in Italy. He was 19 when he went into battle for the first time at Bardia; 20 when he was stranded for months on Crete after the Allied evacuation; 21 when he established an evasion network in Italy after the September 1943 Armistice; and 22 when he faced execution by the Gestapo, became an operative for the Special Operations Executive (SOE), fought with Italian partisans, and at one point commanded approximately 450 men and 30 officers. As his biography’s strapline claims, Peck’s war was ‘incredible’.' (Introduction)

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    y separately published work icon History Australia vol. 15 no. 1 2018 13381986 2018 periodical issue

    'Each year, History Australia offers a prize for the best article from the previous calendar year. The editors are delighted to announce that Ben Silverstein’s article, ‘“Possibly They Did Not Know Themselves”: The Ambivalent Government of Sex and Work in the Northern Territory Aboriginals Ordinance 1918’ from issue 14(3) won the prize for 2017. In crisp prose, Silverstein’s article wove a theoretically informed line of argument around new empirical material to explore the regulation of Indigenous life in the service of the health of the settler population. Demonstrating ‘the malleability of racial categorisations’, it is an innovative article that will push the field forward in coming years.' (Matthew P. Fitzpatrick , Catherine Kevin & Melanie Oppenheimer From the Editors introduction)

    2018
    pg. 178-180
Last amended 19 Mar 2018 13:51:00
178-180 Altruism and Mateship on the Run : Johnny Peck’s War behind the Linessmall AustLit logo History Australia
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