Airborne Invasion extract   autobiography   war literature  
Issue Details: First known date: 2011... 2011 Airborne Invasion
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Notes

  • Editor's note: Russell Braddon (1921-95) was an artillery gunner in the Australian 8th Division in Malaya. His memoir, The Naked Island, is remembered as a witty and angry commentary on his years as a POW after the fall of Singapore. Braddon also fought in the Battle of Muar in January 1942, and wrote this hymn to the infantry, an almost cinematic song of praise for the ordinary Australian soldier.
  • From chapter nine: pp. 58-67

Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of

  • Appears in:
    y separately published work icon The Penguin Book of Australian War Writing Mark Dapin (editor), Camberwell : Viking , 2011 Z1828081 2011 anthology extract autobiography correspondence diary war literature

    'From the cliffs of Gallipoli, through the jungles of Vietnam, to the deserts of Afghanistan and Iraq, Australia's short history is a story of war.

    'The battlefield has shaped the way we define ourselves - the Australian values of mateship, courage under fire, larrikinism - but few of us have witnessed these scenes firsthand. Soldiers writing from the front and journalists on the ground have formed the way we think about war and so formed the way we think about ourselves.

    'In The Penguin Book of Australian War Writing, author and journalist Mark Dapin has gathered together the finest of these accounts. Starting with Watkin Tench's observations of an Aboriginal war party, we see the terror, confusion and occasional heroics of the front line through the eyes of some of our best writers, including AB Paterson, Martin Boyd, Patrick White, Alan Moorehead, Kenneth Slessor, Peter Cundall and Barry Heard.

    'These remarkable letters, diaries, memoirs and reports remind us of our history, and of our responsibility in recording and remembering what happens in the wars we send our soldiers to fight. (From the publisher's website.)

    Camberwell : Viking , 2011
    pg. 242-253
Last amended 22 Mar 2012 15:36:30
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