Kokoda

a great read of this do or die battle that helps form part of the Australian pysche - as it says at the kokoda/isurava memorial 'mateship-courage-sacrifice-endurance'. Well woven together, with a good appraisal of the large-scale context for the battle that is bought to life by numerous anecdotes and vignettes of the men fighting and dying along 'the track'. This is my favourite read for the kokoda campaign and in my opinion much better than the similarly named and dated competition

Knowing nothing about the war in New Guinea, I was engrossed by the powerful story of the Kokoda trail and the battles of the small group of Australian soldies who fought there. This is a well researched and written account of the battles and the people behind the scenes. While less than flattering to the myth of Douglas McArthur, it puts into stark perspective the courage and steadfastness of the Australian soldier under terrible conditions. Well worth the read!

It is perhaps very timely to be writing a review of Peter FitzSimons "Kokoda" only days after Anzac Day. This is the day when Australians and New Zealanders commemorate war dead in general, and the Gallipoli campaign of 1915, in particular. Although "Kokoda" covers events of World War II in Papua New Guinea there is still an eerie resonance with Anzac Day and all that it commemorates. Peter Fitzsimons is a well regarded Australian journalist who well covers the events of 1942 when Australia was under direct threat from the armies of Imperial Japan. Indeed, it can be argued that the events of Kokoda are far more important to Australia than the Gallipoli disaster of 1915. In Gallipoli, Australia was simply falling in line with Britain by waging a war against Turkey which represented no threat to Australia on the other side of the world. By contrast, in 1942, Australia was well in the sights of Japan as it moved ever further to the south. The Kokoda campaign is thus a story of great efforts where a handful of Australian heroes defended their homeland against a seasoned army that significantly outnumbered them. And, of course, they won. Japan was turned on its heels and eventually driven back across the Pacific. Gallipoli, by way of contrast, was a bloody mess and Australia and its allies were defeated. The style of "Kokoda" the book is truly Australian. FitzSimons is a wonderful exponent of the Australian vernacular. This may confuse or even offend foreign readers. Do not, however, let this put you off. The book is a majestic tale. If I could find a fault in the book, there are two. Firstly, FitzSimons uses the term "native" far too freely. It sounds very condescending when he talks of the tribesmen of the Papua New Guinea highlands. Secondly, the book would also have greater clarity if maps were included. The reader would then gain a greater appreciation of the course of the various battles. Yet, in finding these faults, I am being churlish. Peter Fitzsimons has written a great book that I recommend highly to all those readers seeking knowledge of a vital piece of World War II that needs to be more widely understood.