Page 124 - Australian Defence Magazine Dec21-Jan22

124 BOOKS OF INTEREST
DECEMBER 2021-JANUARY 2022 | WWW.AUSTRALIANDEFENCE.COM.AU
THE PLATOON COMMANDER
BY JOHN O’HALLORAN WITH RIC TEAGUE
Published by Hachette
RRP $ 34.99 in paperback ISBN 9780733647475
Ric Teague gives us a
helpful pen picture of John O’Halloran, the national serviceman from Tamworth. He convinced his local doctor to pass him fit for national service despite a foot
injury. As Teague explains, O’Halloran’s Vietnam story ‘... provides an insight into what it was like for an inexperienced
MALICE AFORETHOUGHT
A History of Booby Traps from the First World War to Vietnam
By Ian Jones
Published by Big Sky Publishing RRP $29.99 in paperback
ISBN 9781922488084
Author Ian Jones worked in bomb disposal for the British Army for more than thirty-five years, including time spent
as commanding officer of bomb disposal personnel in Northern Ireland. In this book he takes the reader back in time, charting the history
and development of anti-
junior officer in charge of a group of young men, most
of them fellow nashos, in the early days of the conflict in Vietnam’. O'Halloran would go on to serve with distinction
as a platoon commander
in 6RAR's B Company at three of the biggest conflicts including Operation Hobart and the Battle of Long Tan. But he faced his hardest challenge at Operation Bribie, leading a fixed bayonet charge against a Viet Cong jungle stronghold. Teague has done an excellent job of helping O’Halloran tell his story of the realities and brutalities of war, especially of a war fought in jungles, not trenches. While O'Halloran has been quoted
in almost every important book written about Australia's involvement in the Vietnam War, his own story has never been told until now.
personnel devices – starting with World War I and ending with the Vietnam War, but with the major component being the various devices used during World War II. What follows is a fascinating foray into the world of booby traps which today we would call Improvised Explosive Devices. These devices were often mounted in abandoned vehicles or equipment, left as a parting gift by a retreating enemy with the aim of inflicting as much damage and carnage as possible. The book is well illustrated with diagrams of how the devices worked and photographs of the actual items, as well as first-hand accounts of men unlucky enough to encounter these malicious devices. Recommended for those interested in the history
of booby traps and their evolution.
THE BATTLEFIELD OF IMPERISHABLE MEMORY PASSCHENDAELE AND
THE ANZAC LEGEND
By Matthew Haultain-Gall Published by Monash University Publishing RRP $34.95 in paperback ISBN 9781922464064
This book began life as a doctoral thesis, with the central question being why our collective memory of the 1917 Belgian campaigns
is so limited compared with how we as a nation remember events such as Gallipoli. This book aligns with a boom in
OPERATION PEDESTAL
THE FLEET THAT BATTLED TO MALTA 1942
By Max Hastings
Published by William Collins/ Harper Collins
RRP $34.99 in paperback ISBN 9780008364953
On 10 August 1942 the
largest fleet the Royal Navy had committed to action
since Jutland in 1916 entered the Mediterranean with the objective of passing through
to beleaguered Malta fourteen merchant vessels. Operation Pedestal, as it was known, was
‘memory studies’, the ways in which Western countries have rediscovered and confronted their past history and the ways in which they are commemorated. The first major engagement the AIF fought in Belgium was the Battle of Messines in June 1917, a necessary prelude to the third battle of Ypres (Passchendaele). By the time the AIF withdrew,
it had suffered over 38,000 casualties, including 10,000 dead, far outweighing Australian losses in any other Great War campaign. Given the extent of the sacrifices, the Australians’ exploits in Belgium ought to
be well known in a nation that has fervently commemorated
its involvement in the First
World War. Yet, Passchendaele occupies an ambiguous place
in Australian collective memory. Haultain-Gall explores why these battles remain peripheral to
the dominant First World War narrative in Australia: the Anzac legend.
a convoy that included thirty- two destroyers, four aircraft carriers and eight submarines up against an area defended by six hundred German and Italian aircraft, together with packs of U-boats and torpedo craft. What emerges is a story of catastrophic ship sinkings and the subsequent struggle to rescue survivors and salvage stricken ships. Most moving
of all is the story of the tanker Ohio, indispensable to Malta’s survival. In the last days of the battle, the ravaged hulk was kept underway only by two destroyers, lashed to her sides. In fact, until the very last hours, no participant on either side could tell what the outcome of this epic battle would be. Max Hastings,
one of Britain’s foremost war historians, has delivered yet another tour de force to add to his impressive output of military history.
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