Secondhand Military History Bargain Book Box SP4059

Secondhand Military History Bargain Book Box SP4059

Australian wars from the Diggers’ side — Nancy Wake’s own story, Korea, the RAN, Afghanistan and Iraq first-hand — alongside the Somme, Leningrad, Normandy and the SAS. Nineteen books, several hardbacks. These are ex-library copies, so expect the usual stamps, spine labels and protective covers.

1. Remembering Korea: Australians in the War of 1950–53 — George Odgers — The Australian official historian’s illustrated account, with the names of every Australian who served in it. Reference and remembrance in one.
2. On All Fronts: Australia’s World War II — Jim Haynes — North Africa, Greece, Kokoda, the home front and the POW camps, told through stories rather than strategy. Haynes writes for the general reader.
3. Nancy Wake: The White Mouse — Nancy Wake — The Gestapo’s most-wanted woman tells it herself: the Resistance, the escape over the Pyrenees, the 500-kilometre bike ride. Blunt and funny, like her.
4. The Diggers’ Menagerie — Barry Stone — Horses, dogs, a kangaroo and a koala: the animals Australians took to war and what became of them. Mascots, mostly; some of the stories are tough.
5. No Pleasure Cruise: The Story of the Royal Australian Navy — Tom Frame — The full history of the RAN from 1901, by a naval officer turned historian. The one-volume reference.
6. Blood, Sweat and Steel — Peter Darman — Frontline accounts from the Gulf, Afghanistan and Iraq, mostly British and Australian. Soldiers’ own words, lightly edited.
7. Blitzkrieg: The Unpublished Photographs 1939–1942 — Ian Baxter — German soldiers’ own photographs of Poland, France and North Africa, from private albums. Large-format.
8. Somme: Into the Breach — Hugh Sebag-Montefiore — A fresh narrative of the whole 1916 battle, with the Australians at Pozières given their due. Vivid, long, and built on unpublished letters.
9. Red Zone Baghdad: My War in Iraq — Colonel Marcus Fielding — An Australian Army officer’s year embedded in the US command in Baghdad, 2008–09. Rare first-hand Australian Iraq account.
10. Spoken from the Front: Real Heroes from the Battlefields of Afghanistan — ed. Andy McNab — British soldiers’ interviews from Helmand, compiled by the SAS author. Unvarnished.
11. Bloody Victory: The Sacrifice on the Somme — William Philpott — The revisionist case that the Somme was a necessary, and in the end successful, battle. Academic but readable; won the Templer Medal.
12. The Normandy Nobodies — Geoff Boel — An Australian unit’s own account of wheeling and dealing its way through the invasion. Scarce; local history for the collector.
13. The New Middle East: The World After the Arab Spring — Paul Danahar — The BBC’s Middle East bureau chief on Egypt, Libya, Syria and Israel after 2011. Updated edition.
14. Leningrad: Siege and Symphony — Brian Moynahan — The 900-day siege told around the writing and performance of Shostakovich’s Seventh in the starving city. One of the great war narratives.
15. Letters from the Front — Dorothy Gilding — Australian soldiers’ letters home from the First World War, collected and annotated. Gold Collection edition.
16. Soldiers Without Borders: Beyond the SAS — Ian McPhedran — What Australian special forces veterans do next: private security, Iraq, Africa. The Amazing SAS author on the afterlife of the regiment.
17. The Crooked Mirror: A Memoir of Polish-Jewish Reconciliation — Louise Steinman — An American woman returns to her family’s Polish town and finds the people who remember. Quiet, careful, and not what she expected.