Petrarch’s Saturday, Hobart Bookshop Nov 7: Doomed Battalion. Hobart Bookshop launches
Peter Henning. Hobart Bookshop
There will be a book signing of Doomed Battalion at Petrarch’s , 89 Brisbane Street, Launceston, from 11 am Saturday 1 November.
And at Hobart Bookshop, 22 Salamanca Square, Hobart, from 11 am, Friday 7 November.
Details about the book …
DOOMED BATTALION
Mateship and Leadership in War and Captivity
The Australian 2/40 Battalion 1940-45
by Peter Henning
Doomed Battalion is the story of the men of the 2/40 Battalion – mainly Tasmanians – and its associated army units, sent to garrison an airfield in Dutch Timor immediately after the Japanese entered the Second World War. Assigned a hopeless military task within a misguided strategy, they were captured a week after the fall of Singapore in February1942.
They were then scattered in prison camps across east Asia, including Java, Sumatra, Singapore, Burma, Thailand, Japan and other places. Their experiences are in general a microcosm of those of Australian prisoners of the Japanese between 1942 and 1945.
This revised and enlarged edition of the book first published in 1995 maintains but extends the combination of documentary material, veteran interviews, diaries and letters, using new information from both public and private sources.
Doomed Battalion explores the complexities of the prisoner of war experience, the nature of the men’s relationships with each other, with their officers, with other Australians and with prisoners of other nationalities in conditions of extreme hardship and the continuous struggle for survival.
The focus is on individuals and their responses to the realities of their circumstances, a focus which demonstrates various and diverse views about the operation of mateship at its most fundamental level and the vexed question of who exercised leadership.
Doomed Battalion is also one of the few accounts about Australian troops in Japanese prison camps which examines in depth the impact of their experiences on their post-war lives.
A penetrating, sensitive and deeply human story of Australians in war and captivity.
Also to be launched at Hobart Bookshop:
Simon Cubit and Nic Haygarth’s
Historic Tasmanian Mountain Huts
When: Saturday Nov 8th, 3.30pm
Where: The Hobart Bookshop
________________________________________
Raymond Arnold launches
Brett Martin’s new book
Marion
When: Tuesday Nov 11th, 5.30pm
Where: The Hobart Bookshop
The Hobart Bookshop
22 Salamanca Square
Hobart Tasmania 7000
ph 03 6223 1803 | fax 03 6223 1804
hobartbookshop@gmail.com
www.hobartbookshop.com.au