On September 11, 1944, the British submarine "Porpoise" slipped quietly from Fremantle Harbour, bound for Indonesia. It was carrying the 23 Australian and British members of Operation Rimau who, under the leadership of the remarkable Lieutenant-Colonel Ivan Lyon of the Gordon Highlanders, intended to repeat the successful Jaywick raid of 1943 by blowing up 60 ships in Japanese-occupied Singapore Harbour, 19 days later, the preliminary part of the operation successfully completed, the submarine commander bade farewell to the raiders at Pedjantan Island, promising to return to pick them up in 38 days' time. A handful of Chinese and Malays and the conquering Japanese were the only people ever to see the 23 men again. According to the scant official post-war record, the mission was an utter failure. All of the party were captured of killed - ten of them beheaded in Singapore only five weeks before the Japanese surrender in, it was claimed, a ceremonial execution. The fate of eleven of the others remains officially unknown. After a 31 year search, Major Tom Hall, with the assistance of writer Lynette Silver, has overturned the official version and uncovered the truth. Aided by thousands of Japanese and Allied documents and by the first-hand accounts of several Indonesians and Malays, sole witnesses to the events of 1944, they have established the fate of every member of the party and unravelled the story of "The Heroes of Rimau" - a story that has for 45 years been all but lost, distorted by hearsay and fantasy, by military cover-ups and conspiracy, by official bungling, ineptitude and apathy. This book not only chronicles a feat of extraordinary daring in the face of overwhelming odds - a gripping tale of inspired courage, self-sacrifice and eventual tragedy - it also exposes the appalling sequence of events which has, until now, resulted in the shameful suppression of the truth about one of the most amazing stories to emerge from World War II.

When Grace married the handsome and worldly Captain Leo Waterhouse in Australia during the middle of the Second World War, she never doubted that she had married a hero and he would come back to her unscathed. But Leo never returns from a commando raid on Japanese ships in the Singapore Harbour, leaving Grace a widow, like so many, to shoulder the pain and regret of losing her husband. Sixty years later, Grace is still bitter and perplexed by the tragic death of the love of her life when the true story of the abortive mission comes to light. As Leo’s diary during captivity, scrawled on toilet paper, and new fragments of the events emerge, Grace must confront her doubts about her hero and his ultimate betrayal.

Amazing revelations and extraordinary exploits of Australia's elite secret warriors. There was something unique about Australians and New Zealanders in war that prompted World War II Allied commanders to turn to ANZAC soldiers, sailors and airmen to carry out the most dangerous and virtually impossible missions behind enemy lines. Paddling canoes 4,000 kilometres to attack enemy ships in Singapore; lightning raids on Rommel's forces in the deserts of North Africa. Flying bombers at tree-top level deep into Nazi Germany to destroy vital targets; rescuing sultans and future US presidents from under the noses of the Japanese and playing crucial roles in the greatest commando raid of the war at St Nazaire - the Aussies and Kiwis were there. The special forces showed incredible bravery in the face of overwhelming odds. They were determined to complete their missions. Often alone and far behind enemy lines,they demonstrated resourcefulness, spirit and a humanity that inspired others to follow them. Frank Walker, author of bestselling books on the Vietnam War and the British atomic tests in Australia, brings to life the amazing exploits and extraordinary stories of this select band of heroes..

In the last months of 1944 a group of Australian and British commandos was selected for the biggest behind-the-scenes operation of the Pacific War. Their mission: to devastate Singapore Harbour by destroying the Japanese ships at anchor. Operation Rimau, Britain's last throw of the colonial dice in south-east Asia, was designed as a body blow to the Japanese and a signal to the world that she would reclaim her Eastern Empire. At the same time, Australia's wartime prime minister, John Curtin, had turned to America and her most decorated soldier, General Douglas MacArthus, for his country's salvation. KILL THE TIGER tells what really happened to the Rimau commandos from the very beginnings of the operation to their operation to their intense and courageous fighting in the South China Sea. And it names the men who betrayed them in their hour of need, and details the political double-dealing which for so many years hid the truth behind red tape and bureaucratic lies.

This volume brings together for the first time three of Romen Bose’s major historical works – Secrets of the Battlebox, The End of the War, and Kranji – in a panoramic account of Singapore’s experience in WWII. Sealed off and forgotten until the late 1990s, the Battlebox beneath Fort Canning served as the British Command HQ during the war. What actually happened in this underground nerve centre of the Malayan Campaign? Drawing on top-secret documents only recently opened to research, the author investigates the workings of the Battlebox and the fascinating role it played. Having lost their “impregnable fortress” of Singapore, the British were diverted to the European theatre of war. How then, when the Japanese surrendered, did they prepare to return to their erstwhile colonies? This book goes behind the scenes to investigate the circumstances, events, and unforgettable cast of characters that led up to liberation. Finally, the book considers those who fought and died in the war, and their ways in which they have been remembered in post-war Singapore, with Kranji cemetery and memorial as the centrepiece of the efforts. Singapore At War contains new findings which have come to light since the publication of the individual books, giving an unprecedented breadth and depth of perspective to this historical account.

The intriguing and daring story of the Australian coast-watchers in New Britain and the Solomon Islands during World War II is fairly well known, but they were part of a wider organisation. The Allied Intelligence Bureau was General MacArthur's intelligence, special operations and field propaganda unit in the Pacific War, 1942-45. The AIB was unique in its multinational composition. Under American leadership, it included British, Dutch, Australian, New Zealand and Canadian members, although many of the leaders and most of the field operatives were Australian. Its area of operations stretched from New Guinea to the Solomon Islands and from Indonesia, including Borneo, to the Asian mainland. Using much newly released, formerly secret archival material from Britain, the USA and Australia, this new full-scale study of the AIB examines for the first time relations between operatives and native peoples - a relationship critical for the success or failure of missions that were often appallingly dangerous. It also lays bare the power struggles within the organisation itself - conflicts over national, military and personal interests that were constant and intense - heightened by the conduct of war at a time that was, without doubt, the most desperate in Australian history.

The third volume of Thomas Keneally’s history of the Australian people, Australians: Flappers to Vietnam chronicles the lives and deeds of Australians, both known and unknown, during the 20th century. Entering an age of consumerism, media, and communism, Australia underwent radical change in the hands of two less remembered prime ministers: the stoic Stanley Melbourne Bruce of the Melbourne Establishment and the humbler Irishman Jim Scullin of the Labor Party. Keneally examines the Great Crash, the rise of fascism, the reasons why Australia entered the Second World War through the massive unemployment that arrived later in the century. With a compassionate lens and rich storytelling, Flappers to Vietnam presents history in a fresh and vivid way.