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Books > History > Australasian & Pacific history

Lost in Shangri-La - A True Story of Survival, Adventure, and the Most Incredible Rescue Mission of World War II (Paperback):... Lost in Shangri-La - A True Story of Survival, Adventure, and the Most Incredible Rescue Mission of World War II (Paperback)
Mitchell Zuckoff
R460 R431 Discovery Miles 4 310 Save R29 (6%) Ships in 18 - 22 working days

On May 13, 1945, twenty-four American servicemen and WACs boarded a transport plane for a sightseeing trip over "Shangri-La," a beautiful and mysterious valley deep within the jungle-covered mountains of Dutch New Guinea.Unlike the peaceful Tibetan monks of James Hilton's bestselling novel Lost Horizon, this Shangri-La was home to spear-carrying tribesmen, warriors rumored to be cannibals.

But the pleasure tour became an unforgettable battle for survival when the plane crashed. Miraculously, three passengers pulled through. Margaret Hastings, barefoot and burned, had no choice but to wear her dead best friend's shoes. John McCollom, grieving the death of his twin brother also aboard the plane, masked his grief with stoicism. Kenneth Decker, too, was severely burned and suffered a gaping head wound.

Emotionally devastated, badly injured, and vulnerable to the hidden dangers of the jungle, the trio faced certain death unless they left the crash site. Caught between man-eating headhunters and enemy Japanese, the wounded passengers endured a harrowing hike down the mountainside--a journey into the unknown that would lead them straight into a primitive tribe of superstitious natives who had never before seen a white man--or woman.

Drawn from interviews, declassified U.S. Army documents, personal photos and mementos, a survivor's diary, a rescuer's journal, and original film footage, Lost in Shangri-La recounts this incredible true-life adventure for the first time. Mitchell Zuckoff reveals how the determined trio--dehydrated, sick, and in pain--traversed the dense jungle to find help; how a brave band of paratroopers risked their own lives to save the survivors; and how a cowboy colonel attempted a previously untested rescue mission to get them out.

By trekking into the New Guinea jungle, visiting remote villages, and rediscovering the crash site, Zuckoff also captures the contemporary natives' remembrances of the long-ago day when strange creatures fell from the sky. A riveting work of narrative nonfiction that vividly brings to life an odyssey at times terrifying, enlightening, and comic, Lost in Shangri-La is a thrill ride from beginning to end.

Darwin 1942 - The Japanese attack on Australia (Paperback): Bob Alford Darwin 1942 - The Japanese attack on Australia (Paperback)
Bob Alford; Illustrated by Jim Laurier
R447 Discovery Miles 4 470 Ships in 10 - 15 working days

Following the devastating raids on Pearl Harbor on 7 December 1941, lightning advances by Japanese forces throughout the Pacific and the Far East, and a desperate battle by the Allied command in the Dutch East Indies, it became evident that an attack on Australia was more a matter of 'when' and not 'if'. On 19 February, just eleven weeks after the attacks on Pearl Harbor and two weeks after the fall of Singapore, the same Japanese battle group that had attacked Hawaii was ordered to attack the ill-prepared and under-defended Australian port of Darwin. Publishing 75 years after this little-known yet devastating attack, this fully illustrated study details what happened on that dramatic day in 1942 with the help of contemporary photographs, maps, and profiles of the commanders and machines involved in the assault.

Race to Hawaii - The 1927 Dole Air Derby and the Thrilling First Flights That Opened the Pacific (Hardcover): Jason Ryan Race to Hawaii - The 1927 Dole Air Derby and the Thrilling First Flights That Opened the Pacific (Hardcover)
Jason Ryan
R659 R603 Discovery Miles 6 030 Save R56 (8%) Ships in 18 - 22 working days
The Historian's Conscience - Australian historians on the ethics of history (Paperback): Stuart Macintyre The Historian's Conscience - Australian historians on the ethics of history (Paperback)
Stuart Macintyre
R717 R665 Discovery Miles 6 650 Save R52 (7%) Ships in 10 - 15 working days

In ""The Historian's Conscience"", Macintyre and thirteen other Australian historians put history and the history profession under the microscope. Eminent contributors include Alan Atkinson, Graeme Davison, Greg Dening, John Hirst, Beverley Kingston, Marilyn Lake, and Iain McCalman. They not only ask but answer the hard questions about writing and researching history. How do historians choose their histories? What sort of emotional investment do they make in their subjects, and how do they control their sympathies? How do they deal with unpalatable discoveries? To whom are historians responsible? And for whom are they entitled to speak? Intellectually provocative, often personally revealing, always engaged, ""The Historian's Conscience"" is a 'must read'.

Pol Pot - The History of a Nightmare (Paperback, New ed): Philip Short Pol Pot - The History of a Nightmare (Paperback, New ed)
Philip Short
R434 R395 Discovery Miles 3 950 Save R39 (9%) Ships in 9 - 17 working days

The definitive portrait of Pol Pot, the enigmatic man behind the most terrifying regime of modern times Pol Pot was an idealistic, reclusive figure with great charisma and personal charm. He initiated a revolution whose radical egalitarianism exceeded any other in history. But in the process, Cambodia desended into madness and his name became a byword for oppression. In the three-and-a-half years of his rule, more than a million people, a fifth of Cambodia's population, were executed or died from hunger and disease. A supposedly gentle, carefree land of slumbering temples and smiling peasants became a concentration camp of the mind, a slave state in which absolute obedience was enforced on the 'killing fields'. Why did it happen? How did an idealistic dream of justice and prosperity mutate into one of humanity's worst nightmares? Philip Short, the biographer of Mao, has spent four years travelling the length Cambodia, interviewing surviving leaders of Pol Pot's Khmer Rouge movement and sifting through previously closed archives. of lesser figures speak for the first time at length about their beliefs and motives.

The Kingdom and the Republic - Sovereign Hawai'i and the Early United States (Hardcover): Noelani Arista The Kingdom and the Republic - Sovereign Hawai'i and the Early United States (Hardcover)
Noelani Arista
R1,078 Discovery Miles 10 780 Ships in 10 - 15 working days

In 1823, as the first American missionaries arrived in Hawai'i, the archipelago was experiencing a profound transformation in its rule, as oral law that had been maintained for hundreds of years was in the process of becoming codified anew through the medium of writing. The arrival of sailors in pursuit of the lucrative sandalwood trade obliged the ali'i (chiefs) of the islands to pronounce legal restrictions on foreigners' access to Hawaiian women. Assuming the new missionaries were the source of these rules, sailors attacked two mission stations, fracturing relations between merchants, missionaries, and sailors, while native rulers remained firmly in charge. In The Kingdom and the Republic, Noelani Arista (Kanaka Maoli) uncovers a trove of previously unused Hawaiian language documents to chronicle the story of Hawaiians' experience of encounter and colonialism in the nineteenth century. Through this research, she explores the political deliberations between ali'i over the sale of a Hawaiian woman to a British ship captain in 1825 and the consequences of the attacks on the mission stations. The result is a heretofore untold story of native political formation, the creation of indigenous law, and the extension of chiefly rule over natives and foreigners alike. Relying on what is perhaps the largest archive of written indigenous language materials in North America, Arista argues that Hawaiian deliberations and actions in this period cannot be understood unless one takes into account Hawaiian understandings of the past-and the ways this knowledge of history was mobilized as a means to influence the present and secure a better future. In pursuing this history, The Kingdom and the Republic reconfigures familiar colonial histories of trade, proselytization, and negotiations over law and governance in Hawai'i.

Keeper Of The Faith - A biography of Jim Cairns (Paperback): Paul Strangio Keeper Of The Faith - A biography of Jim Cairns (Paperback)
Paul Strangio
R986 Discovery Miles 9 860 Ships in 10 - 15 working days

Jim Cairns, former Deputy Prime Minister of Australia, is a familiar sight around the markets of Melbourne, seated at a card table stacked with copies of his latest book. It's an unlikely occupation for a man who was once the major thinker and driving force behind the ideals and policies of Australia's most reformist government. In this mature and sophisticated biography, Paul Strangio reveals a consistent thread running through the apparent contradictions of Cairns's career. He explains how a policeman turned into a counter-culture guru; how an opponent of capitalism became Minister for Trade; how a devoted husband could feel 'a kind of love' for Juni Morosi. In this highly readable and carefully researched book, Strangio argues that Cairns' contributions to public life have been seriously understimated. Drawing on a rich range of archival and oral sources, and recounting many fascinating anecdotes, this is a masterly portrait of one of those rare people who never stop in their quest for truth.

Consent of the People - Human Dignity through Freedom and Equality (Hardcover): David Kemp Consent of the People - Human Dignity through Freedom and Equality (Hardcover)
David Kemp
R976 R927 Discovery Miles 9 270 Save R49 (5%) Ships in 10 - 15 working days

Consent of the People: Human Dignity through Freedom and Equality 1966-2021 explores how Australia's founding Enlightenment ideals were embodied in democratic institutions and shared values, and shaped into a unique national liberalism. Despite intense partisan loyalties, a politics of unequal power, and conservative and radical resistance, inequality was addressed and personal freedom strengthened. This final book in David Kemp's landmark five-volume Australian Liberalism series examines the role of liberal ideals in the legacies of prime ministers from Harold Holt to Malcolm Turnbull and the significance of challenges to the liberal project arising in response to the pandemic of 2020-21.It shows how reform urgency led to the nation's greatest political crisis in 1975, how prime ministers Fraser and Hawke struggled to manage an economy dominated by powerful union, business and global interests, how during seventeen crucial years Keating and Howard led one of the nation's greatest reform eras, and how social reform continued despite the leadership instability of the post-Howard era. In Consent of the People Kemp assesses political parties as the instruments of reform, highlighting the dangers of factionalism and loss of purpose. He examines how an international revival of liberal thought and rising levels of education revolutionised Australian society and politics, creating a moral-and moralistic-ruling class. In a remarkable half-century, Australian political parties and their leaders contested the impacts of government policies on personal freedom, on the distribution of political influence and power, and on wealth and opportunity. Throughout this period, Australians strove, with growing success, to achieve their dreams.

The Incredible Life of Hubert Wilkins - Australia's Greatest Explorer (Paperback): Peter Fitzsimons The Incredible Life of Hubert Wilkins - Australia's Greatest Explorer (Paperback)
Peter Fitzsimons
R592 R533 Discovery Miles 5 330 Save R59 (10%) Ships in 9 - 17 working days

Sir Hubert Wilkins is one of the most remarkable Australians who ever lived. The son of pioneer pastoralists in South Australia, Hubert studied engineering before moving on to photography. In 1908 he sailed for England and a job producing films with the Gaumont Film Co. Brave and bold, he became a polar expeditioner, a brilliant war photographer, a spy in the Soviet Union, a pioneering aviator-navigator, a death-defying submariner - all while being an explorer and chronicler of the planet and its life forms that would do Vasco da Gama and Sir David Attenborough proud. As a WW1 photographer he was twice awarded the Military Cross for bravery under fire, the only Australian photographer in any war to be decorated. He explored the Antarctic with Sir Ernest Shackleton, led a groundbreaking ornithological study in Australia and was knighted in 1928 for his aviation exploits, but many more astounding achievements would follow. Wilkins' quest for knowledge and polar explorations were lifelong passions and his missions to polar regions aboard the submarine Nautilus the stuff of legend. With masterful storytelling skill, Peter FitzSimons illuminates the life of Hubert Wilkins and his incredible achievements. Thrills and spills, derring-do, new worlds discovered - this is the most unforgettable tale of the most extraordinary life lived by any Australian.

Goose Green - The first crucial battle of the Falklands War (Paperback): Mark Adkin Goose Green - The first crucial battle of the Falklands War (Paperback)
Mark Adkin
R298 R274 Discovery Miles 2 740 Save R24 (8%) Ships in 9 - 17 working days

Reissued for the 40th anniversary of the Falklands conflict The most in-depth and powerful account yet published of the first crucial clash of the Falklands war - told from both sides. 'Thorough and exhaustive' Daily Telegraph 'An excellent and fast paced narrative' Michael McCarthy, historical battlefield guide Goose Green was the first land battle of the Falklands War. It was also the longest, the hardest-fought, the most controversial and the most important to win. What began as a raid became a vicious, 14-hour infantry struggle, in which 2 Para - outnumbered, exhausted, forced to attack across open ground in full daylight, and with inadequate fire support - lost their commanding officer, and almost lost the action. This is the only full-length, detailed account of this crucial battle. Drawing on the eye-witness accounts of both British and Argentinian soldiers who fought at Goose Green, and their commanders' narratives, it has become the definitive account of most important and controversial land battle of the Falklands War. A compelling story of men engaged in a battle that hung in the balance for hours, in which Colonel 'H' Jones' solo charge against an entrenched enemy won him a posthumous V.C., and which for both sides was a gruelling and often terrifying encounter.

The Pacific Campaign - World War II: the Us-Japanese Naval War, 1941-1945 (Paperback, Touchstone ed): Daan Van Der Vat The Pacific Campaign - World War II: the Us-Japanese Naval War, 1941-1945 (Paperback, Touchstone ed)
Daan Van Der Vat
R654 R598 Discovery Miles 5 980 Save R56 (9%) Ships in 18 - 22 working days

Dan van der Vat's naval histories have been acclaimed on both sides of the Atlantic as "definitive," "extraordinary," and "vivid and harrowing." Now he turns to the greatest naval conflict in history: the Pacific campaign of World War II. Drawing on neglected archives of firsthand accounts from both sides, van der Vat interweaves eyewitness testimony with sharp, analytical narration to provide a penetrating reappraisal of the strategic and political background of both the Japanese and American forces, as well as a major reassessment of the role of intelligence on both sides. A comprehensive evaluation of all aspects of the war in the Pacific, The Pacific Campaign promises to be the standard work on the U.S.-Japanese war for years to come.

Dinkum Diggers - An Australian Battalion at War (Paperback): Dale James Blair Dinkum Diggers - An Australian Battalion at War (Paperback)
Dale James Blair
R680 Discovery Miles 6 800 Ships in 10 - 15 working days

Tall, sun-bronzed, hardy. Resourceful, independent, egalitarian. Scornful of authority, loyal to their mates. These mythical characteristics of the Anzac 'diggers' are central to our idea of what it is to be Australian. But did the soldiers themselves fit the stereotype? How closely does the myth match the reality? This penetrating study strips away celebratory generalisations and measures the Anzac legend against the actual experiences of one battalion that fought at Gallipoli and on the Western Front in World War I. The diaries and letters written by soldiers of the 1st Battalion reveal attitudes, insights, comments and criticisms that qualify and even contradict the Anzac legend. In Dinkum Diggers, Dale James Blair compares these first-hand accounts by front-line infantrymen with unit diaries, operational records, service and repatriation records, as well as with interviews with family members and statistical analysis, to present a well-rounded picture of the complexities of the 1st Battalion's experience. By narrowing the focus of Australian war experience to a single battalion, he demonstrates nuances and subtleties, showing how the men vie

Australian War Graves Workers and World War One - Devoted Labour for the Lost, the Unknown but not Forgotten Dead (Hardcover,... Australian War Graves Workers and World War One - Devoted Labour for the Lost, the Unknown but not Forgotten Dead (Hardcover, 1st ed. 2019)
Fred Cahir, Sara Weuffen, Matt Smith, Peter Bakker, Jo Caminiti
R1,521 Discovery Miles 15 210 Ships in 18 - 22 working days

This book relays the largely untold story of the approximately 1,100 Australian war graves workers whose job it was to locate, identify exhume and rebury the thousands of Australian soldiers who died in Europe during the First World War. It tells the story of the men of the Australian Graves Detachment and the Australian Graves Service who worked in the period 1919 to 1922 to ensure that grieving families in Australia had a physical grave which they could mourn the loss of their loved ones. By presenting biographical vignettes of eight men who undertook this work, the book examines the mechanics of the commemoration of the Great War and extends our understanding of the individual toll this onerous task took on the workers themselves.

Return to Kahiki - Native Hawaiians in Oceania (Paperback): Kealani Cook Return to Kahiki - Native Hawaiians in Oceania (Paperback)
Kealani Cook
R764 Discovery Miles 7 640 Ships in 10 - 15 working days

Between 1850 and 1907, Native Hawaiians sought to develop relationships with other Pacific Islanders, reflecting how they viewed not only themselves as a people but their wider connections to Oceania and the globe. Kealani Cook analyzes the relatively little known experiences of Native Hawaiian missionaries, diplomats, and travelers, shedding valuable light on the rich but understudied accounts of Hawaiians outside of Hawai'i. Native Hawaiian views of other islanders typically corresponded with their particular views and experiences of the Native Hawaiian past. The more positive their outlook, the more likely they were to seek cross-cultural connections. This is an important intervention in the growing field of Pacific and Oceanic history and the study of native peoples of the Americas, where books on indigenous Hawaiians are few and far between. Cook returns the study of Hawai'i to a central place in the history of cultural change in the Pacific.

Memory and Migration in the Shadow of War - Australia's Greek Immigrants after World War II and the Greek Civil War... Memory and Migration in the Shadow of War - Australia's Greek Immigrants after World War II and the Greek Civil War (Paperback)
Joy Damousi
R1,028 Discovery Miles 10 280 Ships in 10 - 15 working days

In an engaging and original contribution to the field of memory studies, Joy Damousi considers the enduring impact of war on family memory in the Greek diaspora. Focusing on Australia's Greek immigrants in the aftermath of the Second World War and the Greek Civil War, the book explores the concept of remembrance within the larger context of migration to show how intergenerational experience of war and trauma transcend both place and nation. Drawing from the most recent research in memory, trauma and transnationalism, Memory and Migration in the Shadow of War deals with the continuities and discontinuities of war stories, assimilation in modern Australia, politics and activism, child migration and memories of mothers and children in war. Damousi sheds new light on aspects of forgotten memory and silence within families and communities, and in particular the ways in which past experience of violence and tragedy is both negotiated and processed.

Decolonisation and the Pacific - Indigenous Globalisation and the Ends of Empire (Paperback): Tracey Banivanua-Mar Decolonisation and the Pacific - Indigenous Globalisation and the Ends of Empire (Paperback)
Tracey Banivanua-Mar
R839 Discovery Miles 8 390 Ships in 10 - 15 working days

This book charts the previously untold story of decolonisation in the oceanic world of the Pacific, Australia and New Zealand, presenting it both as an indigenous and an international phenomenon. Tracey Banivanua Mar reveals how the inherent limits of decolonisation were laid bare by the historical peculiarities of colonialism in the region, and demonstrates the way imperial powers conceived of decolonisation as a new form of imperialism. She shows how Indigenous peoples responded to these limits by developing rich intellectual, political and cultural networks transcending colonial and national borders, with localised traditions of protest and dialogue connected to the global ferment of the twentieth century. The individual stories told here shed new light on the forces that shaped twentieth-century global history, and reconfigure the history of decolonisation, presenting it not as an historic event, but as a fragile, contingent and ongoing process continuing well into the postcolonial era.

Indigenous Peoples and the Second World War - The Politics, Experiences and Legacies of War in the US, Canada, Australia and... Indigenous Peoples and the Second World War - The Politics, Experiences and Legacies of War in the US, Canada, Australia and New Zealand (Hardcover)
R.Scott Sheffield, Noah Riseman
R3,213 Discovery Miles 32 130 Ships in 10 - 15 working days

During the Second World War, Indigenous people in the United States, Australia, New Zealand and Canada mobilised en masse to support the war effort, despite withstanding centuries of colonialism. Their roles ranged from ordinary soldiers fighting on distant shores, to soldiers capturing Japanese prisoners on their own territory, to women working in munitions plants on the home front. R. Scott Sheffield and Noah Riseman examine Indigenous experiences of the Second World War across these four settler societies. Informed by theories of settler colonialism, martial race theory and military sociology, they show how Indigenous people and their communities both shaped and were shaped by the Second World War. Particular attention is paid to the policies in place before, during and after the war, highlighting the ways that Indigenous people negotiated their own roles within the war effort at home and abroad.

The New New Zealand - The Maori and Pakeha Populations (Paperback): William Edward Moneyhun The New New Zealand - The Maori and Pakeha Populations (Paperback)
William Edward Moneyhun
R947 Discovery Miles 9 470 Ships in 10 - 15 working days

Today's New Zealand is an emerging paradigm for successful cultural relations. Although the nation's Maori (indigenous Polynesian) and Pakeha (colonial European) populations of the 19th century were dramatically different and often at odds, they are today co-contributors to a vibrant society. For more than a century they have been working out the kind of nation that engenders respect and well-being; and their interaction, though often riddled with confrontation, is finally bearing bicultural fruit. By their model, the encounter of diverse cultures does not require the surrender of one to the other; rather, it entails each expanding its own cultural categories in the light of the other. The time is ripe to explore this nation's cultural dynamics for what we can learn about getting along. This anthropological inquiry focuses on religion and related symbols, forms of reciprocity, the operation of power and the concept of culture as these themes have developed in modern New Zealand society.

God's Gentlemen - A History of the Melanesian Mission 1849-1942 (Paperback): David Hilliard God's Gentlemen - A History of the Melanesian Mission 1849-1942 (Paperback)
David Hilliard
R769 R708 Discovery Miles 7 080 Save R61 (8%) Ships in 18 - 22 working days

David Hilliard's God's Gentlemen, originally published in 1978, remains the only detached and detailed historical analysis of the work of the Melanesian Mission. Starting with its New Zealand beginnings and its Norfolk Island years (1867-1920), the work follows the Mission's shift of headquarters to the Solomon Islands and on until the beginning of the Second World War.

The Mission, which grew out of the personal vision of the first Church of England Bishop of New Zealand, George Selwyn, formally defined its field of work as 'the Islands of Melanesia' although its activities were confined almost entirely to the island groups that now make up Vanuatu and the Solomon Islands. The Diocese of Melanesia was a fully constituent diocese of the Anglican Church of New Zealand from its formation in 1861 until the creation of the autonomous Church of the Province of Melanesia in 1975.

Based on a wide range of sources, God's Gentleman is the inner history of the slow growth of an important and genuinely Melanesian church.

Menschliche Erinnerungen (German, Hardcover): Xianwen Zhang Menschliche Erinnerungen (German, Hardcover)
Xianwen Zhang
R2,764 Discovery Miles 27 640 Ships in 18 - 22 working days
A History of South Australia (Paperback): Paul Sendziuk, Robert Foster A History of South Australia (Paperback)
Paul Sendziuk, Robert Foster
R695 Discovery Miles 6 950 Ships in 10 - 15 working days

A History of South Australia investigates South Australia's history from before the arrival of the first European maritime explorers to the present day, and examines its distinctive origins as a 'free' settlement. In this compelling and nuanced history, Paul Sendziuk and Robert Foster consider the imprint of people on the land - and vice versa - and offer fresh insights into relations between Indigenous people and the European colonisers. They chart South Australia's economic, political and social development, including the advance and retreat of an interventionist government, the establishment of the state's distinctive socio-political formations, and its relationship to the rest of Australia and the world. The first comprehensive, single-volume history of the state to be published in over fifty years, A History of South Australia is an essential and engaging contribution to our understanding of South Australia's past.

Beyond Hawai'i - Native Labor in the Pacific World (Hardcover): Gregory Rosenthal Beyond Hawai'i - Native Labor in the Pacific World (Hardcover)
Gregory Rosenthal
R2,378 Discovery Miles 23 780 Ships in 10 - 15 working days

In the century from the death of Captain James Cook in 1779 to the rise of the sugar plantations in the 1870s, thousands of Kanaka Maoli (Native Hawaiian) men left Hawai'i to work on ships at sea and in na 'aina 'e (foreign lands)-on the Arctic Ocean and throughout the Pacific Ocean, and in the equatorial islands and California. Beyond Hawai'i tells the stories of these forgotten indigenous workers and how their labor shaped the Pacific World, the global economy, and the environment. Whether harvesting sandalwood or bird guano, hunting whales, or mining gold, these migrant workers were essential to the expansion of transnational capitalism and global ecological change. Bridging American, Chinese, and Pacific historiographies, Beyond Hawai'i is the first book to argue that indigenous labor-more than the movement of ships and spread of diseases-unified the Pacific World.

Never Call Me a Hero - An Autobiography of a Battle of Midway Dive Bomber Pilot (Paperback): N Jack Kleiss Never Call Me a Hero - An Autobiography of a Battle of Midway Dive Bomber Pilot (Paperback)
N Jack Kleiss
R449 Discovery Miles 4 490 Ships in 18 - 22 working days

Hailed as "the single most effective pilot at Midway" (World War II magazine), Dusty Kleiss struck and sank three Japanese warships at the Battle of Midway, including two aircraft carriers, helping turn the tide of the Second World War. This is his extraordinary memoir. NATIONAL BESTSELLER * "AN INSTANT CLASSIC" -Dallas Morning News On the morning of June 4, 1942, high above the tiny Pacific atoll of Midway, Lt. (j.g.) "Dusty" Kleiss burst out of the clouds and piloted his SBD Dauntless into a near-vertical dive aimed at the heart of Japan's Imperial Navy, which six months earlier had ruthlessly struck Pearl Harbor. The greatest naval battle in history raged around him, its outcome hanging in the balance as the U.S. desperately searched for its first major victory of the Second World War. Then, in a matter of seconds, Dusty Kleiss's daring 20,000-foot dive helped forever alter the war's trajectory. Plummeting through the air at 240 knots amid blistering anti-aircraft fire, the twenty-six-year-old pilot from USS Enterprise's elite Scouting Squadron Six fixed on an invaluable target-the aircraft carrier Kaga, one of Japan's most important capital ships. He released three bombs at the last possible instant, then desperately pulled out of his gut-wrenching 9-g dive. As his plane leveled out just above the roiling Pacific Ocean, Dusty's perfectly placed bombs struck the carrier's deck, and Kaga erupted into an inferno from which it would never recover. Arriving safely back at Enterprise, Dusty was met with heartbreaking news: his best friend was missing and presumed dead along with two dozen of their fellow naval aviators. Unbowed, Dusty returned to the air that same afternoon and, remarkably, would fatally strike another enemy carrier, Hiryu. Two days later, his deadeye aim contributed to the destruction of a third Japanese warship, the cruiser Mikuma, thereby making Dusty the only pilot from either side to land hits on three different ships, all of which sank-losses that crippled the once-fearsome Japanese fleet. By battle's end, the humble young sailor from Kansas had earned his place in history-and yet he stayed silent for decades, living quietly with his children and his wife, Jean, whom he married less than a month after Midway. Now his extraordinary and long-awaited memoir, Never Call Me a Hero, tells the Navy Cross recipient's full story for the first time, offering an unprecedentedly intimate look at the "the decisive contest for control of the Pacific in World War II" (New York Times)-and one man's essential role in helping secure its outcome. Dusty worked on this book for years with naval historians Timothy and Laura Orr, aiming to publish Never Call Me a Hero for Midway's seventy-fifth anniversary in June 2017. Sadly, as the book neared completion in 2016, Dusty Kleiss passed away at age 100, one of the last surviving dive-bomber pilots to have fought at Midway. And yet the publication of Never Call Me a Hero is a cause for celebration: these pages are Dusty's remarkable legacy, providing a riveting eyewitness account of the Battle of Midway, and an inspiring testimony to the brave men who fought, died, and shaped history during those four extraordinary days in June, seventy-five years ago.

Sgeulachdan Goirid Agus Bardachd A Astrailia (Short Tales and Poems from Australia) (Scottish Gaelic, Hardcover): Cliff Cummin,... Sgeulachdan Goirid Agus Bardachd A Astrailia (Short Tales and Poems from Australia) (Scottish Gaelic, Hardcover)
Cliff Cummin, Kerry Cardell
R1,515 R1,268 Discovery Miles 12 680 Save R247 (16%) Ships in 18 - 22 working days
A Primer for Teaching Pacific Histories - Ten Design Principles (Hardcover): Matt K. Matsuda A Primer for Teaching Pacific Histories - Ten Design Principles (Hardcover)
Matt K. Matsuda
R2,389 Discovery Miles 23 890 Ships in 10 - 15 working days

A Primer for Teaching Pacific Histories is a guide for college and high school teachers who are teaching Pacific histories for the first time or for experienced teachers who want to reinvigorate their courses. It can also serve those who are training future teachers to prepare their own syllabi, as well as teachers who want to incorporate Pacific histories into their world history courses. Matt K. Matsuda offers design principles for creating syllabi that will help students navigate a wide range of topics, from settler colonialism, national liberation, and warfare to tourism, popular culture, and identity. He also discusses practical pedagogical techniques and tips, project-based assignments, digital resources, and how Pacific approaches to teaching history differ from customary Western practices. Placing the Pacific Islands at the center of analysis, Matsuda draws readers into the process of strategically designing courses that will challenge students to think critically about the interconnected histories of East Asia, Southeast Asia, Australia, the Pacific Islands, and the Americas within a global framework.

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