'Invasion Rabaul' is a gut-wrenching account of courage and sacrifice, folly and disaster, as seen through the eyes of the Allied defenders who survived the Japanese assault on Britain during the opening days of World War II.

At nineteen, Gwen Arnold left her office job to volunteer for the WAAF. She was trained in the operation of top secret Radio Direction Finding (RDF) equipment, later known as "Radar." Posted to Bawdsey Manor in Suffolk, she and her fellow WAAF RDF operators were responsible for tracking the movements of aircraft and shipping across the North Sea. Despite long working hours, often in uncomfortable conditions, they carried out their orders with dedication and enthusiasm. The highs and lows of wartime life and love are recalled with great affection in this honest and entertaining memoir.

In a gripping, moment-by-moment narrative based on a wealth of recently declassified documents and in-depth interviews, Bob Drury and Tom Clavin tell the remarkable drama that unfolded over the final, heroic hours of the Vietnam War. This closing chapter of the war would become the largest-scale evacuation ever carried out, as improvised by a small unit of Marines, a vast fleet of helicopter pilots flying nonstop missions beyond regulation, and a Marine general who vowed to arrest any officer who ordered his choppers grounded while his men were still on the ground.
Drury and Clavin focus on the story of the eleven young Marines who were the last men to leave, rescued from the U.S. Embassy roof just moments before capture, having voted to make an Alamo-like last stand. As politicians in Washington struggled to put the best face on disaster and the American ambassador refused to acknowledge that the end had come, these courageous men held their ground and helped save thousands of lives. Drury and Clavin deliver a taut and stirring account of a turning point in American history that unfolds with the heartstopping urgency of the best thrillers--a riveting true story finally told, in full, by those who lived it.