During the Second World War, one of the largest British Commonwealth armies ever assembled fought the Japanese in South East Asia, first on the border between what was then British India and Burma and then pushing deeper into Burma itself. Supporting the Fourteenth Army were an intrepid group of women known colloquially as the Wasbies - the Women's Auxilliary Service (Burma) or WAS(B). This is the story of how Maria Pilbrow faced menace and heartbreak yet coped with fortitude and determination. In the course of her life she overcame loss, anguish, danger and desperation. She survived the jungle horrors and, after the war ended, again found love and the security she craved only to have them ripped away once more. She was forced to rebuild her life anew which she achieved with the friendship and support of her Wasbie friends. Astonishingly, there is very little information about the work of the Wasbies and no full-length book has been written which gives an account of their exploits - until now. For the first time in book form Front Line and Fortitudeprovides a personal record of these brave women and their magnificent contribution to the war effort. The book is based on and expanded from Maria Pilbrow's original diary, and her niece, Elizabeth Lockhart-Mure discovered her diary after Maria's death, and told this extraordinary story.

Forgotten men and women from Australia in a forgotten war – Burma 1942-1945. If you didn’t know that Australians were involved in the longest campaign of WWII, in Burma, in what was called ‘a forgotten war’, this book illuminates the lost stories of their service. In the Fight tells the compelling stories behind the involvement of Australians in what became one of the great sagas of the war against the Japanese in Southeast Asia, encompassing India, Ceylon, Burma, China, Thailand, Indo-China, Malaya, Singapore and Sumatra. While Australian airmen attached to the Royal Air Force were heavily engaged, many other Australians both uniformed and civilian were part of the monumental struggle to turn ‘defeat into victory’ in Burma. Australian war correspondents, Red Cross nurses, Royal Australian Navy sailors, war artists, commandos and saboteurs, soldiers serving with the British Indian Army, the Women’s Auxiliary Service (Burma), well known sportsmen, government officials dealing with the terrible Bengal famine, Qantas crews and POWs in the Rangoon Jail are all covered in these detailed accounts. Written by leading authorities and expertly edited by Andrew Kilsby and Daryl Moran, In the Fight reveals the long-hidden stories of the Australians and the war in Burma.

The Sunday Times bestseller Over her ten years of documentary film making, Stacey Dooley has covered a wide variety of topics, from sex trafficking in Cambodia to Yazidi women fighting back in Syria. At the heart of all her reporting are incredible women in extraordinary situations: sex workers in Russia, victims of domestic violence in Honduras, and many more. On the Frontline with the Women who Fight Back, draws on Stacey's encounters with the brave, wonderful women she has met over her career to explore the issues of gender equality, domestic violence, sexual identity and, at its centre, womanhood in the world today.

"John C. McManus, one of our most highly-acclaimed historians of World War II, takes readers from Pearl Harbor--a rude awakening for a ragtag militia woefully unprepared for war--to Makin, a sliver of coral reef where the Army was tested against the increasingly-desperate Japanese. In between were nearly two years of punishing combat as the Army transformed, at times unsteadily, from an undertrained garrison force into an unstoppable juggernaut, and America evolved from an inward-looking nation into a global superpower."--Provided by publisher.

In 2006, while part of an unarmed UN peacekeeping team at the border junction of Lebanon, Israel, and Syria, Australian Major Matina Jewell and her colleagues were caught in a full-scale war with tragic consequences. In the days that followed she and her teammates reported hundreds of violations of the peace agreement as Israeli artillery, tank fire, and aerial bombs, as well as rockets fired by Hezbollah fighters, exploded only meters away and shrapnel rained down around them. But the story does not end there. Matti Jewell is the kind of soldier every country is proud to have--fearless, honora.

At the Front Line draws on a plethora of letters, diaries and documents written by over 300 Australian soldiers in the field to present a picture of the hardships and triumphs of their wartime experience. Mark Johnston analyses the suffering of front-line soldiers caused not only by the opposing force, but also by the conditions imposed by their own army. The book details the physical and psychological pressures of life at the front and shows how soldiers survived or surrendered to unbearable environments, fear, boredom and the constant threat of impending death. The myths of mateship and equanimity are brought under scrutiny. Much hostility can be explained by competition between ranks and the perceived hostility of superiors. The author investigates the immense strain that led to many breakdowns and the characteristic forebearance that saw so many others through.