'We were all skin and bone, as if our stomachs were stuck to the inside wall of our back.' Two armies, Japanese and Australian, each in turn pushing the other back along a muddy, precipitous track over the mountainous spine of New Guinea. Few prisoners were taken, most were shot. War conventions were routinely flouted, by both sides. Troops were reduced to a primal level, such were the inhuman conditions in which battles were waged. This was the Kokoda campaign of 1942. The Australian experience of Kokoda has been told often and told well. The Japanese, however, remain the shadowy enemy lurking in the dense undergrowth, better known for atrocities than their participation in battle. The Path of Infinite Sorrow tells for the first time the story of the campaign from the Japanese point of view. Based on personal accounts and the recollections of six Japanese soldiers, captured diaries and the unit diaries of the Australian forces, this powerful re-examination of Kokoda brings a new perspective to one of the most brutal conflicts in Australian war history. Craig Collie has been a television producer for over 35 years. Hajime Marutani is a translator-interpreter and was a researcher for the Australian War Memorial's Australia-Japan Research Project. They met when working on the production team of Beyond Kokoda, the award-winning documentary series screened on The History Channel in Australia. Craig and Hajime live with their families in Sydney and Tokyo respectively.

Japanese.

"Graham Apthorpe’s account of the Cowra outbreak is superb. Narrated in a fresh way, in elegant and original prose, and with a wonderful gift for taking the unexpected angle, it does great service to this astonishing Australian-Japanese event, and will have a honoured place in the canon of fascinating works on the incident." - Thomas Keneally The War in the Pacific has turned; thousands of the previously invincible Japanese soldiers are now being captured in New Guinea and interned at the Cowra Prisoner of War Camp. Unlike other POWs, the traditional Japanese Bushido Code and their fanaticism leaves them ill-equipped for surrender and imprisonment. Ashamed, subdued and sullen, one man, Second Lieutenant Maseo Naka is an exception. Obstructing the Australian authorities at every turn, he was the first Japanese soldier to escape from Cowra. This action becomes the precursor for the more than 1000 Japanese prisoners who escape in the bloodiest Breakout of World War II that ultimately saw 234 Japanese and four Australian guards killed. His escape and the defiance, guilt, and shame that motivated it, led to his court-martial. Naka nevertheless stands-out as very human, another tragic victim of the global inferno that was World War II. Adhering to the Samurai Code of Bushido, he doggedly undertakes actions that he views as necessary for the maintenance of his “honour”. Through the insights of those around Naka, together with new research including the personal accounts of Australian interrogators, the author shows how this handsome loner provided the impetus for the dramatic events in the early hours of August 5, 1944 where hundreds of Japanese soldiers stormed the Camp defences for honour, or death!

Courage. Endurance. Mateship. Sacrifice. These values, engraved in stone at the Isurava war memorial, have become synonymous with the Australian experience during the Kokoda campaign of 1942. The story of Kokoda and of the fighting in Papua has been told and retold in books, films and documentaries, but these popular narratives rarely explore beyond this one campaign. Kokoda: Beyond the Legend critically assesses not only the campaigns in Papua and their context in the wider lengthy Pacific war, but also the actions of senior Australian, American and Japanese military leaders. Moving beyond the legend, this book addresses the central question of why Kokoda holds such a significant place in Australian military history. In this book, Karl James brings together eminent military scholars to reassess the principal battles from both Allied and Japanese perspectives, providing readers with a more complete understanding of one of the major turning points in the Second World War.

The Battle of Midway is traditionally held as the point when Allied forces gained advantage over the Japanese. In Islands of Destiny, acclaimed historian and military intelligence expert John Prados points out that the Japanese forces quickly regained strength after Midway and continued their assault undaunted. Taking this surprising fact as the start of his inquiry, he began to investigate how and when the Pacific tide turned in the Allies’ favor. Using archives of WWII intelligence reports from both sides, Prados offers up a compelling reassessment of the true turning in the Pacific: not Midway, but the fight for the Solomon Islands. Combat in the Solomons saw a series of surface naval battles, including one of the key battleship-versus-battleship actions of the war; two major carrier actions; daily air duels, including the aerial ambush in which perished the famous Japanese naval commander Admiral Yamamoto Isoroku; and many other hair-raising exploits. Commencing with the Allied invasion of Guadalcanal, Prados shows how and why the Allies beat Japan on the sea, in the air, and in the jungles.