Bøger af Jim Haynes

In the many years Jim has spent talking and writing about the quirkier events and people in our history, he has come across characters whose lives have amazed, surprised and amused him. This is a book about some of those people and their bizarre, remarkable and out of the ordinary lives. And in only the way Jim can, he's discovered that there is always more to the story than first meets the eye. Who knew, example, that the first man hanged in Australia made an artefact now valued at over one million dollars? Or that an Australian swimmer was the highest paid act on the American vaudeville circuit and the star of the first movie ever made with a budget of one million American dollars? And that the father of the first Australian woman to serve in parliament was hanged for murder? These are the stories of lives that capture the heart and soul of the Australian character.--

Here are the stories of Australia's iconic battles and campaigns from the time of federation to the Vietnam War. Some are still household names, although their historical significance may be a mystery to most Aussies. Others are barely remembered now, but are part in our history and deserve to be retold. Most importantly, this collection demonstrates the extraordinary courage, resilience, stoic humor, personal heroism, and sacrifice that created the legend of the Aussie digger, soldiers, sailors and airmen who did things their own way and earned the undying respect of both their allies and their enemies. These are the stories that explain Australia's wartime reputation. Fifteen years before Gallipoli, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, writing of stoic Australian courage, would say, "When the ballad makers of Australia seek for a subject, let them turn to Elands River." Of Gallipoli, a British officer called the cheerful, insubordinate Aussies "the bravest thing God ever made." And before the Normandy invasion, Field Marshall Montgomery's chief of staff remarked, "I only wish we had the Australian 9th Division with us this morning."