Busselton's War 1939-1945 by Tim Blue

Book Description

Secondhand. Very good condition. Minor wear to book corners and edges.

By the winter of 1939, defence chiefs in Canberra were grappling with how to galvanise an under-prepared Australia. First concerns were with Nazi Germany, with whom we were soon at war, and the potential for German naval raiders to attack Indian Ocean convoys.

Busselton stood out as a site from where reconnaissance aircraft could patrol sea lanes. Airstrips were carved from bush and farm paddocks southwest of the town, hangars and administration buildings erected and a radar station sited on Cape Naturaliste.

Hundreds of local men joined up to fight alongside Britain in the skies above Europe and in the deserts of North Africa. Two years later, a new war erupted in the Pacific that would see Australians join Americans to combat Japan on the battlefields of Southeast Asia.

For the people of Busselton and districts, wartime had a dual quality: men went off to fight in distant locations, while the town and neighbourhood threw all their efforts into supporting them in every way. Tim Blue looks at the impact of the Second World War on the lives of men, women and families of the south west.