Shrouded Secrets: Japan's War on Mainland Australia, 1942-1944 by Richard Connaughton

Book Description

Secondhand. Good condition. Ex library copy with no external stickers. Wear to book corners and edges. Sticky tape remnant on front and back covers used to stick dust jacket to book. Stamps on inside. Price clipped. Dust jacket has creasing at edges and at spine.

Darwin, 19 February 1942 - over 200 die, two dozen ships are lost or badly damaged, and an airfield is destroyed as aircraft of the Imperial Japanese Navy carry out an attack reminiscent of Pearl Harbour.

Broom, 3 March 1942 - in a second surprise attack, the Japanese pilots return to Australia, this time to destroy ships and flying boats in Broome Harbour. Over 70 people, many of them civilians, lose their lives.

Cowra, 5 August 1944 - 344 Japanese prisoner-of-war escape from their prison camp in New South Wales town. In the ensuing melee, over 200 of them die, along with four Australian soldiers.

The Australian government went to great lengths to ensure that knowledge of these three highly embarrassing incidents did not get out. All three have since been related separately, but here, for the first time, Richard Connaughton brings them together in a single account. (back cover)