{"title":"Mike Carlton","description":"\u003cp\u003eMike Carlton’s works immerse readers in the world of naval history and military strife, blending rigorous research with compelling narrative. His books such as \u003cem\u003eCruiser\u003c\/em\u003e and \u003cem\u003eThe Scrap Iron Flotilla\u003c\/em\u003e offer vivid accounts of maritime warfare and the personal experiences of those who served.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eWith a strong focus on history and biography, Carlton brings to life the drama of conflict and the resilience of individuals, whether recounting wartime victories or the trials faced by sailors and airmen. His writing is both informative and evocative, appealing to readers drawn to the human stories behind military events.\u003c\/p\u003e","products":[{"product_id":"dive-by-mike-carlton-9781761342882","title":"Dive","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"book-description\"\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eDive\u003c\/em\u003e by Mike Carlton\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eAustralian submariners at war\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eSubmariners are a special breed. Not for them a life on the ocean wave, the fresh air and sunshine of other naval sailors. With stealth and daring, they go deep and dark, alone and unseen, in often dangerous waters. They sometimes call themselves the Silent Service, with good reason.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eAustralian submariners have done extraordinary deeds in the First and Second World Wars and, more recently, the Cold War. In April 1915, the Australian submarine AE2 penetrated the Dardanelles Strait to 'run amuck', a historic feat that was a turning point in the Gallipoli campaign. Eventually captured, her crew spent three harrowing years as prisoners-of-war in Turkey.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eIn the Second World War, Australian naval volunteers made their name serving in midget submarines, attacking Hitler's mightiest battleship, the Tirpitz, in the icy waters of a Norwegian fjord. Later, they fought the Japanese in the South China Sea.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eAnd in the last half of the twentieth century, RAN submarines played a vital role tracking the Soviet navy in the Pacific Ocean. One wrong move could have led to outright war. The risks they ran, the perils they met and the intelligence they gathered are still classified Top Secret.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eSubmarines and the sailors who serve in them have been and remain the tip of the spear of Australia's defences. For the first time, this is their unique story.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Penguin Random House NZ","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46335996559596,"sku":"9781761342882","price":45.0,"currency_code":"NZD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0705\/7784\/8556\/files\/9781761342882.jpg?v=1743665521"},{"product_id":"the-scrap-iron-flotilla-by-mike-carlton-9781761042010","title":"The Scrap Iron Flotilla","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"book-description\"\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWinner of the 2022 Commodore Sam Bateman Book Prize, awarded annually by the Australian Naval Institute to recognise excellence in books making a major contribution to naval and maritime matters.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eWhen the Second World War broke out in September 1939, the British asked Australia for help. With some misgivings, the Australian government sent five destroyers to beef up the British Royal Navy in the Mediterranean.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eHMAS Vendetta, Vampire, Voyager, Stuart and Waterhen were old ships, small with worn-out engines. Their crews used to joke they were held together by string and chewing gum; when the Nazi propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels heard of them, he sneered that they were a load of scrap iron.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eYet by the middle of 1940, these destroyers were valiantly escorting troop and supply convoys, successfully hunting for submarines, and indefatigably bombarding enemy coasts. Sometimes the weather could be their worst enemy - from filthy sandstorms blowing off Africa to icy gales from Europe that whipped up mountainous seas and froze the guns. Conditions on board were terrible - no showers or proper washing facilities; cramped and stinking sleeping quarters; unpleasant meals of spam and tinned sausages, often served cold in a howling squall. And always the bombing, the bombing. And the fear of submarines.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eWhen Nazi Germany invaded Greece, the Allied armies - including Australian Divisions - reeled in retreat. The Australian ships were among those who had to rescue thousands of soldiers. Then came the Siege of Tobruk - Australian troops holding out in that small Libyan port city. The Australian destroyers ran 'the Tobruk Ferry' - bringing supplies of food, medicine and ammunition into the shattered port by night, and taking off wounded soldiers.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eBut the four destroyers now left were struggling, suffering from constant engine breakdowns, with crews beleaguered by two years of bombings, wild seas, and the endless fear of being sunk. In late 1941 the ships were finally sent home, staggering back to Australia, proudly calling themselves the \u003cem\u003eScrap Iron Flotilla\u003c\/em\u003e in defiance of Goebbels' sneer. That flotilla is now an immortal part of Australian naval legend, and this is its story.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Penguin Random House NZ","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46337821245676,"sku":"9781761042010","price":27.0,"currency_code":"NZD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0705\/7784\/8556\/files\/27807043482814.jpg?v=1743720885"},{"product_id":"cruiser-by-mike-carlton-9781864711332","title":"Cruiser","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"book-description\"\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eOf all the Australians who fought in the Second World War, none saw more action nor endured so much of its hardship and horror as the crew of the cruiser HMAS Perth. Most were young—many were still teenagers—from cities and towns, villages and farms across the nation.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eIn three tumultuous years, they did battle with the forces of Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy, the Vichy French and, finally, the Imperial Japanese Navy. They were nearly lost in a hurricane in the Atlantic. In the Mediterranean in 1941, they were bombed by the Luftwaffe and the Italian Air Force for months on end until, ultimately, during the disastrous evacuation of the Australian army from Crete, their ship took a direct hit and thirteen men were killed.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eAfter the fall of Singapore in 1942, HMAS Perth was hurled into the forlorn campaign to stem the Japanese advance towards Australia. Off the coast of Java in March that year, she met an overwhelming enemy naval force. Firing until her ammunition literally ran out, she was sunk with the loss of 353 of her crew, including her much-loved captain and the Royal Australian Navy's finest fighting sailor, 'Hardover' Hec Waller.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eAnother 328 men were taken into Japanese captivity, most to become slave labourers in the infinite hell of the Burma-Thai railway. Many died there, victims of unspeakable atrocity. Only 218 men, less than a third of her crew, survived to return home at war's end.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\u003ci\u003eCruiser\u003c\/i\u003e, by journalist and broadcaster Mike Carlton, is their story. And the story of those who loved them and waited for them.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Penguin Random House NZ","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46338494660844,"sku":"9781864711332","price":42.0,"currency_code":"NZD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0705\/7784\/8556\/files\/25326033482851.jpg?v=1743732920"},{"product_id":"flagship-by-mike-carlton-9780857987785","title":"Flagship","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"book-description\"\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIn 1924, the grand old battle cruiser HMAS Australia I was sunk off Sydney Heads. Once she had been the pride of the navy and the nation. She had saved Australia from an attack by a German squadron in the Pacific in World War I. But after the war, she was obsolete, and a victim in the race to disarm after WWI. It was a day of national mourning when they blew the bottom out of her; she went to her sea grave smothered in flowers and wreaths sent from around the country.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eFour years later, in 1928, the RAN acquired a new ship of the same name, the fast and modern heavy cruiser HMAS Australia II. During the Depression of the early 30s, the navy virtually rotted on the beach - until the world so belatedly awoke to the menace of Hitler's Germany. Australia saw her first action of World War II against the Vichy French, during the abortive 1940 attempt to install the young General de Gaulle as free French leader in Dakar, West Africa. She patrolled the North Atlantic on the lookout for German battleships and - in a feat of amazing seamanship - rescued the crew of a downed RAF Coastal Command aircraft in the teeth of an Atlantic gale. She was later bombed by the Luftwaffe in Liverpool.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eAustralia returned home to join the war against the Japanese, as the flagship of the RAN. Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane were flooded with Americans 'overpaid, oversexed and over here'. Many Australian servicemen resented the Yanks and their magnetic attraction for the local girls. The so-called Battle of Brisbane in 1942 was two days and nights of out-of-control brawling and rioting, with the Americans on one side and the Australians on the other. One Australian was killed, and dozens of other men were wounded. The whole affair was heavily censored.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eIn March 1942, the ship was stunned by a murder. One night at sea, a sailor, Stoker Riley, was found stabbed and bleeding to death on the fo'c's'le. Before he died, he named his two attackers, fellow stokers Gordon and Elias. They'd tried to kill him, he said, because he'd threatened to expose their homosexual activities in the ship. At a hastily arranged court martial, Gordon and Elias were found guilty and sentenced to death under British Admiralty law. That provoked a major constitutional row, because the death penalty did not apply in Australia. Eventually, they were reprieved.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eOnly weeks later, Australia fought in the Battle of the Coral Sea near Papua New Guinea, the first sea battle to stop the Japanese advance in the Pacific. She was heavily attacked and bombed from the air but, with brilliant ship-handling, escaped unscathed. That luck did not last. In 1944, she took part in the greatest sea fight of all time, the Battle of Leyte Gulf, which returned the American General Douglas MacArthur to the Philippines. Australia was struck by a kamikaze bomber, killing her captain and 28 other men. The next year, 1945, she was hit again and again, by no fewer than four kamikaze planes.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eFlagship\u003c\/em\u003e by Mike Carlton vividly recounts these stories, blending history and drama, offering a gripping account of this emblematic naval ship's journey through a tumultuous period.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Penguin Random House NZ","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46338501378284,"sku":"9780857987785","price":36.0,"currency_code":"NZD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0705\/7784\/8556\/files\/12803383482493.jpg?v=1743733079"},{"product_id":"the-scrap-iron-flotilla-by-mike-carlton-9781761042003","title":"The Scrap Iron Flotilla","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"book-description\"\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe British Admiralty's telegram arrived at Navy Office in Melbourne, the order to go to all-out war. It was coldly succinct: TOTAL GERMANY... The war at sea had begun.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eWhen the Second World War broke out in September 1939, the British asked Australia for help. With some misgivings, the Australian government sent five destroyers to beef up the British Royal Navy in the Mediterranean.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eHMAS Vendetta, Vampire, Voyager, Stuart and Waterhen were old ships, small with worn-out engines. Their crews used to joke they were held together by string and chewing gum; when the Nazi propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels heard of them, he sneered that they were a load of scrap iron.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eYet by the middle of 1940, these destroyers were valiantly escorting troop and supply convoys, successfully hunting for submarines and indefatigably bombarding enemy coasts. Sometimes the weather could be their worst enemy - from filthy sandstorms blowing off Africa to icy gales from Europe that whipped up mountainous seas and froze the guns.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eConditions on board were terrible - no showers or proper washing facilities; cramped and stinking sleeping quarters; unpleasant meals of spam and tinned sausages, often served cold in a howling squall. And always the bombing, the bombing. And the fear of submarines.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eWhen Nazi Germany invaded Greece, the Allied armies - including Australian Divisions - reeled in retreat. The Australian ships were among those who had to rescue thousands of soldiers. Then came the Siege of Tobruk - Australian troops holding out in that small Libyan port city. The Australian destroyers ran 'the Tobruk Ferry' - bringing supplies of food, medicine and ammunition into the shattered port by night, and taking off wounded soldiers.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eBut the four destroyers now left were struggling, suffering from constant engine breakdowns, with crews beleaguered by two years of bombings, wild seas and the endless fear of being sunk. In late 1941 the ships were finally sent home, staggering back to Australia, proudly calling themselves the \u003cem\u003eScrap Iron Flotilla\u003c\/em\u003e in defiance of the Goebbels' sneer. That flotilla is now an immortal part of Australian naval legend, and this is its story.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Penguin Random House NZ","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46338574057708,"sku":"9781761042003","price":36.0,"currency_code":"NZD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0705\/7784\/8556\/files\/27806973482814.jpg?v=1743736031"},{"product_id":"first-victory-by-mike-carlton-9781742757643","title":"First Victory","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"book-description\"\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eHMAS Sydney\u003c\/em\u003e's hunt for the German raider, \u003cem\u003eEmden\u003c\/em\u003e. When the ships of the new Royal Australian Navy made their grand entry into Sydney Harbour in October 1913, a young nation was at peace. Under a year later, Australia had gone to war in what was seen as a noble fight for king, country, and Empire.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eThousands of young men joined up for the adventure of having a crack at the Kaiser. Indeed, the German threat to Australia was real and very near in the Pacific islands to our north, and in the Indian Ocean. In the opening months of the war, a German raider, \u003cem\u003eEmden\u003c\/em\u003e, wreaked havoc on the maritime trade of the British Empire.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eIts battle against the Australian cruiser \u003cem\u003eHMAS Sydney\u003c\/em\u003e, when it finally came, was short and bloody—an emphatic first victory at sea for the fledgling Royal Australian Navy. This is the stirring story of the perilous opening months of the Great War and the bloody sea battle that destroyed the \u003cem\u003eEmden\u003c\/em\u003e in a triumph for Australia that resounded around the world.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eIn the century since, many writers have been there before Mike Carlton. Most were German, some of them survivors of the battle, others later historians.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Penguin Random House NZ","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46338650374380,"sku":"9781742757643","price":36.0,"currency_code":"NZD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0705\/7784\/8556\/files\/13478113482808.jpg?v=1743741470"},{"product_id":"on-air-by-mike-carlton-9780857987815","title":"On Air","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"book-description\"\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eOn Air\u003c\/em\u003e is Mike Carlton's story, no holds barred.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eMike Carlton was born to controversy. His father Jimmy, a renowned Olympic athlete and later a Catholic priest, married his mother after a whirlwind wartime courtship. This scandal was hushed up at first, but eventually, it made headlines. Six years later, Jimmy Carlton died in his wife's arms, felled by asthma.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eIt was a tough beginning. Mike would have a Sydney suburban childhood where every penny counted. Unable to afford a university education, he left school at sixteen to begin a life in journalism that would propel him to the top, as one of Australia's best-known media figures.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eIn an often turbulent career of more than fifty years, he has been a war correspondent, political reporter, a TV news and current affairs reporter, an award-winning radio presenter in both Sydney and London, an outspoken newspaper columnist, and a biting satirist. In later life, he realised a lifelong ambition to write three bestselling books of Australian naval history.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eOn Air\u003c\/em\u003e is his story, no holds barred. With characteristic humour and flair, Mike tells of the feuds and the friendships, the fun and the follies, writing candidly of the extraordinary parade of characters and events he has encountered in the unique life he has led.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Penguin Random House NZ","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46375867252972,"sku":"9780857987815","price":35.0,"currency_code":"NZD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0705\/7784\/8556\/files\/12803683482493.jpg?v=1744828565"},{"product_id":"the-burning-blue-by-mike-carlton-9781761354960","title":"The Burning Blue","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"book-description\"\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe stunning new book from \u003cem\u003eone of Australia's foremost naval historians\u003c\/em\u003e (Australian) on the Royal Australian Navy's Fleet Air Arm.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eThroughout the twentieth century, the pilots of the Royal Australian Navy carved their name with pride to build a service that would take shape as the Navy's Fleet Air Arm.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eAustralian naval aviators stood tall in the gallant ranks of the fighter Aces of World War 1. They fought, and some of them died, above the bloody trenches of France and Flanders, where—alone in the freezing, open cockpits of aircraft made from wood, wire and canvas—they duelled with the likes of Germany's legendary Red Baron.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eThe next generation flew in the grey gloom of the North Sea and the icy Arctic against Hitler's battleships, and in the sunny blue skies or the dust storms of the Mediterranean to meet the Luftwaffe and Mussolini's air force.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eIn Korea—the so-called 'forgotten war'—they launched with bombs and rockets from the snowy and ice-encrusted flight deck of the aircraft carrier HMAS Sydney.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eVietnam, the first helicopter war, was a theatre of sometimes tempestuous tropical skies, of rain forests, rice paddies and the perils of a 'hot' landing zone under fire in some jungle clearing.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eThroughout the twentieth century, the pilots of the Royal Australian Navy carved their name with pride to build a service that would take shape as the Navy's Fleet Air Arm. And not just the pilots. The observers, the engineers, the mechanics, the aircraft maintainers—and the families, too—were in the thick of it, creating a tradition.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eIn wartime, the perils were evident. But peace has its hazards and dangers too, for naval flying is ever at the cutting edge. The most skilled and experienced pilots found it daunting to land at night on the deck of a carrier, a tiny rectangle pitching and rolling in a vast, dark ocean. Accident and death hovered not far away.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eThe Burning Blue\u003c\/em\u003e tells the stories of these men, much of it in their own words. They are the heroes who flew high in the Burning Blue.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Penguin Random House NZ","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47582731305196,"sku":"9781761354960","price":40.0,"currency_code":"NZD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0705\/7784\/8556\/files\/9781761354960-the-burning-blue.jpg?v=1777438095"}],"url":"https:\/\/bookhero.pro\/collections\/mike-carlton.oembed","provider":"Book Hero","version":"1.0","type":"link"}