Men at War: Australia, Syria, Java 1940-1942

Men at War takes an intimate look at the Australian 2/2nd Pioneer Battalion, which was formed in Victoria in 1940 as Australia entered the Second World War.

In 1941 and 1942, the battalion fought two short and costly campaigns. The first, against the Vichy French in Syria, was victorious and won them fame. The second, in Java against the Japanese, was doomed from the start, with no heavy equipment, little ammunition, and barely enough food to survive. Eventually abandoned by Canberra and the Generals, the battalion was overwhelmed by the superior strength of the Japanese army and became their prisoners of war. (The Thai-Burma Railway years will be covered in a later volume.)

Men at War tells how a thousand strangers became connected with each other and with the battalion, how they varied in background and motivation, how they managed being soldiers – their comradeship, loves, rivalries, homesickness, and sex lives – how they dealt with fear, courage and cowardice, and how they clung to contact with home. It is also a story about how their families dealt with absence, apprehension, and loss.

As a military history, it ranges from broad strategy through to vivid descriptions of hand-to-hand combat told by the Pioneers themselves. As a social history, it ranges from how mothers hoped to prevent their sons from enlisting through to the active role taken by mothers, wives, and sweethearts to support the soldiers through auxiliaries and fundraising.