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y separately published work icon The Battle Within : POWs In Postwar Australia multi chapter work   biography  
Issue Details: First known date: 2018... 2018 The Battle Within : POWs In Postwar Australia
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AbstractHistoryArchive Description

'This landmark and compelling book follows the stories of 15,000 Australian prisoners of war from the moment they were released by the Japanese at the end of World War II. Their struggle to rehabilitate themselves and to win compensation and acknowledgement from their own country was just beginning. This moving book shows that the battle within was both a personal and a national one.

'Prize-winning historian Christina Twomey finds that official policies and attitudes towards these men were equivocal and arbitrary for almost forty years. The image of a defeated and emaciated soldier held prisoner by people of a different race did not sit well with the mythology of Anzac. Drawing on the records of the Prisoner of War Trust Fund for the first time, this book presents the struggles of returned prisoners in their own words. It also shows that memories of captivity forged new connections with people of the Asia-Pacific region, as former POWs sought to reconcile with their captors and honour those who had helped them. A grateful nation ultimately lauded and commemorated POWs as worthy veterans from the 1980s, but the real story of the fight to get there has not been told until now.'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of

Works about this Work

Christina Twomey on the Legacies of Captivity for WWII POWs Margaret Hutchison , 2019 single work review
— Appears in: History Australia , vol. 16 no. 3 2019; (p. 598-599)

— Review of The Battle Within : POWs In Postwar Australia Christina Twomey , 2018 multi chapter work biography

'During the Second World War, some 30,000 Australians became POWs. Of the more than 22,000 prisoners held by the Japanese, around 8000 died. This equated to a death toll of 36 per cent, an extraordinary figure when compared with the much lower death toll of 3 per cent suffered by those taken prisoner in the European and North African theatres. The wartime suffering of these men and their experiences of captivity has been the subject of much scholarship. But in The Battle Within: POWs in Post-war Australia, Christina Twomey takes up the narrative of POWs of the Japanese after the ‘camp gates were thrown open’ (5). She eloquently traces both the individual and collective responses of these men and small number of women to the effect of captivity on their lives in the decades following liberation.'  (Introduction)

War’s Long Shadow Tom Hyland , 2018 single work review
— Appears in: Inside Story , March 2018;

— Review of The Battle Within : POWs In Postwar Australia Christina Twomey , 2018 multi chapter work biography
'A new account of postwar Australia challenges the myth that veterans were always treated with respect and sympathy'
y separately published work icon Tracks Were Buckled and Warped : Charging Attitudes to Martially Denuded POWs Carolyn Holbrook , 2018 14223791 2018 single work essay
— Review of The Battle Within : POWs In Postwar Australia Christina Twomey , 2018 multi chapter work biography
y separately published work icon Tracks Were Buckled and Warped : Charging Attitudes to Martially Denuded POWs Carolyn Holbrook , 2018 14223791 2018 single work essay
— Review of The Battle Within : POWs In Postwar Australia Christina Twomey , 2018 multi chapter work biography
y separately published work icon Tracks Were Buckled and Warped : Charging Attitudes to Martially Denuded POWs Carolyn Holbrook , 2018 14223791 2018 single work essay
— Review of The Battle Within : POWs In Postwar Australia Christina Twomey , 2018 multi chapter work biography
Christina Twomey on the Legacies of Captivity for WWII POWs Margaret Hutchison , 2019 single work review
— Appears in: History Australia , vol. 16 no. 3 2019; (p. 598-599)

— Review of The Battle Within : POWs In Postwar Australia Christina Twomey , 2018 multi chapter work biography

'During the Second World War, some 30,000 Australians became POWs. Of the more than 22,000 prisoners held by the Japanese, around 8000 died. This equated to a death toll of 36 per cent, an extraordinary figure when compared with the much lower death toll of 3 per cent suffered by those taken prisoner in the European and North African theatres. The wartime suffering of these men and their experiences of captivity has been the subject of much scholarship. But in The Battle Within: POWs in Post-war Australia, Christina Twomey takes up the narrative of POWs of the Japanese after the ‘camp gates were thrown open’ (5). She eloquently traces both the individual and collective responses of these men and small number of women to the effect of captivity on their lives in the decades following liberation.'  (Introduction)

War’s Long Shadow Tom Hyland , 2018 single work review
— Appears in: Inside Story , March 2018;

— Review of The Battle Within : POWs In Postwar Australia Christina Twomey , 2018 multi chapter work biography
'A new account of postwar Australia challenges the myth that veterans were always treated with respect and sympathy'
y separately published work icon Tracks Were Buckled and Warped : Charging Attitudes to Martially Denuded POWs Carolyn Holbrook , 2018 14223791 2018 single work essay
— Review of The Battle Within : POWs In Postwar Australia Christina Twomey , 2018 multi chapter work biography
Last amended 3 Sep 2018 14:31:28
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