Defending Britain: Australia's Few and the Battle of Britain

I am thrilled to announce that  Newsouth Publishing, a division of the University of New South Wales Press, will publish my book on eight Australian fighter pilots in the Battle of Britain. The manuscript, dubbed by me as Australia's Few currently has a provisional title of Defending Britain: Australia's Few and the Battle of Britain.

 

It won't be long before the full stories of Australian Battle of Britain pilots John Connolly (Jack) Kennedy, Stuart Crosby Walch, Richard Lindsay (Dick) Glyde, Paterson Clarence (Pat) Hughes, Kenneth Christopher (Ken) Holland, John Dallas Crossman, William Henry (Bill) Millington Jr and Desmond Frederick Burt (Des) Sheen will be told.

 

I have to deliver the manuscript by the end of February 2014 and am currently finishing off the last chapter before I do a big edit/revision. If anyone has any information about these pilots they wish to share, please contact me as soon as possible.

 

 

Miss Celia Macdonald of the Isles

My essay entitled ‘Miss Celia Macdonald of the Isles "who has been a particularly good friend"’, which won the Military Historical Society of Australia’s 2013 Sabretache Writers’ Prize, has just been published in the September 2013 issue of Sabretache, the Journal of the Military Historical Society of Australia.

 

 

Forest Row honours John Crossman again.

On 4 October 1940, John Dallas Crossman, who had been killed in action on 30 September, was buried at the Chalfont St Giles parish church, next to his Aunt Florence.

Each year, Forest Row where he crashed, remembers. Someone either visits or organises for a wreath or posy to be laid on his grave. It is heart warming to know that John is not forgotten by those he helped to defend in 1940.

 

 

(The flowering pot plant was placed by one of those from the Chalfont St Giles Parish who cares for John's grave)