Also in the past week, my husband and I have been going through boxes of "stuff' and in much the same way that my characters might stumble upon things, we've found a lot of interesting memorabilia, including this "occupation currency" used by the Japanese in the Pacific Islands during the war.
There were also slim volumes about the ordeals of fighting in the islands and the New Guinea jungles (which would have been very useful for research while I was writing The Secret Years) These two pics leapt out at me. These men could so very easily have been Harry Kemp, or one of our very own uncles.
2 comments:
Oh congratulations, I read The Secret Years just this week and I enjoyed it so much. It is worthy of the nomination and I hope you win!! I believe the Australian Government had drawn an imaginary line across Northern Australia, to which the defence forces would fall back in the event of an invasion. It must have been an awful time. I remember watching Tenko and what an awful time the women and children had, of course all the POWs too, but your part in the book with George's aunt made me think of it.
Thank you! I'm so pleased that you enjoyed The Secret Years. And yes, it was widely believed that the government planned to abandon Northern Australia. I referred to that in Moonlight Plains, which included WW2 in Townsville.
Post a Comment