On Active Service : A Biographical Dictionary of Williams

AUSTRALIAN MILITARY WEST AUSTRALIANA

On Active Service is about men and women who lived in the Williams district who served in war zones. Residents of Williams have served in almost every major conflict since Australia’s Federation.

They served in Egypt, Gallipoli and on the Western Front in the First World War. Some were killed in the great battles or died of their wounds. Others returned shell-shocked or as amputees.

In the Second World War they fought in Europe and in the Pacific region. Four flew in Bomber Command; one was lost in the Nuremberg raid over Germany.

On Active Service includes excerpts from the secret diary of an airman who ditched into the Mediterranean Sea and spent four years as a prisoner of war in Poland.

Some became Japanese prisoners and died as slave labourers on the notorious Thai-Burma railway. One in Z Force was executed.

Families were directly touched by war atrocities: a sister murdered in the surf at Banka Island, a father gassed at Auschwitz.

Returned servicemen from Korea, Malaya, Vietnam, Timor, Iraq and Afghanistan recount their experiences in their own words.

There are more than 200 personal stories, accompanied by 140 photographs. Higham has sourced official records and also drawn on private letters and diaries.

On Active Service is not just a record of military service, it is a social history of a rural community in Western Australia. 

• viii, 408 pages : illustrations, portraits ; 25 cm #060424 SCARCE
• Soldiers — Western Australia — Williams — Biography — Dictionaries
• Williams (W.A.) — Biography — Dictionaries
• Williams (W.A.) — Social conditions
• Australian