Battle of Gate Pa 150th Commemoration Te Pakanga O Pukehinahina 29 April 1864

$10.00 NZD

Category: Maori | Reading Level: very good

Gallipoli: The New Zealand Story by Christopher Pugsley

$35.00 NZD

Category: New Zealand | Reading Level: very good

Major Thomas Bunbury: Envoy Extraordinary, New Zealand's Soldier-Treatymaker by Alan Lambourn

$20.00 NZD

Category: New Zealand | Reading Level: very good

Wayfarer & Warrior: The Monowai Story by Jack S. Harker

$20.00 NZD

Category: Naval | Reading Level: very good

'The Monowai' holds a special place in the hearts of many New Zealanders, Americans and assorted members of the British Commonwealth armed forces. Both Monowais were the latest liners of their times and both served as troopships - from the Boer War to World War I, and the Pacific and D-Day theatres of W orld War II, during which she was converted to an armed merchant cruiser. Many danced the night away and found romance on Monowai during local or Pacific cruises, others used her as a Tasman Sea taxi to and from Australia, and in the 1940s she would provide the first and last sea voyage in many young lives. In the tradition of his previous books on New Zealand's cruisers, Jack Harker relates this history of the two Monowais with the benefit of eye-witness accounts from the veterans. ...Show more

Free Lodgings: The true story of a Kiwi soldier's amazing bid for freedom by Peter Winter

$12.00 NZD

Category: New Zealand | Reading Level: very good

HMNZS Achilles by Jack S. Harker

$40.00 NZD

Category: Naval | Reading Level: very good

On My Way to the Somme: New Zealanders and the bloody offensive of 1916 by Andrew Macdonald

$14.00 NZD

Category: New Zealand | Reading Level: good

On My Way to the Somme examines New Zealand’s role in the Somme battles of 1916. In telling the story of New Zealand soldiers who took part in the bloody offensive Andrew Macdonald has used a wide range of primary and secondary resources, most of them hitherto unpublished. The book is written through the eyes of those who were there, but it is more than a narrative. At every turn Macdonald has endeavoured to explain how and why certain events unfolded, both at a micro and macro level. He has been careful to assess the strengths and weakness of the Division’s performance on the Somme and the military lessons it drew from fighting there. His book includes studies of command, training, discipline, morale, environment, and tactics of the day. It also looks at the role of Maori in the Somme offensive, and finishes with a chapter looking at the legacy of the 1916 offensive. It is a story of human endurance, growth and suffering in the context of a WW1 battle and afterwards. Yet, it is also a military history written within a conventional framework. On My Way to the Somme is very much part of the New Zealand story and is a key to understanding who we are as a people today. "This is a very worthy addition to war books, it's well done... It's dense and detailed and written in an accessible way, plenty here for the specialised reader and plenty in detail and colour and the material that's used will pull you in. Extraordinary piece of archival research." - Speaking Volumes, National Programme "On my way to the Somme is a vividly descriptive book. It is a 'blood, sweat, and endure' book. As such it is a hard one to read but only because of the realism that Andrew Macdonald manages to capture with some quite masterly prose. It is even harder to put the book down." - The Press "He (Andrew Macdonald) evokes the emotional and material immensity of the Somme and the war splendidly, and his narrative is steadily respectful and compassionate towards the men who fill it. Bring on his second book." - Canvas, NZ Herald ...Show more

New Zealand Images of War by Tony Martin

$25.00 NZD

Category: New Zealand | Reading Level: very good

For the Duration: 2NZEF Officer Bruce Robertson on Active Duty and 'in the Bag' by Bruce Robertson

$25.00 NZD

Category: New Zealand | Reading Level: very good

Infantryman Bruce Robertson had a long war. A volunteer with the First Echelon, he entered Trentham Military Camp in October 1939, sailed for the Middle East in January 1940 and entered Maadi Camp near Cairo late the following month. While other early volunteers returned home on furlough in 1943 - m any permanently - Bruce found himself overseas for the duration after being captured by Rommel's troops during the first Battle of El Alamein in July 1942. He would see out the rest of the war behind barbed wire in Italy and Germany. Arriving in Egypt as a private soldier, he later received officer training. In February 1942, as a newly commissioned lieutenant, he travelled to Syria, where 2NZEF was on border watch for German troops that might seek a back door route to Egypt via Turkey and Syria. During this time, Bruce began to write about his experiences, initially in the form of recollections and later as diary entries. Bruce Robertson has given one of our more detailed and perceptive personal accounts of Kiwi war service, from both active service and POW points of view. . ...Show more

Ways and By-Ways of a Singing Kiwi with the NZ Divisional Entertainers in France by Ernest McKinlay

$15.00 NZD

Category: New Zealand | Reading Level: good

Make Her Praises Heard Afar: The Untold story of New Zealand Women in WW1 by Jane Tolerton

$25.00 NZD

Category: New Zealand | Reading Level: very good

The history books tell us that about 550 New Zealand nurses went to World War One while other women stayed home, knitting, fundraising and looking after families and farms while the men were away. But many women went too, as doctors and ambulance drivers, munitions workers and mathematicians, civil serv ants and servicewomen in British units, and in many other roles. They mainly paid their own fares and worked for very little. Some provided amenities for soldiers and others, and these have often been attributed to the military or men’s groups. Make her Praises Heard Afar introduces women whose contribution to the war effort has been overlooked, telling an astonishing story with extraordinary range and depth of research. The title’s use of a phrase from the national anthem invites New Zealand women to recognise that they were us, 100 years ago. New Zealand women who have read World War One books by men and about men are ready to appreciate that women were there too. This book will appeal to a wide range of women particularly those interested in women’s history, feminism and World War One. There is much interest from family members of these women and from young women. The book is written for a wide readership in simple, accessible prose. Jane is the author of a New Zealand Book Award winning biography of Ettie Rout, the New Zealand woman most associated in the public mind with World War One. She wrote a second book on Ettie in 2014, focussing on her wartime safe sex campaign, Ettie Rout: New Zealand’s safer sex pioneer. She was co-director of the World War One Oral History Archive, and interviewed 85 veterans. She produced In the Shadow of War, with Nicholas Boyack, and in 2013 listened to the whole archive to produce An Awfully Big Adventure, telling the story of the war in the men’s words, chronologically. She uses the chronological format for Make Her Praises Heard Afar, telling stories of individuals and groups through the war, using extended quotes when appropriate. There is expected to be wide interest in the book from the media as it upsets the generally accepted story and shows that New Zealand women have been left out of the national narrative of the war.  ...Show more

The Waikato War 1863-1864 by John Featon

$35.00 NZD

Category: Maori | Reading Level: very good