The Awakening (1937) By Capt. G. D. Mitchell
 
"One red dawn in 1938 the inhabitants of the coastal towns and cities of Queensland and New South Wales are suddenly attacked by an enemy from the sea. 
 
The hero of the tale is one John Cromwell, an ex-major of the A.I.F., then living in North Queensland.  He organizes a commando from farmers, bushmen and refugees, and conducts a guerrilla war against the invaders.  
 
After a series of epic battles, the commando is exterminated in a last desperate stand at Bulli Pass."
 
Novel by Australian author George Deane Mitchell describing the invasion of an unprepared Australia.
 
The Awakening contains an enthusiastic introduction by Billy Hughes, warning that the British supremacy of the seas, which guaranteed our security, has gone, but invoking historical examples like that of the Greco-Persian wars, where small numbers successfully defend against invading hordes.
 
It was more prescient than most, however, given its publication only 5 years before the Japanese bombing of Darwin.
 
The author, George Dean Mitchell, served at Gallipoli and in France.  One of his exploits, a stroll through heavy enemy lines, shouldering his Lewis Gun, became the stuff of A.I.F. legend.    The Australian Dictionary of Biography says of him that he "wrote the A.I.F.'s most evocative diary, with a knack of seeing the significance in events."
 
During World War 2 he ended up living his own story,  leading an independent guerrilla force in north-west Australia in 1942-43, which lived off the land for weeks while searching for Japanese and training local resistance.
 
This copy is the Syd Nicholls illustrated jacket. 
 
Hard Cover With Dust Jacket
280 Pages
In Fair Condition