AUSTRALIAN MILITARY World War II –

Details the Second World War Pacific campaign centred around the capture of Lae. The operation serves as a monumental moment in military history, often remembered as the Australian army’s most complex WWII operation and a functional rehearsal for the eventual D-Day invasion of France.

• The Operation: Chronicles the first successful large-scale Allied airborne operation of the war alongside a complex combined amphibious landing.
• The Perspective: Focuses heavily on the human element, weaving together firsthand accounts and extraordinary stories from Australian, American, and Japanese combat participants. 
• The Setting: Beyond the enemy forces, Bradley documents the brutal environmental warfare against New Guinea’s unforgiving terrain—including its cloying jungles, soaring mountains, and raging rivers. 
• Author Background: Phillip Bradley (author of Hell’s Battlefield) lived in Lae for two years, spending decades researching this specific battle to offer incredible clarity and depth
• First Edition. pp.xiv, 322 illusts (number on prelim) #081026

• The most complete telling of one of the most significant campaigns of the Pacific War and Australia’s role in it.

  ‘Java is heaven, Burma is hell, but you never come back alive from New Guinea’ – Japanese military saying

  The capture of Lae was the most complex operation for the Australian army in the Second World War. In many ways it was also a rehearsal for the D-Day invasion of France, with an amphibious landing combined with the first successful large-scale Allied airborne operation of the war. D-Day New Guinea brings together the extraordinary stories of the Australian, American and Japanese participants in this battle, and of the fight against the cloying jungle, the raging rivers and the soaring mountain ranges that made New Guinea such a daunting battlefield.

  Phillip Bradley brings a compelling clarity, humanity and new insight into a little known but crucial Australian battle of the Pacific War.