Guts and Glory

From one of Australia's leading military historians and biographers, Peter Rees, comes Guts and Glory, an enthralling history of the way in which sport is ever present in the wars fought by, or involving, our Australian defence forces.

The spirit of Australia can be seen so clearly in how we play and how we fight. From the famous cricket match played on the beach at Gallipoli as a decoy for the evacuation of Australian troops; to the hero of Tobruk, Changi and the Thai Burma railway, Colonel Sir Ernest Edward 'Weary' Dunlop AC, who so respected his hard-won Wallaby jersey, he insisted on being buried in it; to legendary Test cricketer Keith Miller, fighter pilot in WWII, who famously said, 'Pressure is a Messerschmitt up your arse, playing cricket is not'—sport has always been part of our wars.

A collection of vivid, moving, funny, powerful and poignant sporting stories from the wars fought by the Australian Defence Force, ranging from WWI right through to the present day, Guts and Glory is a book about the way that sport is so often an intrinsic part of war. It explores how sport provides a means for the diggers to cope with the pressures of the battlefield, how the lessons that we learn playing sport can be applied to the art of leadership and warfare, and how mateship and the Australian character and spirit can be seen in the way we fight and the way we play.