The Amazing SAS by Ian McPhedran sits somewhere between investigative journalism, institutional history, and popular military narrative. First published in 2005, the book arrived at a moment when the Australian SAS Regiment occupied a growing place in Australian public imagination following deployments to East Timor, Afghanistan, Iraq, domestic counterterrorism duties, and the post 9/11 security environment.

The great strength of the book is access. McPhedran was one of Australia’s most connected defence journalists and clearly enjoyed substantial cooperation from senior officers, political figures, and serving SAS personnel. Interviews with figures such as Peter Cosgrove, Peter Leahy, Gus Gilmore, Tim McOwan, and serving soldiers provide immediacy and institutional perspective rarely available in Australian military publishing at the time.The result is a readable and often compelling account of selection, training culture, operational preparation, and the emotional pressures surrounding special operations service.

As narrative military journalism, the book works extremely well. McPhedran understands pacing and operational storytelling. The descriptions of selection courses, patrol preparation, small unit culture, and deployment cycles are engaging without collapsing entirely into sensationalism. The sections dealing with East Timor and the early Afghanistan deployments are particularly effective because they capture a transitional Australian Army moving from peacekeeping assumptions into the operational tempo of the War on Terror. Readers interested in the atmosphere and institutional mindset of the SAS during the early 2000s will find considerable value here.

The book also deserves credit for helping open Australian public discussion about special operations forces at a time when very little accessible material existed on the Australian SAS. Australian military publishing had often lagged behind British and American equivalents in presenting modern special forces history to a broader audience. Contemporary reviewers noted that little serious material had been written about the SAS before McPhedran’s work.

At the same time, the book’s greatest strength is also its greatest limitation. The access comes at a price. The narrative remains very close to the official perspective of the regiment and senior defence leadership. Even to frequently presenting the “official account” of controversial events and seldom subjects institutional claims to sustained critical analysis.

Another issue is the tone can occasionally drift toward admiration rather than examination. Operational failures, ambiguities, political complexities, and ethical tensions are generally softened or passed over quickly.

This means the book is best treated with some caution as it reflects the public image and institutional culture of the Australian SAS in the immediate post 9/11 era rather than as a definitive analytical history. It captures how the regiment wished to be seen and how defence journalism of the period framed Australian special operations capability. In that sense it is historically valuable even where it lacks critical distance and must be treated with a keen analytical eye.

The operational coverage is also constrained by timing. Published before later Afghanistan controversies and subsequent war crimes inquiries transformed public understanding of Australian special operations, the book now reads partly as a snapshot of an earlier phase of public perception. Modern readers approaching it after the Brereton Inquiry will inevitably notice the absence of the harder questions that later emerged regarding operational culture, accountability, and the psychological pressures of repeated deployments. That is not entirely McPhedran’s fault; the book belongs to a specific historical moment.

Stylistically, McPhedran writes in a direct journalistic voice rather than an academic one. The prose is fast moving, accessible, and occasionally dramatic. Some readers will appreciate the momentum while others may find the tone occasionally too celebratory. It is not a deeply footnoted scholarly work in the style of official histories or operational monographs. Instead, it functions as narrative reportage with strong insider access.

Overall, The Amazing SAS remains an important early popular account of the Australian SAS Regiment. It is readable, informative, and often gripping, but it should be approached with awareness of its institutional proximity and limited critical distance. As a piece of defence journalism and a cultural snapshot of the Australian military in the early War on Terror period, it remains highly worthwhile. Not my style but OK if it is something you are interested in.

Aboriginal Melbourne: The Lost Land of the Kulin People is one of those books that sits in an important transitional space within Australian historical writing. It is not simply a local history of Aboriginal people around Melbourne, nor is it purely an archaeological study. What Presland was really attempting to do was reconstruct an erased world and force readers to understand that Melbourne was not founded upon empty land but upon an already occupied, culturally shaped, economically productive landscape belonging to the Kulin nations.

That may sound obvious now, but when the book first appeared this was still a significant challenge to mainstream Victorian historical memory. Much earlier Melbourne history either ignored Aboriginal people almost entirely or treated them as a fading background presence who disappeared once settlement began. Presland pushed directly against this older settler narrative. He repositioned Aboriginal people and Country at the centre of Melbourne’s story rather than leaving them at its margins.

The strongest aspect of the book remains its reconstruction of landscape and environment. Presland understood that if readers were going to rethink Melbourne’s history they first needed to rethink the land itself. The city disappears in his narrative and is replaced with wetlands, grasslands, eel rich waterways, volcanic plains, hunting grounds, yam fields, travel corridors, ceremonial locations, and seasonal resource zones. One of the great achievements of the book is that after reading it many familiar parts of Melbourne no longer look historically neutral. Rivers stop being decorative urban features and become economic and cultural arteries. Swamps stop appearing as useless wasteland awaiting drainage and instead emerge as rich productive environments central to Aboriginal life.

This environmental reconstruction is where Presland was genuinely ahead of many historians of his generation. Long before works such as Dark Emu or The Biggest Estate on Earth became widely discussed, Presland was already arguing that Aboriginal people actively shaped and managed the Victorian landscape rather than merely existing within it passively. He presented the Kulin world as organised, structured, adaptive, and economically sophisticated.

Importantly, however, Presland’s work is generally more careful and restrained than some later popular interpretations. He does not overstate evidence or try to force grand continental conclusions from limited local material. His arguments are usually grounded in archaeology, ecology, early settler observations, and environmental evidence. That caution gives much of the book lasting credibility even where details have since been refined by later scholarship.

At the same time, the book clearly reflects the intellectual environment in which it was written. There are sections where Aboriginal people feel slightly distant within the narrative because the reconstruction is driven heavily through archaeology and environmental interpretation rather than Indigenous voice. Presland reconstructs systems, landscapes, food resources, movement patterns, and settlement logic extremely well, but modern readers may notice that Aboriginal perspectives themselves are not always foregrounded in the way contemporary scholarship now expects.

This creates one of the central tensions within the book. On one hand Presland is challenging settler erasure by demonstrating the depth and sophistication of Kulin occupation. On the other hand the language and methods sometimes still carry traces of older archaeological and anthropological traditions where Aboriginal societies are examined from outside rather than speaking directly within the historical narrative themselves.

The title itself reveals this tension. The phrase “Lost Land” works emotionally because it captures the enormous environmental and cultural destruction that accompanied colonisation. Presland is describing a landscape that was physically transformed almost beyond recognition. Wetlands disappeared. Water systems changed. Sacred and economically important areas were destroyed or built over. From that perspective the title is entirely understandable.

Yet modern readers may also feel some discomfort with the language of loss because it risks implying disappearance or finality. Contemporary Indigenous scholarship places far greater emphasis upon survival, continuity, sovereignty, and ongoing cultural connection to Country. The Kulin world was violently disrupted, but it was not extinguished. In that sense the title reflects a late twentieth century historical framework still moving away from older “vanishing race” assumptions without having fully reached the language of Indigenous continuity that dominates much current scholarship.

One of the more interesting aspects of the book is what it chooses not to focus on. Presland is primarily concerned with reconstructing the Aboriginal world before and during early settlement rather than producing a detailed study of frontier violence or colonial conflict. Violence and dispossession are acknowledged throughout the work, but they are not analysed with the same sustained intensity seen in later historians such as Henry Reynolds or Lyndall Ryan.

That absence is important because it reflects the historiographical moment in which the book was produced. Presland’s intervention was spatial and environmental. He was first trying to establish that Melbourne itself possessed a deep Aboriginal history embedded in Country. Later generations of historians increasingly shifted attention toward frontier violence, massacre studies, resistance, policing, and sovereignty. Presland was opening the door to that broader reassessment even if his own work stopped short of fully entering those debates.

The book is also important because it helped localise Aboriginal history for non Indigenous Victorians. Australian history has often treated Aboriginal history as something distant from urban life, something belonging to deserts, remote communities, or frontier regions far removed from major cities. Presland challenged that directly. He demonstrated that Melbourne itself is Aboriginal historical space. The modern city was constructed over a much older cultural landscape that remained partially visible if readers were willing to look carefully enough.

This is ultimately why the book remains significant. Even where later scholarship has revised or expanded upon Presland’s arguments, the central intellectual shift he encouraged still matters. He taught readers to see Melbourne differently. He challenged the assumption that urban Australia lacked deep Indigenous history. He forced the landscape itself back into historical discussion.

Stylistically the work sits somewhere between academic history and public history. Presland writes clearly and accessibly, which helped the book reach a broad audience beyond universities. In some respects that accessibility limits the analytical density of the work, but it also explains why the book became influential. It was readable, grounded, and persuasive without becoming trapped in academic jargon.

Looking back now, the book feels less like a final interpretation and more like an important turning point within Victorian historical writing. It belongs to that generation of scholarship that began dismantling terra nullius at the local level by reconstructing Aboriginal occupation, environmental management, and cultural geography in ways many Australians had simply never considered before. Its greatest achievement may not be that every conclusion remains current, but that it fundamentally changed how many readers understood Melbourne itself.

I have been trying to get a hold of this one for a while and glad I have been able to finally add to the collection. As indicated above it is an older work (this one printed in 1995) and reflects its time, which of itself make it an interesting read.

An added bonus was this newspaper cutting that I found between the pages.

The Cauldron of Blood is a Daemon Engine used by the forces of Chaos that is completely dedicated to the service of the Chaos God of war and bloodshed, Khorne.

The veins of Daemons flow not with mortal blood but the red-hot lava of Daemon blood. A huge, bubbling cauldron of Daemon blood is carried on top of the Daemon Engine to supply the great cannon which juts out of its front. Once targets are within range a great gout of blood is fired through the projecting nozzle, raining the foe with molten lava.

This profane liquid flows over and around cover, and can reduce whole buildings to rubble. Like all Daemon Engines of Khorne, the Cauldron of Blood also carries massive combat blades on its prow to slice through the opposition. Warhammer 40k Fandom

The “Khorne Cauldron of Blood” is one of the more obscure and visually striking Chaos war machines produced by Games Workshop during the late 1980s and early 1990s for the original Epic scale and early Warhammer 40,000 Chaos ranges. It belongs to the wider family of Khorne daemon engines that emerged during the formative expansion of Chaos lore in the late Rogue Trader era. The miniature first appeared in the era when Games Workshop and Citadel Miniatures were rapidly developing the visual identity of Chaos. During this period, Chaos was transformed from a relatively generic fantasy evil force into a highly developed mythology centred on the four Chaos Gods: Khorne, Nurgle, Tzeentch, and Slaanesh. The publication of Realm of Chaos: Slaves to Darkness was especially important in establishing Khorne’s imagery of brass, skulls, blood sacrifice, chain axes, and daemon infused machinery.

The Cauldron of Blood itself was not originally a mainstream plastic kit in the modern sense. It appeared as a specialist Chaos daemon engine in Epic scale and later in larger resin or metal forms associated with specialist Chaos collections and Armorcast era super heavy models.

According to later lore compilations, the engine carried boiling daemon ichor which functioned as ammunition for a grotesque cannon that projected molten blood across the battlefield. The miniature is significant historically because it represents a transitional period in Warhammer design. During the late 1980s and early 1990s, Chaos vehicles were wildly experimental and often surreal. Before the cleaner visual consistency of later Warhammer 40,000 editions, Chaos machines resembled medieval torture devices fused with industrial machinery and daemonic possession.

Many collectors regard these early daemon engines as some of the purest expressions of old school Chaos design.

Unlike modern Warhammer kits, the Cauldron of Blood was never a central mass market release. As a result, original miniatures are comparatively rare and now mainly circulate through collector markets and specialist oldhammer communities. Surviving examples are usually metal Epic miniatures or resin Armorcast variants. The model also reflects how Chaos evolved across both Warhammer Fantasy Battle and Warhammer 40,000. Early Chaos ranges often blurred fantasy and science fiction aesthetics, so daemon engines could appear equally appropriate in either universe before the settings became more visually separated in later decades.

Among long time Khorne enthusiasts, like myself, it is remembered less for competitive gameplay and more for its outrageous design and the creativity of early Chaos miniature development.

This version was printed for me by Rob D for my birthday and he has done an outrageously good job and the 3D design and printing.

I will suitably adorn it with an appropriate number of Bloodletter attendees – eight of course!

Thanks Rob for the prezzie and excellent work!

Angus Konstam’s Borneo 1945, published in 2024 is a strong addition to the long running Osprey Publishing Campaign series and one of the better concise overviews currently available on the 1945 Borneo operations. Covering Operation Oboe and the final Australian led amphibious campaigns of the Second World War, the book succeeds in presenting a broad operational narrative within the tight ninety six page constraints imposed by the series format.

Konstam handles the strategic context particularly well. Rather than presenting Borneo merely as a late war “mopping up” operation, he places the campaign within the wider political and strategic tensions of the South West Pacific theatre. The Australian desire to undertake an independent major operation, rather than remain subordinate within the Philippines campaign, is woven effectively into the narrative and helps explain why the campaign mattered politically even as Japan’s overall defeat had become inevitable. One of the book’s greatest strengths is its treatment of amphibious warfare.

The planning and execution of the Tarakan, Labuan, Brunei, Sarawak, and Balikpapan landings are explained clearly and supported by excellent maps and diagrams. Osprey’s Campaign series often depends heavily on visual presentation and this volume uses that format well. The maps are particularly valuable because the Borneo campaign involved multiple dispersed operations across difficult terrain that can easily become confusing in text alone. For Australian readers and historians, the coverage of Australian forces is naturally one of the major attractions.

The operations of the 7th and 9th Divisions receive solid treatment, as do the supporting naval and air components. Konstam also includes discussion of Allied special forces and guerrilla activity, which helps avoid reducing the campaign solely to a sequence of amphibious assaults. The greatest limitation of the book is analytical depth. This is ultimately a concise campaign study rather than a full scholarly monograph. Readers looking for sustained discussion of the ongoing historiographical debate surrounding the strategic necessity of Operation Oboe may find the treatment somewhat compressed. The long standing controversy over whether these operations represented strategically unnecessary late war offensives is acknowledged, but cannot be explored in great detail within the available space.

At times the narrative also moves very quickly through tactical actions. Some engagements receive only brief coverage before the book shifts to the next landing or operational phase. This is an unavoidable consequence of trying to cover such a geographically broad campaign in a short format, but readers already familiar with Australian operations in New Guinea or the Pacific may occasionally want more detailed treatment of brigade and battalion level actions.

Visually, however, the book is excellent. The combination of campaign maps, colour artwork, wartime photography, and operational diagrams makes it particularly useful for wargamers, military history enthusiasts, and anyone seeking a clear introductory understanding of the campaign. The terrain of Borneo, with its swamps, jungle, oil facilities, river systems, and coastal landing areas, is conveyed effectively throughout.

For wargamers in particular, the book offers considerable value. The campaign naturally lends itself to scenario generation:

• amphibious assaults
• urban fighting around oil facilities
• jungle patrol operations
• river crossings
• guerrilla warfare
• multinational operations involving Australian, Dutch, British, American, and Japanese forces

The dispersed nature of the operations also suits platoon and company level gaming very well.

Overall, Borneo 1945 suffers from the rest of Osprey’s Campaign series in that they try to cover everything but not much in depth. They are, however, a good overview which is what was intended. For readers interested in Australian amphibious operations, late war Pacific campaigns, or scenario inspiration for tabletop gaming, it is highly recommended.

Steer clear if you are after a detailed campaign history but if you want a good overview of campaign Oboe then well worth the money. The rating below is for its intended Camapign overview.

These figures are from the Tiger Miniatures KNIL Command pack

The officers of the Koninklijk Nederlandsch Indisch Leger (KNIL) during the Second World War occupied a unique position within the colonial military structure of the Dutch East Indies. The KNIL had been created as a colonial army rather than a European national force, and its officer corps reflected this role. Senior command positions were largely held by Dutch professional officers trained in the Netherlands or at colonial military academies, while junior officers often developed extensive local experience through long service across the archipelago. Many officers became highly skilled in small unit operations, jungle movement, reconnaissance, and dispersed warfare due to the geographical realities of the Indies.

By 1941 and early 1942 KNIL officers faced severe structural problems despite this experience. The army itself was under equipped compared to modern Japanese forces and suffered from shortages of armour, aircraft, communications equipment, and heavy artillery. Officers frequently commanded ethnically mixed formations composed of Dutch, Indo European, Ambonese, Javanese, Menadonese, and other colonial troops, requiring strong practical leadership rather than rigid doctrinal control. The complexity of language, culture, and geography meant that successful officers relied heavily upon local NCOs and long serving indigenous soldiers who understood terrain and regional conditions.

During the Japanese invasion of the Dutch East Indies in 1942, KNIL officers were forced into a defensive campaign characterised by fragmentation, rapid withdrawal, and isolated resistance. Many officers attempted to organise delaying actions across Java, Sumatra, Timor, and other islands despite overwhelming Japanese superiority in air power, naval mobility, and operational tempo. Some officers adapted effectively to local conditions and conducted stubborn local resistance, but the collapse of Allied naval coordination and the rapid destruction of air support undermined organised defence. The fall of Java in March 1942 effectively ended the KNIL as a conventional military force.

A number of KNIL officers later became involved in guerrilla resistance or escaped to continue service with Allied forces elsewhere. Others endured harsh captivity under the Japanese, where mortality rates among prisoners were extremely high. Several KNIL officers later contributed to the reconstitution of Dutch colonial forces after 1945 during the Indonesian National Revolution, although the political and military situation had fundamentally changed. The wartime experience exposed both the strengths and limitations of the colonial officer system: experienced in local warfare and adaptation, but constrained by outdated equipment, fragmented command structures, and dependence upon imperial assumptions that collapsed under modern Japanese offensive warfare.

In military historical terms, KNIL officers are often remembered less for decisive battlefield success than for their attempts to maintain cohesion and operational control within an increasingly impossible strategic situation. Their experience reflects the broader collapse of European colonial military systems in Southeast Asia during the opening phase of the Pacific War.

More KNIL infantry to come.

Vietnam: A Reporter’s War is one of the more interesting Australian books written on Vietnam because it avoids becoming either a straight military history or a conventional memoir. Hugh Lunn writes as a Reuters correspondent moving through Saigon during 1967 and 1968, observing the war from press briefings, helicopter flights, roadside conversations, bars filled with journalists, and the uneasy routines of correspondents trying to make sense of a conflict that increasingly resisted explanation.

What makes the book work is the atmosphere it captures. Lunn shows a war where official statements and battlefield reality were drifting further apart. The daily American military briefings become performances built around statistics, body counts, and optimism that no longer matched what reporters were actually seeing. The book is at its strongest when dealing with this growing disconnect between the public version of the war and the confusion visible on the ground.

A major strength of the narrative is Lunn’s relationship with the Vietnamese Reuters employee Pham Ngoc Dinh, who becomes far more than a translator or assistant. Through Dinh, the reader gains a far deeper sense of Vietnam itself, particularly the gap between Western assumptions and local understanding. The later connections to Pham Xuan An reinforce the sense that much of the war remained hidden from the outsiders attempting to report and interpret it.

The writing itself feels distinctly Australian. There is humour throughout, often dry and dark, but it sits alongside exhaustion, uncertainty, and the gradual recognition that the war was not moving toward the kind of clear outcome American officials kept promising. Lunn pays attention to people, atmosphere, and small moments rather than simply recounting operations or political decisions.

What I found particularly valuable is that the book captures Vietnam before later memory and myth hardened around it. There is little sense of hindsight certainty. Instead, the war appears fragmented, improvised, and deeply confusing. In many ways, that probably brings the reader closer to the lived reality of the conflict than many broader histories do.

As a work of war writing, the book succeeds because it understands that conflict is rarely experienced as a neat historical narrative. It is experienced through fragments, rumours, personalities, exhaustion, and partial truths, with people trying to understand events while still trapped inside them.

If you are interested in the Vietnam War this one is a must.

More KNIL Infantry from Tiger Miniatures

The infantry squad structure of the Koninklijk Nederlandsch Indisch Leger (KNIL) during the Second World War reflected the colonial and geographically dispersed nature of the Dutch East Indies. Organisation varied somewhat between units and theatres, particularly between regular infantry battalions, territorial forces, and locally raised formations, but the standard KNIL infantry section generally remained smaller and lighter than equivalent contemporary British or Australian infantry sections.

A typical KNIL infantry squad or section in 1941–42 usually consisted of approximately 8 to 12 men under the command of a sergeant or corporal. The section was built around rifle fire rather than the heavy automatic fire emphasis seen in later British Commonwealth doctrine.

Most soldiers carried bolt action rifles, primarily the Dutch Mannlicher M95 series, although some units also used older or mixed weapons depending on supply conditions. Automatic fire support normally came from a light machine gun, most commonly the Lewis gun or the Madsen light machine gun, both of which remained widely used within colonial formations despite becoming increasingly outdated by 1942.

The section commander exercised considerable independence because combat in the Indies frequently occurred in broken terrain, jungle, plantations, villages, or mountainous country where centralised control was difficult. KNIL infantry doctrine therefore placed practical emphasis on dispersed movement, local initiative, patrolling, and maintaining contact under restricted visibility.

Small unit leadership mattered enormously because radio communication was scarce and many actions quickly fragmented into isolated local engagements. In practice, experienced NCOs often became the critical element holding formations together during retreat or defensive action.

Ethnic composition also shaped squad organisation and battlefield function. KNIL sections could include Dutch personnel alongside Ambonese, Javanese, Menadonese, Timorese, or Indo European troops. Certain ethnic groups, particularly Ambonese soldiers, developed strong reputations within the KNIL for reliability and military professionalism.

Officers and NCOs therefore needed to manage linguistic and cultural diversity while maintaining operational cohesion under pressure. Long service colonial soldiers often provided continuity and local terrain knowledge that inexperienced European personnel lacked.

Tactically, KNIL infantry squads were not designed for large scale offensive manoeuvre warfare against a modern mechanised enemy. Instead, they were more suited to internal security, frontier operations, colonial policing, and dispersed defensive tasks across the archipelago.

During the Japanese invasion in 1941–42 these limitations became severe. Sections frequently fought delaying actions, roadblocks, local ambushes, and improvised defensive positions against Japanese forces that possessed superior mobility, artillery coordination, close air support, and offensive doctrine. Despite these disadvantages, many KNIL infantry squads fought stubbornly in isolated engagements, particularly where terrain restricted Japanese movement and reduced the effectiveness of mechanised support.

In wargaming or historical reconstruction terms, the KNIL infantry squad is best understood as a lightly equipped colonial infantry element with moderate firepower, strong dependence upon junior leadership, and relatively high adaptability in difficult terrain, but limited capacity for sustained modern combined arms warfare against a first rate opponent.

Another squad soon.

The sniper team has been made up with a Tiger Miniatures rifleman as the sniper and a an officer with binoculars as the spotter.

The Royal Netherlands East Indies Army, commonly known as the KNIL (Koninklijk Nederlands Indisch Leger), employed skilled marksmen during the Second World War, although it did not develop a formal sniper system comparable to those used by the German or Soviet armies. Operating primarily across the Netherlands East Indies, including Java, Sumatra, Timor, and Borneo, the KNIL fought in terrain that naturally favoured concealment, ambush, and accurate individual shooting. Jungle warfare conditions meant that fieldcraft and patience often mattered more than long range precision.

Rather than maintaining dedicated sniper schools or specialist sniper platoons, the KNIL relied upon experienced riflemen embedded within infantry and reconnaissance units. Patrol leaders, scouts, and selected shooters were frequently tasked with observation, harassment fire, and ambush duties. In dense jungle country, firing positions were often established along tracks, river crossings, plantation edges, and narrow approaches where visibility and movement were restricted. This style of warfare blurred the distinction between ordinary infantry marksmen and specialist snipers.

The KNIL primarily used Mannlicher rifles, particularly the M1895 series and associated carbines. Some rifles were fitted with telescopic sights, although these remained limited in number and were never standardised across the force. A small number of marksmen reportedly used modified military rifles or commercially fitted optics, but the KNIL lacked the industrial and organisational capacity to create a large scale sniper program. Nevertheless, experienced colonial troops often developed strong practical shooting skills through long service in difficult terrain.

The army’s prewar colonial experience strongly shaped these methods. KNIL operations in Aceh, Borneo, Sulawesi, and New Guinea had already emphasised patrol warfare, tracking, concealment, and decentralised leadership. These traditions translated naturally into the fighting against Japanese forces during 1941 and 1942. Small units often operated independently in isolated environments where accurate rifle fire and hidden observation posts could delay or disrupt enemy movement far more effectively than conventional battlefield formations.

After the collapse of the Netherlands East Indies, surviving KNIL personnel continued to fight in guerrilla and reconnaissance roles alongside Allied forces, particularly in Timor and New Guinea. In these operations, concealed shooting and small patrol tactics became even more important. Although the KNIL sniper tradition remains less studied than that of larger wartime armies, its methods reflected the realities of jungle warfare and shared important similarities with Australian Independent Companies and other Allied reconnaissance units operating in the South West Pacific.

Some more Tiger Miniatures KNIL coming in the next few days.

My second novel and second in the Hennessy of the A.I.F. series is about to be in print in the next week.

This novel began with an interest not simply in the Greek Campaign itself, but in the experience of withdrawal as lived by ordinary infantry soldiers operating at small unit level. Much military history focuses understandably on strategy, command decisions, and battlefield outcomes. Those things matter. Yet for the men moving south through Greece in April 1941, the war was often experienced through roads, exhaustion, uncertainty, broken sleep, overloaded columns, bombardment, and the continual effort required simply to keep moving.

The retreat through Greece possessed a particular character that differed from many other campaigns of the war. Positions were established and abandoned in rapid succession. Defensive actions were often fought to buy time rather than secure decisive victory. Units became compressed through constant movement and repeated pressure. Men lost track not only of broader operational events, but often of neighbouring units and missing comrades. Under such conditions the preservation of small group cohesion became increasingly important.

The section at the centre of this novel is fictional, but it is intended to reflect the broader experience of Australian infantry sections operating under these conditions. The focus throughout has remained deliberately narrow. This is not a novel about generals or grand strategy. It is about movement, survival, leadership at close range, endurance, and the gradual moral and emotional compression produced by sustained retreat.

Particular attention has been given to terrain and geography because the campaign itself was shaped constantly by ground. Mountain roads, valleys, villages, ridges, embarkation beaches, and defensive slopes influenced not only tactics, but also the physical and emotional experience of the soldiers moving through them. The landscape of Greece became part of the pressure exerted upon the retreating force.

The novel is also concerned with uncertainty. Soldiers rarely possess complete knowledge of events around them. Information arrives late, incompletely, or incorrectly. Rumours move faster than certainty. Decisions are often made within partial understanding and under conditions where there may be no ideal outcome available. That uncertainty forms part of the reality of warfare and has been treated here as central rather than incidental.

The emotional tone of the novel has been shaped intentionally by restraint. The men within these pages are not presented as heroes in any simple sense, nor as victims without agency. They are soldiers attempting to continue functioning within increasingly unstable conditions. The campaign alters them gradually through accumulation rather than dramatic revelation.

The evacuation from Greece is often remembered through the successful removal of many Allied troops by the Royal Navy. Yet for the men involved, the experience was frequently one of exhaustion, fragmentation, confusion, and incomplete knowledge. Many did not know who had survived, who had been captured, or who had been left behind. Arrival on Crete brought not resolution, but continuation.

That idea became central to the writing of this novel.

The war does not pause long enough for emotional completion. Men adapt because movement forward remains necessary. Even survival itself often arrives unfinished.

This book attempts to capture something of that experience.

These figure are from War Time Miniatures that is unfortunately are no longer in business. They filled a niche by providing detailed Australians in slouch hats and Japanese support weapons that were otherwise difficult to find in 28mm. I have a nice collection of their Australian Militia and Australian Commandos (both still tom see the light of day!). Although an Australian medic the figure fits well in a KNIL force as well.

A KNIL medic in the Second World War had one of the least glamorous but most important jobs in the Dutch East Indies forces. While infantrymen worried about Japanese attacks, patrols, or holding defensive lines together, the medic usually worried about everything else as well. Wounds, malaria, infected feet, heat exhaustion, tropical ulcers, and men collapsing from exhaustion all ended up in his lap sooner or later.

The Royal Netherlands East Indies Army, or KNIL, fought across a huge tropical archipelago, and conditions were often harder than the fighting itself. Mud, humidity, insects, and poor roads wore men down quickly. A medic therefore became part battlefield orderly and part jungle survival expert. Keeping troops healthy enough to keep moving was often just as important as treating combat casualties.

The Royal Netherlands East Indies Army, or KNIL, fought across a huge tropical archipelago, and conditions were often harder than the fighting itself. Mud, humidity, insects, and poor roads wore men down quickly. A medic therefore became part battlefield orderly and part jungle survival expert. Keeping troops healthy enough to keep moving was often just as important as treating combat casualties.

Most KNIL medics carried a fairly simple collection of supplies. Bandages, iodine, morphine, dressings, and whatever medicines could actually be obtained locally. Once the Japanese advance began in earnest, shortages became common, so improvisation was part of daily life. A field dressing might be reused, equipment repaired repeatedly, and stretchers improvised from bamboo poles and blankets.

In appearance, a KNIL medic usually looked much like the rest of the unit. Tropical green uniforms, sweat stained shirts, rolled sleeves, and worn boots were standard. Some wore Red Cross armbands, though in active combat areas these were not always visible for long. In practice, a medic could easily find himself carrying a rifle one moment and treating a wounded man the next.

The KNIL itself was a mixed colonial force made up of Dutch troops, Indonesian soldiers, and men from across the East Indies. Medical staff reflected this diversity as well. Some were fully trained medical personnel, while others learned largely through experience and necessity. In isolated outposts and jungle patrols, the medic was often whoever could keep calm, stop bleeding, and convince exhausted soldiers they could still keep going.

For wargaming or historical scenarios, a KNIL medic adds a lot of character to a force. He suits patrol actions, jungle withdrawals, defensive positions, and those desperate small unit fights that marked much of the 1941 to 1942 campaign. More than anything, he represents the practical side of colonial warfare in the Pacific: tired men, difficult country, and the constant struggle to hold things together one day at a time. A pity they are not used more often.

More KNIL soon.