Thompson-Gray, J: LOVE LUCK & LARCENY

LOVE LUCK AND LARCENY: MEMOIRS FROM BROOME 1942 (Non-fiction), by Cambridge scholar John Thompson-Gray, tells stories of lives deflected by the Battle at Broome. It flies under the Sydney Harbour Bridge, sinks submarines, answers enemy fire, rescues the stranded, survives POW camps, does aerobatics, finds romance, escapes from Red Russia, ditches in the English Channel, develops the Zero fighter, survives cyclones, stitches battle wounds, collects Luck, snares cold case diamond thieves and romps through recent history.

The memoir of Aboriginal-European sea Captain Alfred Brown shows that a father's love can be an example to us all, while the power of Divine Love underwrites the life of missionary surgeon Dr Jean Davies. Shibata's dedication to the Zero fighter and Lamade's dedication to USS Houston are stories of flying sailors.

New research reveals untold stories of luck, love and grand larceny. In many cases the woman's heroism is as significant as that of her partner and this is captured in six memoirs of love affairs: Shadforth and Brown, Macherez and Winckel, Welter and Droste, Shepherdson and Hasselo, Hardwiger and Woods, Linnet and Smirnov.

Jack Palmer's love of the beachcomber life becomes a Grand Larceny 'Whodunit' when thirty thousand diamonds disappear from a plane shot down during the attack. Readers are invited to sleuth along.

Some of the background stories are Captain Lester Brain of Qantas; Americans Lieutenant Colonel Richard A. Legg, Dr- Captain Charles A. Stafford and Sergeant Melvin O. Donoho of the U.S.A.A.F; lifesavers Harold Mathieson, Charles D'Antoine and Robin Hunter at Roebuck Bay; overland rescuers Brother Richard Bessenfelder, WO Gus Clinch and stockman Joe Bernard to Carnot Bay; Zero pilots Zenziro Miyano and Osamu Kudo; souls lost to the sea and many spared by an upper level northerly wind.