Instructions for American Servicemen in Australia, 1942

Nearly 1 million American soldiers passed through Australia between 1942 and 1945 as part of America¿s strategy to re-capture the Philippines and defeat Japan.They encountered a country full of reassuring similarities and strange differences. Here was a land of wide-open spaces, roughly the same size as the US, with a can-do, pioneering spirit, a history of swift development; a land of ¿funny animals¿ and peculiar vowel sounds. But who were the Australians and how were Americans to behave in their midst? They were, of course, ¿an outdoors sort of people, breezy and very democratic¿, with a gargantuan appetite for swearing.In the inimitable prose of the soldier¿s pocket book series, this pithy guide captures the essence of Australia and its people, their humour, vocabulary; their attitude to the Yanks, the British, the War and the world with remarkable economy and clarity. It also manages to squeeze in a pr¿s of Australian history, politics, economics, sports, and musical tradition, as