They came in hundreds of thousands--soldiers, sailors, pilots, marines, nurses, merchant seamen. Young Americans were everywhere in Australia when "down under" became the rallying ground for the fight against the Japanese. The impact they made--sometimes violent, often emotional, frequently funny, --was felt for years afterward in both predictable and unexpected ways. This book tells the story of that friendly invasion for the first time. Using interviews, letters, diaries, and other materials gathered during the authors' ...
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They came in hundreds of thousands--soldiers, sailors, pilots, marines, nurses, merchant seamen. Young Americans were everywhere in Australia when "down under" became the rallying ground for the fight against the Japanese. The impact they made--sometimes violent, often emotional, frequently funny, --was felt for years afterward in both predictable and unexpected ways. This book tells the story of that friendly invasion for the first time. Using interviews, letters, diaries, and other materials gathered during the authors' extensive travels throughout the United States and Australia, this book vividly illustrates how the "Yanks" and the "Aussies," in and out of uniform, responded to each other. It shows how the "American invasion" affected the Australian identity and laid the groundwork for a new association between the two countries. About the Authors: Daniel Potts, now an Australian citizen and Associate Professor of History at Monash University in Melbourne, was born in the U.S. Annette Potts, his wife and a native Australian, has collaborated with him on several previous books about Australian-American relations.
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