Author Edmund Goldrick talks about his book, ANZAC Guerrillas
1. You co-wrote The Greatest Escape. How did working on that book inspire you to kick off this research journey into the forgotten Australian heroes of WWII?
Often when a story is untold, it’s because the subjects felt unable to speak, struggling to make sense. Paul Brickhill – author of The Great Escape and Dambusters – actually approached the architect of the escape Ralph Churches to write a book. But Ralph was never told he was permitted to talk about it, and feared retribution from the authorities. There’s also a definite neglect of Australian war stories that get filed under ‘too hard’ if the required research is in languages other than English. I had the skills to address some of this neglect, and felt a duty to do so.
2. What difficulties did you encounter when trying to research this story?
The research was a labour of love, the survivors spoke very little of their service so there was no memoir or oral history to use as a foundation. I must have sifted through tens of thousands of pages of Australian, British, German, and ex-Yugoslav archival sources. Many records I knew would have shed much more light, and I knew existed at one time turned out to have been lost, separated, or were never declassified. It was heartbreaking to reach a dead end, and sometimes not get to tell an individual soldier’s story as deeply as they deserved.
3. What surprised you most about Ronald Jones and Ross Sayers, the two key soldiers that you write about in this book?
I’ve read many intelligence reports and memoirs from Allied officers in Yugoslavia, usually American and British. As a historian, you read them with the benefit of hindsight, thinking ‘they got that right, but this is wrong, they don’t realise what they don’t know there’. The most surprising thing about Ronald and Ross’s intelligence reports was how well they held up. They rarely overstepped what they knew and almost all of it was verifiably true. They had a much better grasp of the situation than those who arrived later, came from greater means, or began the war as officers.
4. What do you hope readers take away from ANZAC Guerrillas?
An understanding of what the men went through, and why it was so remarkable. The men navigated their service with courage not just in the face of the enemy, but those who called themselves allies. I hope the terrifying reality of their situation, and the strength of their character shines through.
The word ‘forgotten’ gets thrown about a lot in military history. But the Yugoslav front truly is absent in our consciousness, yet it was the fourth front in Europe (after the Western, Eastern, and Italian fronts). I think partially because of that, because no one had any context for that front, it was difficult for the surviving Australians to navigate and explain their service to others.
To check out Edmund Goldrick’s ANZAC Guerrillas click here.
To read about a Q&A with author Miriam Webster, click here.