Author(s): PETER RYAN

Military

The classic WWII memoir of an Australian behind enemy lines in New Guinea. "The lone hand and the rifle that win where armies fail." So quoted "Weary" Dunlop when he finished reading FEAR DRIVE MY FEET, a book he called "a moving account of a young man's lonely heroism in the face of great adversity." As an Australian soldier of 18, Ryan was sent out alone and untrained, to conduct intelligence patrols for months on end, deep in the jungles of Japanese-occupied New Guinea. Without heroics, his book describes the hardships and dangers of such a life, though they did not blind him to the stupendous beauty of the country and the nobility of its native peoples. FEAR DRIVE MY FEET is a classic story of the darkest days of World War II, when Australia itself stood in deadly danger. As a writer about men at war, Peter Ryan been compared to Siegfried Sassoon, famous author of World War I. For the work described in this book, Ryan was awarded the Military Medal and was mentioned in dispatches.