TO CATALOGUE

The Fight Leaders

Australian Battlefield Leadership -  3RAR Korea

Butler, Argent & Shelton

This book is published

in association with the

Australian Army History Unit

ORDER HERE    

178 pp   -   hardback   -   Published 2002

                Australia  = AUD$45 (including postage, packing and GST)

               PNG and NZ   = AUD$60 (including economy air mail and packing)

              The World = AUD$65 (including economy air mail and packing)

The Fight Leaders tells the story of the three men who commanded the Australian Battalion in the first year of the Korean War. Eminently readable it provides the lay reader with a thoughtful, dispassionate account of the daily life of a battalion commander in a long year of battle. In the telling of the story, The Fight Leaders provides an authoritative text for the historian on the roles and employment of an infantry battalion commander.

"The army was tremendously fortunate to have men of the calibre of Green, Ferguson and Hassett to command 3RAR. The battalion faced quite dangerous situations during the first year, and lesser men would have failed." - Major General Steve Gower, Director, Australian War Museum.

"Australian battlefield leadership at the sharp end - battalion level - has rarely been examined as it is in this thoroughly absorbing study, but this work is not confined to bringing the nature, character, courage and battle concepts of these fight leaders into focus. The roles they played are set against the backdrop of a broad discussion of the ether of the Australian Army, and what made the 1st and 2nd Australian Imperial Forces, with their distinctly Australian style, the formidable fighting forces they became" - John Farquharson, The Canberra times.

Professor David Horner of the ANU commented:
Many more Australians have commanded infantry Battalions in action than brigades or divisions, but there are few books about the problems of command at this intensely personal and demanding level.