Tim Bowden's new book, Larrikins in Khaki, based on first-hand accounts of World War II diggers gives new recognition to stories of sacrifice

Bowden's name is forever linked with Nelson's because these two fine historians told - for many Australians for the first time - the story of Australian prisoners of war in the hands of the Japanese for ABC Radio.

Hank Nelson then went on to write the seminal study of the Australian prisoners, Prisoners of War: Australians Under Nippon.

Some older readers will remember Tim Bowden - the face of the ABC - for his Backchat program, a twice-weekly viewer-inspired commentary about programs on ABC television that ran for more than eight years.

Bowden has also done dozens of oral history interviews for the National Library of Australia.

His 136 entries in the National Library's catalogue indicates a packed and productive life.

It is a major treat when another Tim Bowden book appears.

This book is a curious beast, but enjoyable and immensely readable.

It is based on the works of 11 authors, all now dead, who published memoirs about their time in the Second AIF.

Many of these books were self-published and probably attracted few readers beyond the extended family circle.

The first of these 11 books was published in 1972, the last in 2006, so the authors had ample time for reflection.

Bowden summarises much of these men's narratives and also gives lengthy quotes from them, allowing the reader to hear the authentic voices of these articulate Australian veterans.

I read a couple of these books a long time ago and remember, in particular, Ken Clift's The Saga of a Sig.

Indeed some of the scenes Clift described are still quite clear in my mind.

From this perspective, I can assure readers that Bowden has dealt fairly and honourably with the material he has sifted.

"In delving into the memoirs of the blythe sprits who published their own books," Bowden writes, "I hope I have at least illustrated the sterling qualities of the Australian fighting soldier - hard to discipline, generous to their comrades, irreverent and, above all, telling it as they saw it, warts and all."

It is a hope that Tim Bowden certainly fulfils.

Beginning his story exactly where it should start, in September 1939, Bowden tells of recruitment, training, such as it was, and the voyage to faraway battle fields.

The emphasis is on humour, the larrikin spirit, and deception, like the success in enlisting for a man with only one eye.

He lost the other eye when chopping wood for his mother.

Or the boy of 15, Bob 'Hooker' Holt, who somehow convinced the recruiting sergeant that he was, indeed, 21.

Holt, whose book, From Ingleburn to Aitape, was self-published in 1981, when the author would have been 57 years of age, survived the war and hopefully lived a long life after that.

He saw service in the Sixth Division fighting in actions at Bardia, Tobruk and Derna.

He took part in the inglorious and highly dangerous retreat down the Greek peninsula, and fought the Japanese in New Guinea as well.

He would be just twenty-one when the war ended in 1945.

Bowden gives Holt a generous amount of space to follow him in all the actions in which he took part.

Waiting on the beach at Wewak to join the Australian ship, Katoomba, to sail for home, Bob Holt allowed himself a moment of reflection.

"I was heartily sick of the war and so was everyone else", he wrote.

And that is where I have my only problem with this book.

Bob Holt was not unique; there were plenty of underage soldiers in the Second AIF, but he was unusual, and the variety and length of his service puts him into a special category as well.

If he did not dwell on his extreme youth in his own book, I would have been happier if Tim Bowden had reflected more closely on the nature of Holt's challenges and how he coped in his "after-the-war" life with such a traumatic childhood.

Bowden writes that he did not know these men at all and has only come to know them through their books.

But it would have been instructive to know how well or ill Bob Holt fitted into the Australian post-war world.

Did he go on to marry and have children? Did he require Repatriation assistance on his return, or did he, like so many others, make a go of it on his own?

Was his life was shortened by his war service, as Bowden quotes "Weary" Dunlop explaining, or was he fortunate to live out a long and happy life?

Despite that quibble, Tim Bowden has performed a useful service in bringing these stories to a new and wider audience and has given these eleven authors a new recognition for their service and sacrifice.