The Embarrassing Australian

The story of an Aboriginal Warrior

by Harry Gordon

Lansdowne Press, 1965, black and white photographic plates, paperback

Good Condition, some edge and shelf wear, some rubbing and bumping to edges and corners, ex-library with stamps and tape residue to endpapers, stickers to back endpaper and spine, plastic covered, some discolouration marks to fore edges (see photographs)

“Reg Saunders is an Australian Aboriginal – a member of a primitive, vastly under-privileged race.  He became the only member of that race ever to be commissioned as an officer in the armed forces, and in Korea he commanded 200 white troops.  Men who served under him used to call him “the best officer in the world”.
Now Harry Gordon, who was a war correspondent in Korea with Saunders, has traced his story.  He spent months on patient, careful research, interviewing members of Saunders’ family, his wartime comrades and his workmates, and studying Australian Army records.  The result is a remarkable, very human piece of contemporary history which discusses Saunders’ experiences before and after the war, as well as in the Middle East, Greece, Crete, New Guinea and Korea.”