Author Talk with Phil Craig and Christine Helliwell

Join Professor Christine Helliwell and historian Phil Craig in conversation as they discuss their work and raise challenging questions about the final year of the Second World War.

In her award-winning book Semut, Helliwell used a treasure trove of unique interviews to bring to life a dramatic secret Australian operation in Borneo during 1945. It’s a story that blends human heroism, intense relationships between men and women of very different cultures and a measure of political skullduggery, as military and colonial agendas appear to clash.

Craig’s new book 1945 The Reckoning includes the Semut story too, and places it amid a sometimes provocative “warts and all” analysis of Britain’s behaviour – and Australia’s role in that – during the final months of the war and, critically, in the weeks that follow VP Day when new and bitter campaigns erupt in Vietnam and Indonesia.

How much should we temper our pride in what Britain and Australia achieved during the Second World War with the confronting reality of what some call “imperial muscle memory” on display that year?  And could it be that Australian victims of the Borneo death march at Sandakan may been saved had priorities in Canberra and London been geared more toward POWs than oil fields?

Date: Wednesday, 15 October 2025

Time: 12.30 pm – 1.30 pm

Location: Theatre, Australian War Memorial