War Stories

Finish your 2022 Featherston Booktown Karukatea Festival experience by listening to two unforgettable and hitherto untold tales from World War II – one of a daring escape by Kiwi sailors from Singapore in February 1942 as the city was about to be captured by the Japanese; and life on the edge as a young gunner with the New Zealand Division in Italy from 1943–1945.

David B Hill (Ngāpuhi/Te Tahawai), author of 'Close to the Wind: A Story of Escape and Survival out of the Ashes of Singapore 1942', and Neil Frances, who has published his father’s World War II diary as a book: 'On the Move Again: A New Zealand’s Gunner’s Italian Campaign in WW II', will share these tales of bravery, daring and endurance with former Minister of Defence, Ron Mark.