This book lists many but not all of the Greek Australians who enlisted during the war. The author makes no claim as to accuracy or completeness of this list. A recognition of the immense difficulties in making sense of the poor record keeping of the time. See my article under Guidelines for a fuller explanation of these difficulties.

Whilst the authors military list should be used with some caution, the book does provide a very interesting read on the connections between Australians and Greeks in general.

The author of this book is obviously very passionate about the Greek Australian connection and has devoted a considerable amount of time and energy in compiling the photos, personal stories and personnel lists.

Unfortunately the authors lack of skill set in conducting historical research severely limits the usefulness of this book as a reference tool.

Over 700 of the entries have details that are at variance to what is on their official service records. No explanation is provided as to why this is the case. This has the effect of making a confusing situation even more confusing.

There are at least 150 individuals not listed that should have been, some are siblings of those that were listed.

The historical commentary is of a dubious nature with no references given to support the authors conclusions.

A book best treated with a lot of caution

A puzzling book. Despite the title and historical commentary singling out the Kokoda campaign. The military personnel listed are from the New Guinea campaign generally and not just Kokoda.

But even this list is so full of errors and omissions as to make this book unsuitable for use as a reference book. For example some 20% of the personnel listed in this book never saw service in New Guinea according to Army records.

Several soldiers specifically mentioned by the author as having fought at Kokoda were either never in New Guinea or arrived there well after the Kokoda campaign finished.

As in the authors previous book many of the soldiers have not had all of their full time service recognized.

The historical commentary has several controversial and factually doubtful passages. All unsubstantiated. Some are highly derogatory of the Australian Army leadership of the time again unsubstantiated.

Half the book is devoted to an account of the Kokoda campaign but there were several other New Guinea campaigns arguably equally as important as Kokoda. Only a cursory mention is made of these.

A book best left unread.

The DVA has a nominal roll of all the military personnel involved in WW2 with basic details such as date of birth, place of birth, enlistment date etc. You can also print online a Certificate of Service of the personnel selected.

Unfortunately their nominal roll for several years contained the wrong information concerning length of service for several thousand personnel including some 300 Greek Australians. In that for those soldiers who transferred from the CMF to AIF their CMF service was not recognized in some cases this was nearly 2 years service. This was not rectified until 2024.

Even so, the issue of the difference between Enlistment date and Full Time duty dates has still not been resolved. With the DVA nominal rolls still using Enlistment date rather than accepted Army procedure of using Full Time Duty dates as the start date for service.

Further evidence that the complex nature of record keeping at the time needs a more serious and professional approach than has been given thus far.

Whilst the intentions of the DVA are to be applauded in creating this nominal roll. One can’t help but be alarmed at the apparent lack of supervision by people trained in historical methodology.

nominal-rolls.dva.gov.au/

This is where you can find the original government documents such as naturalisation papers and military service records. www.naa.gov.au