The violent reality of screaming hurricanes and the paradisal calm of South Seas beaches, glistening with spindrift, are engagingly contrasted by Brett Hilder in his book of adventures along the reef-fringed shores of the south-west Pacific.
It has been said that Captain Hilder, as befits a seafarer of Viking descent, could sail within a hundred metres of any headland using his thumb for a sextant.
The book evokes a colour travelogue in its intensity. Little-known island, 'delightful to the easy freedom of bare feet', emerge from the purple velvet of deep waters. Far from ocean-bound, it also concerns the author's war-time experiences as a Wing-Commander in the RAAF. Applying his navigational genius to the skies, he served in mine-laying Catalina aircraft.
This is a book, not solely for experts, able to hold in its thrall any reader for whom the combination of lucidly-presented fact and firth-hand description of the South Seas proved irresistible.
Contents:
Part 1: The Years of Preparation 1928-1938
Chapter 1. Going to Sea: The East Indies
Chapter 2. Off to New Guinea
Chapter 3. The South Seas Island
Chapter 4. The New Hebrides Condominium
Chapter 5. The Eruption at Rabaul
Part 2: The Years of Action and Reaction 1938-1946
Chapter 7. My First Command
Chapter 8. Disguising a Ship
Chapter 9. From Navy to Air Force
Chapter 10. Flying Adventures
Chapter 11. Minelaying by Catalina
Chapter 12. The Last Year of the War
Chapter 13. War-Torn Malaya
Part 3: Adventure of Peacetime 1946-1960
Chapter 14. The Iron Ore Trade
Chapter 15. The Brave Little Ship 'Muliama'
Chapter 16. Old Mail Coach of the South Seas
Chapter 17. Voyages of Trouble
Chapter 18. Adventures of the 'Malaita'
Chapter 19. Underground Navigation and Other Hobbies
Chapter 20. Science and Seamanship
Chapter 21. History in the Making
Chapter 22. Royal Rendezvous
Index
