Rag Tag Fleet. Ian W. Shaw. 2017.

The unknown story of how a fleet of Australian fishing boatswain trawlers and schooners supplied US and Australian forces in the Pacific - and helped turn the course of World War II.

Mid-1942 from China to New Guinea, the pacific belonged to the Japanese. 

pin this desperate situation, a fleet of hundreds of Australian small ships is assembled, sailing under the American flag, and crewed by over 3000 Australians either too young or too old to join the regular armed forces. Their task: to bring supplies and equipment to the allied troops waging bloody battles against Japanese forces across the South Pacific. The Rag Tag Fleet is the unknown story of the final months of 1942 - when these man ran the fpgauntlet of Japanese air attacks, malaria and dysentery reefs, and shallow, shark-infested waters to support the US and Australia troops that defeated the entrenched Japanese forces at Buena on the New Guinea coast, and so helped turn the war into the Allies’ favour.