Voices from the air. Tony Hill. 2016.

With the outbreak of the Second World War a new breed of war correspondent s emerged - the voices of ABC reporters and their stories shaped from the the sounds of battle were carried into Australian homes through the reach and power of radio.

Australian forces defended our long shoreline against the threat of invasion and more than 500,000 Australians went into battle overseas. They fought on the dusty soil of the Middle East and North Africa, in the mountains of Greece, on the beaches of the Pacific and in the sweltering jungles of Malaya and New Guinea. And the first ABC war correspondents were on the frontlines with them.

The story of this group of remarkable men is one of personal struggle, humour, tragedy and achievement. From Chester Wilmot’s gripping reports out of Tobruk to Dudley Leggett trekking with the diggers through the mud of the Kokoda Trail. Hayden Lennard helping to free Australian nurses from a Japanese prison camp and John Elliott’s shocking death in the final campaign in Borneo, these pioneers shared the highs, lows and dangers of the frontline with the troops - and changed the reporting of war.