Guts and Glory

Diggers, Sport and War

Sport has always been part of our wars – from the famous cricket match played at Gallipoli as a decoy for the evacuation of Australian troops, to the hero of Tobruk, Changi and the Burma– Thailand railway, Colonel Sir Ernest Edward ‘Weary’ Dunlop AC, who so respected his hard-won Wallabies jersey that he insisted on being buried in it, and to legendary Test cricketer Keith Miller, fighter pilot in World War II, who famously said, ‘Pressure is a Messerschmitt up your arse, playing cricket is not'.

Featuring vivid, moving, funny, powerful and poignant sporting stories from the wars fought by the Australian Defence Force, ranging from World War I through to the present day, Guts and Glory is about the intrinsic link between sport and war; how sport provides a means for Diggers to cope with the pressures of the battlefield; how the lessons that we learn playing sport can be applied to the arts of leadership and warfare; and how mateship and the Australian spirit can be seen in the way we fight and the way we play.

©2025 Peter Rees, HarperCollins Publishers Australia Pty Limited (P)2025 Bolinda Publishing