Overview

Journalist William Olson fought in New Guinea in World War 11 as the Australian and American armies resisted the advancing Japanese Imperial army. For more than three years from 1942 to 1945 he wrote 329 letters to his sweetheart, then wife, Ruth. The letters describe the war with his professional reporter's eye. All 329 letters are preserved in the Australian War Memorial as the largest intact collection from WW11. The Years Away is an edited version, telling the story of a man, like so many others, changed forever by war. A sharp reminder from his writing is the waste of war and how many of the best men and women of his generation were lost. There are few live heroes in any war so those who return are survivors trying to pick up their peacetime lives the best way they can. Because they suppress the horrors, many rarely discuss what they saw and experienced. William Olson survived the War and went on to become a distinguished journalist and writer.

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William Olson began his writing career as a cadet journalist in Newcastle, Australia. After serving in the Australian army in the Second World War he returned home and married his wartime sweetheart Ruth. The couple set up home in Sydney and he joined the Sydney Daily Mirror newspaper. He wrote for most Sydney newspapers until in 1964 becoming the Sydney bureau chief of Rupert Murdoch's new national newspaper, The Australian. After a 30 year career in newspapers, he joined the P & O shipping company as their director of information. Apart from The Years Away, he wrote Down the Breakie - Tales from the Breakwater , North from Scarlet , Baume: Man and Beast and Lion of the China Sea .

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