Author Talk with Phil Craig and Christine Helliwell Cindy.Luu Wed, 02/04/2025 - 10:27 #005fbe Designed Approved Join Phil Craig and Emerita Professor Christine Helliwell in conversation as they discuss their respective works 1945: The Reckoning. War, empire and the struggle for a new world and Semut: The untold story of a secret Australian operation in WWII Borneo. Date: Wednesday, 15 October 2025 Time: 12.30 pm - 1.30 pm Location: Theatre, Australian War Memorial Free event Signed books will be available for purchase on the day. Book now About Phil Craig Phil Craig is a best-selling author and multiple-award-winning filmmaker. He studied history at Cambridge university, was a BBC graduate trainee and built his career working for iconic British TV series World in Action and Panorama. Later he held senior positions at the prestigious Brook Lapping production company, at Channel Four, at the Discovery Channel and at ABC Television in Australia where he ran the entire factual output including its high-profile ANZAC centenary project. Throughout his TV and writing career Phil has spent many years researching and reinterpreting the story of Britain and its Empire during the Second World War, including his definitive and bestselling account of 1940 - Finest Hour: The Battle of Britain (1999). About Christine Helliwell Christine Helliwell is an author and anthropologist, Emeritus Professor in the College of Arts and Social Sciences at the Australian National University. She has been carrying out research on Borneo’s indigenous Dayak peoples for almost forty years and has published widely on Dayak social and cultural life. Since 2014 she has been researching the special operations conducted on Borneo during the Second World War by Special Operations Australia (also known as Z Special Unit), and in 2018 co-curated an exhibition at the Australian War Memorial about those operations. Her 2021 book Semut: the Untold Story of a Secret Australian Operation in WWII Borneo won the Prime Minister’s Literary Award for Australian History and the Les Carlyon Literary Prize, was First Runner-Up for the Templer Medal Book Prize (UK), and was shortlisted for the NSW Premier’s Australian History Prize, the ACT Notable Book Awards and the Reid Prize. Join Professor Christine Helliwell and historian Phil Craig in conversation as they discuss their work and raise challenging questions about the final year of the Second World War. In her award-winning book Semut, Helliwell used a treasure trove of unique interviews to bring to life a dramatic secret Australian operation in Borneo during 1945. It’s a story that blends human heroism, intense relationships between men and women of very different cultures and a measure of political skullduggery, as military and colonial agendas appear to clash. Craig’s new book 1945 The Reckoning includes the Semut story too, and places it amid a sometimes provocative “warts and all” analysis of Britain’s behaviour - and Australia’s role in that - during the final months of the war and, critically, in the weeks that follow VP Day when new and bitter campaigns erupt in Vietnam and Indonesia. How much should we temper our pride in what Britain and Australia achieved during the Second World War with the confronting reality of what some call “imperial muscle memory” on display that year?  And could it be that Australian victims of the Borneo death march at Sandakan may been saved had priorities in Canberra and London been geared more toward POWs than oil fields? Explore more - You may also like The End of the Second World War Join us as we commemorate the 80th anniversary of the end of the Second World War through a series of special events and public programs. Find out more. Read more WM magazine We are proud to announce the arrival of WM - the Australian War Memorial's new magazine and website. Explore today. Read more Victory in the Pacific The Second World War officially ended for Australia on 15 August 1945 with Japan's unconditional surrender to the Allies. Learn more. Read more Second World War Galleries Explore how Australians fought in campaigns against Germany and Italy in Europe, the Mediterranean and North Africa; and against Japan in south-east Asia. Located on level 2. Read more