I'll Walk Beside You
Under the same Moon is the first of two volumes. The second, I’ll Walk Beside You, picks up where this volume finishes – the men still on the ship at Tanjong Priok dock in Java, uncertain of their fate; their families in Australia having lost contact, sending letters of hope; a panicked government preparing for what seemed certain invasion.
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I’ll Walk Beside You follows the Battalion’s travails in Southeast Asia and return to Australia, and the families’ struggles at home. It is a story of love, laughter, separation, hideous brutality, incredible courage, beauty amid degradation, the human camaraderie that aids survival, and the miraculous default to humour that can occur as men and women endure appalling circumstances. It is a recreation of the horror that is war and the depleted civilian life of those left behind.
​For more information, contact Simon & Schuster and Big Sky Publishing
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Professor Joan Beaumont, internationally recognised historian of Australia in the two world wars, was the guest speaker at the launch of I'll Walk Beside You at the Royal Historical Society of Victoria on 13th May 2026. Listen to her speech here
What People are Saying
A fascinating, soul-stirring personal account of wartime love, loyalty, courage and sacrifice from a momentous time in history.
Grantlee Kieza, author of Sister Viv
Written with frank insight, extraordinary imagination and deep empathy, I’ll Walk Beside You, is a very moving and human book. And a searing account of the evil of war. It is also a wise book, showing the workings of love.
Michael McKernan
Ambitious and impressive … Peter carries this off very skilfully, partly because of his writing skill but also because he had such rich sources in which to anchor his imagination; these included his father’s unpublished memoirs and hours of tape recordings, the almost complete correspondence that passed between his parents in the war years, the letters of his brother and the letters and memoirs of friends.​
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Professor Joan Beaumont