Against All Odds: A True Story of Ultimate Courage and Survival in World War I

Product Information

Ideally martial arts training should help a person avoid physical altercations and other adverse confrontations.” I don’t think you’d regret reading this book. I think it’s a 3.5. It probably lands right where it needs to and lots of people should hear Challen and Harris’ story. The fact that those lads survived can be credited to hundreds of rescuers, but ultimately without these two it’s highly likely those kids would have perished.

Harry and Craig tell of the tension they’d heard while preparing for their own trip. It was a perilous, almost unnavigable environment; how would they survive? Can they swim, dive?? Most of his films were westerns and I’ve watched most of them, not in theaters, but on TV and even YouTube. And sometimes when I watched one, and in most of them Murphy portrays a hero who is rough, tough and always prevails in a gunfight or even fisticuffs, it was easy to think that he was miscast in that role. Here is the story of these two Australian men who became international heroes – it is a story of determination, cunning and triumph that will long be remembered. Alex Kershaw is the master of putting the reader in the heat of the action. Against All Odds is vivid and compelling, a crisp narrative about heroism, war, and going above and beyond the call of duty.” —Martin Dugard, #1 New York Times bestselling coauthor of Killing the Mob and national bestselling author of Taking Paris

Customer reviews

The men became heroes and received awards and accolades. This book recalls their roles they played in fulfilling this successful mission. Which could have gone terribly wrong. While an FC Kohli, Narayana Murthy, Nandan Nilekani, Azim Premji or a Shiv Nadar, today, are seen as the poster boys for the Indian IT industry, the book shines light on some of the lesser-known heroes like Dewang Mehta who helped the sector become the colossus it is today. The authors in detail cover how the industry collectively converted every adversity into an opportunity – be it the onerous regulatory restrictions initially imposed by the government, the dotcom bust and the post-2008 financial meltdown, the maturity with which it handled the Satyam fiasco or even the recent Covid crisis. Ellie's heart, humour, and hard work has allowed her to achieve her dreams. An advocate for disability, Ellie uses her platform as a disabled model to act as a role model and inspire other people with Down Syndrome.

We learn so much more in this well paced book and can now appreciate the training, experience, knowledge and skill that all the divers had when entering a cave. It’s just that this cave experience was ruggedly different.Thus, this book, in Parts, is almost a biographical-debrief-styled, true tale, written with banter in between the seriousness of the situation, by these two very brave, experienced and skilful Aussie cave divers. Towards the end of the book, Paul says that he has learned his lesson after ending up in court charged with GBH, and will never use violence again. And yet just two weeks later, the police turn up on his doorstep due to an incident of road rage whereby Paul assaulted an off-duty police officer. A compelling read that reveals a lot of what went on "behind the scenes" - the tensions, the problem-solving, the camaraderie of cave divers from around the world, the red tape, the many unknown people who were involved, and especially the bravery of all who were committed to the rescue mission. Britt and his men stopped unloading the craft, headed for safety across the beach, and then moved inland. By midday they had reached a preassigned assembly area near a road bridge. Then Britt returned to the beach with a sergeant to salvage the jeeps and equipment he'd been forced to leave in the landing craft. "The first edge of my excitement was beginning to dull and when another strafing plane came over I hit the beach in utter terror, digging madly into the sand."

Through letters, awards, histories and news accounts, you experience the physical, mental, and emotional effects of the war on the individual soldier. The concluding chapters of the book present the long-terms effects of war on those who survived.

Even though we knew the outcome it didn’t matter. We now have info from the ‘inside’ not journalists and cameras. Keith Ware was a manager of a department store when he received his draft notice. Because of his managerial experience and his intelligence he was selected to attend Officer Candidate School (OCS). As a “ninety day wonder” he graduated as a 2nd lieutenant.