Insight into special operations Z-style

Against All Odds
Geoff Black
214 pages, $39.95

Before today’s SAS units, another Special Operations Unit was created during World War II, based loosely on the British SOE.

This was known as the Z-Special Unit. Against All Odds provides a rare insight into one member of the ZSpecial, Mick Dennis.

In particular, a remarkably detailed story of Mick’s survival during an ill-fated mission in which he was the sole survivor of an eight-man Z-Special team dropped onto the Japaneseheld island of Muschu in New Guinea in April 1945.

This book recounts Mick Dennis’ subsequent two-week ordeal and daily engagements with the enemy through heavily patrolled territory.

The book briefly touches on Mick’s upbringing in Sydney and his entry into the Army.

While more detailed accounts are provided of life with the 2/5th Independent Company in New Guinea, and Mick’s involvement, including the raids on Heath’s Plantation, Salamau, and the Markham Valley campaign, before he volunteered for the Z-Special Unit.

The book provides some historical insight, such as when Australian wartime photographers Damien Parer and Osmar White visited the unit and the reaction of the soldiers is well documented.

This book is well illustrated with historical photo’s on Mick Dennis’ own experiences. As there are excerpts of Mick’s own diaries, interspersed with research, it provides a raw, yet light and easy read.

The author provides additional material based on his experiences as a crew member on board the Navy’s Fairmile Flotilla patrolling the coastal waters of New Guinea, to the Japanese surrender in August, 1945.

A f o r eward by BRIG Stringfellow, himself a member of the Z-Special, gives the story additional credence.

This story is all the more remarkable, as Mick Dennis, the sole survivor, is still living in Sydney’s East aged in his mid-80s.