The Bulldog Track

by Peter Phelps

This is the story of Tom Phelps and the 'other Kokoda Track'. Seventy-five years later, Tom's grandson, award-winning actor and writer Peter Phelps, is sharing this inspiring tale of resilience and survival.

March 1942: The world is at war. Too old to fight and with jobs scarce at home, Tom Phelps found work as a carpenter in the goldfields of the New Guinea Highlands. No one expected the Japanese to attack in the Pacific. But they did.

Tom and his mates weren't going to hang around and wait to be killed. With escape routes bombed by the Japanese, their only option was to try to reach safety by foot, through some of the most rugged terrain on Earth - the Bulldog Track.

Back home in Sydney, Rose Phelps, their son, George, and three daughters, Joy, Shirley and Ann, waited for news of Tom's fate. George watched the horrors of war unfold on newsreels knowing his dad was 'over there'.

Travelling by foot, raft, canoe, schooner, train, luck and courage, Tom Phelps, half-starved and suffering malaria, would eventually make it home. His stories of New Guinea would lead his son and grandson to their own experiences with the country.

The Bulldog Track is a grandson's story of an ordinary man's war. It is an incredible tale of survival and the indomitable Aussie spirit.

Genres: Biography, Nonfiction

Paperback

Published July 31, 2018

About the author

Peter Phelps is one of Australia's best-loved actors, regularly appearing in film, television and theatre productions. He is an AFI and Logie award winner and has directed episodes of All Saints and Home and Away.

In 1994 he wrote the bestselling book Sex without Madonna: True confessions of a hired gun in Tinseltown (a wry look at his years in Hollywood). His second book, The Bulldog Track, is a very personal account of his grandfather's incredible survival in New Guinea during WWII, and his escape by the 'other Kokoda trail'.

Reviews

[Calzean · Rating 2 out of 5]

The Author is a well-known Australian actor. He wrote and narrated this book which I listened to driving across the Nullarbor.
His book is about the experiences of his grandfather who was a gold-miner/carpenter working in the highlands of PNG when WWII starts. The grandfather with the rest of his crew unable to fight in the militia due to age or infirmity escape the Japanese by walking down the treacherous Bulldog Track to safety. The book also focused on the author's father who was a 13 year old boy in Sydney, missed his dad and had no idea what was happening to him.
The story of the trek deserves to be told but this book seemed more to be something written for the family and somehow found itself in print for anyone to read.

[Nick De Bressac · Rating 4 out of 5]

Phelp’s cathartic account of his grandfather‘s trek through New Guinea is equally cathartic for the reader. A fascinating insight into gold mining in Bulolo amidst the Pacific Theatre of War. Truly a reminder that history is made up of ordinary people performing extraordinary acts. His assertion on the importance and power of family and home is well argued and evident in the journeys of both Tom and George.

[Bec Barbierato · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was a terrible book. Peter Phelps cannot tell a good story and cannot write. It’s all over the shop and it lacks continuity. He keeps on quoting how the Bulldog Track is supposed to be tougher than Kokoda, but you don’t get a sense of that at all when reading this book. You also don’t feel empathy towards anyone in the book. Essentially all Phelps does is say ‘this happened, and then this happened and then that happened’ for 260 odd pages. I wanted to give it three starts for the topic, but just couldn’t do it. Very disappointing.

[Gayle Parker · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is engrossing despite needing some editing to give it some cohesion and to limit the switching between characters and times
The subject matter is so poignant I almost want to give it 4 stars

[Sarah · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting story but badly written. The author jumps about too much and some things were still unclear at the end.

[Brian · Rating 4 out of 5]

Like most Australians, I had never heard of The Bulldog Track in New Guinea. Many Australians of course know about the extraordinary events that took place on the Kokoda Trail, and many may now have retraced the soldiers’ and natives’ steps over that famous track. Now, thanks to Peter Phelps telling his grandfather’s and his father’s story is such clear language, we can all get a glimpse into a previously hidden world and of the indomitable spirit of the men, both Australian and New Guinean, who rose to the challenges of a war inflicted on them, and survived.

It’s a well researched and written book which speaks in the common tongue of the ordinary man and uses that tongue to tell an ordinary man’s story with passion and respect and love.

The fact that I grew up in the Sydney he describes, played those same games of football and cricket with the mates in the street, and rode those same trains, only served to make it more personal and to me, honest. I have also had the good fortune to have visited New Guinea and can attest to veracity of his rendition of the country and is people.

I only have two tiny criticisms. One is that I found his use of the term ‘bois’ for ‘boys’ and ‘waitman’ for ‘whiteman’ rather irritating. Used once to give a flavour of the native language or quoted in direct dialogue by a native speaker such as ‘wokabout pinis, bos’ would be acceptable, but not used as the word that the whiteman used in recounting of a situation or story.

The second is, and it made me laugh outright, is that in the chapter entitled, ‘The Girl’, set in 1937, Phelps describes the scene as ’Tom cranked through the gears as he listened to his crackling transistor radio lying on the passenger seat.’ Really? A pretty good trick considering that the transistor wasn’t invented until 1947 and the first transistor radio released in 1954.

Those two things aside, I thoroughly enjoyed reading the story and thank the author for bringing it to the public’s attention.

As Tom would no doubt have said, ‘You bloody beauty!’

[gemsbooknook Geramie Kate Barker · Rating 4 out of 5]

‘March 1942: The world is at war. Too old to fight and with jobs scarce at home, Tom Phelps found work as a carpenter in the goldfields of the New Guinea Highlands. No one expected the Japanese to attack in the Pacific. But they did.
Tom and his mates weren’t going to hang around and wait to be killed. With escape routes bombed by the Japanese, their only option was to try to reach safety by foot, through some of the most rugged terrain on Earth – the Bulldog Track.
Back home in Sydney, Rose Phelps, their son, George, and three daughters, Joy, Shirley and Ann, waited for news of Tom’s fate. George watched the horrors of war unfold on newsreels knowing his dad was ‘over there’.
Travelling by foot, raft, canoe, schooner, train, luck and courage, Tom Phelps, half-starved and suffering malaria, would eventually make it home. His stories of New Guinea would lead his son and grandson to their own experiences with the country.’
This book was wonderful.
I was so excited to read this book and it didn’t disappoint. I am a pretty big fan of Australian Military history so I have read many books about the Kokoda Track but I had never even heard of The Bulldog Track or the ‘other Kokoda Track’ as it is sometimes known.
To get to learn about The Bulldog Track while following a group of ordinary men, as well as learning about Tom Phelps and his family made for a truly wonderful reading experience.
This book perfectly captures the Aussie spirit and the heart of what mateship really means. Reading about these amazing men and the journey that they went through was not only informative but emotional too.
I loved that this book not only followed the men on their journey over The Bulldog Track but it also gave the reader a glimpse into what it was like for the families that were left behind in Australia during War time.
I can’t imagine a better book to introduce a reader to The Bulldog Track and I am genuinely excited to learn more about this topic.
The Bulldog Track by Peter Phelps is a must read for all Australians.

Geramie Kate Barker
gemsbooknook.wordpress.com

[David Vernon · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book provides some pale illumination of an important part of Australian WW2 history. Its narrative structure is fragmented and I am surprised that the publisher Hachette thought it was in a good enough state to publish. Because Phelps had so few 'facts' to work off he made up extensive elements of the narrative and it wasn't always clear what was fantasy and what was fact. Making up dialogue is fine as clearly nobody recorded it but so much other material was unclear about its factual nature. The book makes great claim that the Bulldog Track was worse than Kokoda but the content does not bear this out other than via assertion. Readers get little idea of time nor distance. There isn't even a map provided to give a sense of the scale of the trek. This is a disappointing book that should remain as a personal family history rather than shared with the paying public.

[Joy Norman · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have never heard about this track so it was interesting and I've since spoken to different people and they haven't either! I enjoyed all the different aspects of the book and fascinated to find out where the nursery rhyme " two little dickey birds " originated from All the things these people faced when bombed by the Japanese must of been scary and they lost everything. They must of sighed with relief once they got back to Australia. I the book they refer to this being as difficult as the Kokoda trail. It was also unmarked. Great book

[Christine · Rating 4 out of 5]

I listened to this as an audio book. It was well written and narrated. I knew nothing of this time in our Australian history and enjoyed reading about a man’s tenacity to keep on going when the road ahead seems insurmountable.