Reviewed by Norrie Sanders
This is a book that I have been waiting to read for decades. As a young teenager, I encountered Captain Reg Saunders at the Royal Military College Golf Club. I knew plenty of Captains and Colonels, but none commanded the room like Reg. His popularity, modesty and open warmth were immediately obvious. Everyone seemed to know him and greeted him as an old friend. But it has taken until his nephew James’ book to learn about his life from an indigenous perspective. It was worth the wait.
At a time when loud and sometimes violent racism was rife, Reg Saunders had all the attributes of a successful member of Australian society, with one exception – he was black. Growing up on Gunditjmara country (the volcanic belt of south western Victoria), he was a hard worker, easy going and highly skilled – whether it be sawmilling or football. Those who knew him, white and black, respected and liked him.
Reg’s war record in WW2 and Korea was exemplary. So much so that he became the first Indigenous Australian to be a commissioned officer and he retired as a Captain in 1953. His working life continued until 1980, during which time he was awarded an MBE. Post retirement, he was appointed to the Council of the Australian War Memorial.
His war service was the subject of a 1962 biography by Harry Gordon which was a well-deserved accolade, when war was still a recent memory. However, in deciding to write Fighting for Country, James Saunders acknowledges Gordon’s good intentions but notes that it was an account of bravery in isolation, unmoored from the structural conditions that made it possible. He did not look closely at Reg’s Aboriginal family, his identity and the wider experiences of structural inequality [p265].
James carefully constructs a history that begins long before Reg’s birth, to show that Aboriginal lore and upbringing prepared him to be a soldier and a leader. Army boot camps and frontline action played a part, but indigenous culture provided the foundations.
When Reg led men in North Africa, Crete, New Guinea and Korea, …. he knew rhythm and formation because he had seen them at home…. His steadiness under fire was not temperament alone. It was the expression of structural knowledge, the understanding that chaos yields to a pattern when everyone understands their place in the line [p266].
When James patiently explains indigenous concepts (for example, the importance of country, in the Prologue) he adopts a markedly different voice from most of the story. He is a great storyteller in both modes, but the clipped cadence of the prologue is spellbinding:
A boy walks the slope with his hands in his pockets against the cold. Thin and quick. He knows where the ground softens, where it grips. He knows the names of birds, the weight of a football, how to tuck his chin when the taunts start at school. He has been taught to keep his back straight. To work. To listen. To run when running is called for, to stand when standing is right. Not yet a soldier. Already a defender [pxv].
Seeing post war Australia through Reg’s eyes makes us acutely aware of the contrast between his earned status as a combatant and the shameful way that he and his family are excluded from an equal life by laws, bureaucracy and racism. The many inequities and ordeals are presented as fact and anecdote, rather than sermonising, but the message is the stronger for it.
This is a penetrating work, full of insight, empathy and intelligence. As a first book, it promises much to come from the author. It brings a fine man to life and demonstrates that fighting for country is something that we all must play a part in. I leave the last words to James, as Reg and his brother Harry have a rare meeting during the war on a short leave to that holiest of cities, Jerusalem:
Back home, sacredness didn’t sit in stone; it moved through water, smoke, ash and story. Different continent, different songlines, but the same deep pulse [p92].
James Saunders is a Gunditjmara Wiradjuri and Wongaibon man from the Saunders and Parker family lines. He is the nephew of Captain Reginald Saunders, whose life and service sit at the heart of awareness of the responsibilities that come with family, Country and history. James runs the Barragi Mawang agency and is a former Chief Operating Officer of IndigenousX. He lives on Gadigal Country. His writing reflects a new generation of Indigenous storytelling, grounded in family truth, cultural responsibility and a clear commitment to telling history as it was lived. Fighting for Country is his first book.
by James Saunders
(September 2026)
Allen & Unwin
ISBN: 978 1 7614 7198 8
$34.99 (Paperback); 304pp