Anzac Guerrillas is the incredible true story of how a handful of escaped Australian soldiers became resistance fighters, double agents and spies in Yugoslavia during World War II.

It is written by a first-time author from Canberra, Edmund Goldrick.

In the book, Goldrick closely follows the adventures of two Victorian escapees, Castlemaine mineworker Ross Sayers and North Richmond storeman Ronald Jones.

“It started as I was doing some other research in the National Archives in Melbourne,” he told CD.

“It was a file concerning crimes committed by the German Army as they moved Australian prisoners from Greece to Germany in 1941.

“One of the testimonies was from Ross Sayers. It mentioned him escaping to Yugoslavia and it didn’t mention anything about recapture.”

Goldrick said he followed the story from that thread.

“And finding more and more Australians who were in Yugoslavia, it’s a sort of merging of my niche interests of POW (prisoner of war) history and Balkan history,” he said.

“But the story that came out of that pulling was so remarkable and I felt it really deserved to be told, that it really became an obsession.

“I was determined to bring these people’s stories [to the world].”

The research started back in 2021, but while also working part-time, Goldrick said it took the equivalent of two and a half years to complete. The book will be released on 30 July 2025.

At one stage, Goldrick rewrote the entire first 10-20,000 words.

“Because I felt it was missing a lot of Australian context,” he said.

“I think there were similarities in life and everyday struggles in Australia and Yugoslavia in the 1930s that meant this generation came of age in the Great Depression, and was surprisingly well-suited to field intelligence work.

“I just really wanted to sort of take the reader through both what life was like in Australia before they get to Yugoslavia, so it does feel like a proper journey.”

Goldrick said he felt a deep sense of responsibility to share the story with the world.

“It’s strange because those who did survive found it very difficult to reconcile with what happened,” he said.

“What they experienced was so traumatic and it was so complex that it didn’t fit into a neat narrative.

“They were content to just let that pass, to just sort of let that slip away.”

Goldrick said he was terrified to see the book in print.

“I just hope that some people might be as moved by their accounts as I was,” he said.

In a little bit of trivia for you, Goldrick had to audition (and was selected) to voice the audiobook version.

Goldrick grew up in Canberra, and after studying at Australian National University, went on to work as a political and strategic studies researcher and journalist in the United Kingdom.

Anzac Guerillas will be launched at National Library of Australia on 30 July from 5:30-6:30pm. The informal launch celebration will include a short address from the author in the Library Bookshop. Edmund will also talk about his book and be available to sign copies.

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