The Japanese Pilot: A New Beginning (Paperback or Softback)

Shinzo Watanabe, a Japanese fighter pilot, comes to bomb the city of Darwin during World War 2. When his zero is shot down by anti-aircraft fire, he manages to fly until the plane crashes. Shinzo is able to parachute to safety in North Queensland. When he is picked up by a farmer, Trevor Flanagan, he is taken home and fed, and treated very well by the Flanagan family. He is given work to do by Col Flanagan. Shinzo adapts quickly to farming life in Australia and eventually meets, courts and marries Gerty, the Flanagan's lovely young niece.

Col has been banking wages for Shinzo at two pounds a week since 1942, so by 1947, when he sees a service station for sale in Greenvale, Shinzo has enough to buy it for his wife and their child.

Trouble looms for the young family when the immigration department discovers how Shinzo entered Australia back in 1942, and directs him to attend a hearing in Rockhampton to show why he should or should not be deported. The hearing and the unfolding drama leaves Shinzo and Gerty wondering if their wonderful new life at the Halfway Service Centre will be cut short or not.

Following his graduation from the University of Newcastle, NSW, Robert Burley spent thirty-five years teaching in small country schools. He majored in English and History, and has always been an avid reader and lover of literature. He has written and collected a plethora of poems, short stories and novels, based on both true life and fiction. Robert is a guitarist and singer- songwriter, and has played professionally since he was sixteen years of age in dance bands and duos throughout the Hunter Valley. He has composed and recorded numerous songs. The Japanese Pilot is dear to his heart because it illustrates what can happen when people demonstrate kindness and understanding rather than prejudice.