Dr Tom Lewis OAM is a consultant military historian, the author of 21 books, and an on-screen presenter and scriptwriter. He is also a retired naval officer who served in combat; a retired secondary school teacher, and scuba divemaster. His Order of Australia was bestowed on him for services to naval history. He was the Director of Darwin Military Museum in its redevelopment from 2009 to 2013. He has won numerous prizes for his literary works, the most recent being as the national winner of the 2021 Australian Naval Institute’s Commodore Sam Bateman Book Prize for “Teddy Sheean VC”.

Tom’s history works cover WWI, WWII, battlefield behaviour, medieval combat, and some social history. He is in popular demand from radio and television stations across Australia for his insightful comments on military history and how it intersects with modern-day life. He is a regular speaker to community groups, and appears often in TV documentaries. These include:

• The Tiwi Warrior and the Samurai from the Sky (Military Myths Defeated, 2022)
• Coasts with Neil Oliver (Various international channels)
• Drain the Oceans: the Bombing of Darwin and the I-124 submarine. National Geographic 2016.
• Sir Tony Robinson’s Tour of Duty (Various international channels)
• The Borella Ride, the Military Myths Defeated Anzac Centenary commemoration of Lieutenant Albert Borella VC, who rode 1000 kilometres in the Northern Territory Wet Season to sign up for the Great War. Dr Lewis was the Lead Historian for the Ride.
• Albert Borella VC, an Incredible Journey screened in late 2016 nationally on Channel 9
• In 2017 Dr Lewis, as Lead Historian, completed a range of NT Government film projects for The Territory Remembers, the commemoration of 75 years since the first enemy attacks on Australia.

He has been a consultant historian for programs such as:
• Family History Down Under
• a range of other documentaries such as The Sweet Note of the Engine (a history of Australian aviation)
• The Bombing of Darwin – an Awkward Truth.
He was also the military historian for the 2011-2013 Anzac Ghan train journeys.

Tom appears in around 30 radio interviews a year. He has been the commentator for Anzac Day parades; for military flyovers, and for important anniversaries. He is often a panelist speaker for at military history conferences.


Published books:

Tom’s history works cover WWI, WWII, Korea, Vietnam, battlefield behaviour, medieval combat, and some social history. From latest to first...

In Print:
• The Sinking of HMAS Sydney – how sailors, lived, fought and died in Australia’s greatest naval disaster (Big Sky, 2023)
• The Truth of War - the realities of battlefield combat (Big Sky, 2023). (Originally Lethality in Combat, Big Sky 2012)
• Bombers North - a history of bombers operating out of Australia in WWII (Avonmore, 2023)
• Attack on Sydney Harbour – a commemoration of the 80th anniversary of the midget submarine raid on Sydney in 1942 (Big Sky, 2022)
• Australia Remembers 4 – the Bombing of Darwin (Big Sky, 2022) – a book for young people, suitable for upper primary/lower secondary.
• Eagles over Darwin: the USAAF defending northern Australia in 1942 (Avonmore, 2021)
• Medieval Military Combat: an analysis of battlefield techniques in the Wars of the Roses (Casemate, 2021)
• Darwin Bombed: the story for young people (Avonmore, 2020)
• Atomic Salvation: how the atomic bombs saved the lives of 30 million. (Big Sky, 2020)
• Teddy Sheean VC (Big Sky, 2021). Originally published as Honour Denied, Teddy Sheean: Tasmanian Hero, how an unfair system denied the Navy and Sheean a VC. (Avonmore, 2016) Republished following the award of the Cross in 2020.
• The Empire Strikes South, (Avonmore, February 2017), an accounting of all Japanese air raids made in Northern Australia, showing the attacks were far more widespread than first thought.
• Carrier Attack, (with Peter Ingman): an extensive technical analysis of the first Darwin raid, revealing many unknown aspects of that assault. (Avonmore, 2013)
• The Submarine Six: biographies of the six who had RAN submarines named after them. (Avonmore, 2010)
• Darwin’s Submarine I-124, detailing the sinking of the first Japanese submarine by the Royal Australian Navy. Tall Stories, 1995, as Sensuikan I-124, and Avonmore, 2011.
• A War at Home (Tall Stories, 1999, plus three subsequent editions)
• By Derwent Divided, a history of the Tasman Bridge Collapse (Tall Stories, 1999)
• Wrecks in Darwin waters (Turton and Armstrong, 1991)
• Darwin Sayonara, an account for young adults of the first air raid on Australia (Boolarong, 1990)

Current books in production:
• Cyclone Warriors - the Armed Forces in Cyclone Tracy (for 50th anniversary release in 2024, Avonmore)
• Air Attack - Submarine (Big Sky, 2025)
• Australia's Coastal War (Big Sky, 2025)

Maritime Matters

The Titanic: fantasies, fascination, and fatalities
Life at sea in World War II navies
Whaling – a history
The Panama and Suez Canals – origins and oddities
World Affairs – The Great Flood – was it here and when?
A Divemaster’s perspective – Dangerous Marine Creatures
How a warship works – a naval officer’s explanation
Piracy, privateering, and the most famous pirates
Slavery – origins, fables, and grim reality
Easter Island – how and why

Military History
Breaker Morant – the man and the myth in the Boer War
How to further recognise Australian naval heroes – a proposal
Zulu – the movie, the myths, and the might of an African nation vs the British
Cyclone Tracy – a 50 year perspective
The Scapa Flow attack disaster
Being in Bombers – a World War II perspective
The midget submarine raid on Sydney
The Battle of the Coral Sea – the fight that saved Australia
the Napoleonic Wars
The German assault on Australia in WWII
Australia's biggest air raid
Australia’s northern air war
Why the Japanese could not win in the Pacific. Coral Sea to Okinawa
Researching your military ancestor
The submarine war off Australia’s Coasts in WWII
Australia’s most famous – and newest – war hero, Teddy Sheean VC
Gallipoli – myths and legend
Salamis, Athens, and Greek immortality
The world’s worst convoys
The Battle of Britain – did it save a nation?
The Battle of the Atlantic – combating the submarine menace
An Invasion of Norway? – and the loss of carrier Glorious
Pushing back the Axis – D-Day and beyond
Gibraltar and the Mediterranean
Malta – a place of Refuge throughout history
The Vietnam War – Causes and Consequences
The Vietnam War – Battles and Bafflement
The Fall of Singapore – Outpost of Empire and the Battle for the Island
Invading Gallipoli in World War I – why?
The Battle for Crete in World War II
Trafalgar – how Napoleon met his maritime match
Waterloo – how Napoleon was contained and confined

Extraordinary Lives
The real Robinson Crusoe and his creator
An Argentinean dynasty – the Perons
George Orwell, writer of genius
Ferocious WWII lioness Nancy Wake
Leonardo da Vinci – time traveller?
Vice-Admiral William Bligh – maligned naval captain and mighty navigator
WWI figures of fascination: Haig, Monash, and the Red Baron
Captain Cook…navigator and genius
The Nazi Party’s personalities: Goebbels, Goering, Speer, and Hess
Argentina, Eichmann, and the Nazis
Henry VIII – mighty monarch or maniac?
The struggle for succession: Edward, Mary, and Lady Jane Grey
Elizabeth I – what drove this magnificent monarch?
Napoleon – genius or not?
Nelson – without him you’d be speaking French today
WWII Generals: Montgomery; Rommel, and Patton

World Affairs

Aussie, Aussie, Aussie! – how they think
Australian icons: Crocodile Dundee, the Outback, the BBQ and more
Australia – a SWOT analysis: Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats
The Chinese century – is China’s power real or imaginary?
Hong Kong – a Turbulent History
India – the next superpower?
The West’s climate change quest – will it succeed?
The situation in the Ukraine – where will it go?
Transmigration – the 21st century’s greatest challenge?
How the USA bought Alaska – folly or fantastic?
To fly the Atlantic. Lindbergh and others like him.
Canada in WWII and beyond
How does an Intelligence Analyst see the world today?
How much of you is a Viking?
Nuclear submarines for Australia?
If the Cold War had become hot…
How did the Colosseum work?
Clash of Empires and you
How the USA bought Alaska – folly or fantastic?
To fly the Atlantic. Lindbergh and others like him
The Spanish in South America

Astronomy
Our planetary neighbours
The formation of our planetary system
The asteroid “dinosaur-killer” strike
The formation of Earth’s Moon
Do aliens exist and where are they?
To the stars with NASA

The presenter operates an eight-inch telescope and presented Astronomy at high school level

Lecturer on Ponant Kimberley cruise; New Guinea WWII cruise, and annual Ghan Anzac Train.

Lecturer/instructor at the Royal Australian Naval College for five years. Lectures included general military history, and specific naval history. Cruises of Sydney Harbour in naval Stebercraft were devised, constructed, and supervised for up to 100 naval officer trainees at a time.

Numerous national military history conferences.

In all lectures I provided a Powerpoint lecture and took questions afterwards.

One unique aspect of my military history work is a workshop whereby guests can:

a) receive information/instruction in how to research their military ancestor/relative
b) learn how military organisations work, and the basics of reading Service Records
c) learn how military units work in warfare (battalion squadron, ship) and how their relative/ancestor would have worked within that unit.
d) how to research the history of these units in warfare - eg: find/read/understand a battalion's War Diary, for example.

This workshop is supplemented by my personal availability in assisting such beginning researchers develop a family history book, to be published by the numerous companies that now offer such a service (Blurb, for example), for other family members. Such a program can work over several days with myself as the expert. It has proved very successful on cruises and in one-week (or longer) conferences.

The following recent Cruise History has been recorded for this candidate.