About
Dr Tom Lewis OAM is a military historian, an author of 21 books, and a public speaker and on-screen presenter. He is also a retired naval officer who served unusually in land combat as an intelligence analyst, and a retired secondary school teacher. His Order of Australia was bestowed on him for services to naval history. He was the Director of Darwin Military Museum for its 2007-2012 redevelopment. 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, and medieval combat. 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. Recent works include The Tiwi Warrior and the Samurai from the Sky; Coasts with Neil Oliver; Sir Tony Robinson’s Tour of Duty; Drain the Oceans: the Bombing of Darwin, and The Borella Ride, the Anzac Centenary commemoration of Albert Borella VC.
Tom lives in Canberra with his wife Kaylene, and is presently working on The Armed Forces in Cyclone Tracy (for the 50th anniversary release in 2024, Avonmore). His most recent release was The Sinking of HMAS Sydney – living, fighting and dying in Australia’s greatest naval disaster.