Book excerpt: An absorbing examination of what it was like to wait and to worry on the homefront during the years of the loved ones' captivity. It deals with a world that military history has preferred to ignore: the impact of war on wives, mothers, sons, daughters, relatives, friends - and on the soldiers themselves, once they were left to their own resources. The book contains their anguished correspondence to Prime Minister, John Curtin, which gives a keen insight into the suffering of families.