The Moon Seems Upside Down

The war letters of Arthur Alan Mitchell 1939-45.


At the outbreak of the Second World War, Alan Mitchell was a foreman at McPherson's bolt factory in Richmond. Eileen Griffin was a typist at the State Rivers and Water Supply Commission. They had just met. He was 23 and she was 19.


In 1940, he joined the 2/2nd Pioneer Battalion, trained at Puckapunyal, fought the French in Syria and the Japanese in Java, and then suffered as a prisoner of the Japanese on the Burma Railroad. Alan survived the war and came home. He and Eileen married and the rest is history.


The Moon Seems Upside Down is Alan and Eileen's story. It is a story of love and war told through the letters of Alan to Eileen. The letters are tender and funny, detailed and well-observed. They provide a unique insight into what the Second World War was like for Australian soldiers, and those who waited for them back home.