The Third Force reassesses Australia's record as a colonial power and examines the role both the Allied forces and the Papua New Guineans played during World War II. Powell persuasuvely argues there could have been no New Guinea victory without the immense contribution of the native peoples. Drawing on oral history and military archives, the book provides a unique history of Australia's New Guinea war record and colonial administration.

The Australian New Guinea Administrative Unit (ANGAU) of the Australian Army superseded the civilian governments of Papua and New Guinea early in 1942 and administered the area until mid-1946. This book traces all major aspects of ANGAU's war. It provides the only full length study of Papua New Guinean interaction with Australian and US armed forces during World War II.

With meticulous detail The Third Force, utilising new and little known material, examines the founding of ANGAU, its direct military role in the New Guinea fighting, the nature and achievements of its Australian and Papua New Guinean personnel, the function and structure of the wartime administration, and its eventual supersession by the returning civil government.

Aimed at general readers as well as military historians, this book fills a considerable gap in the study of Australia's colonial administration and New Guinea's political and military history. It will also be of importance to those interested in the Australian and US depolyment in the Pacific, modern Papua New Guinean history and Australia's race relations in the region.