with many illustrations
pages 20; b/w photos; cardcover; cover soiled and worn, foxing in the prelims, small black spot on small title page, o/wise good condition. Poetry written in New Guinea during the Pacific War by a Flying Officer, Royal Australian Air Force.

One poem "to my brother, reported missing in air operations with the RAF ion the Middle East on 13th August, 1942)



Philip Henry Napoleon Opas was born in Melbourne on 24 February 1917. His antecedents are Portuguese and Jewish
Still a teenager, he was apprenticed to Roy Schilling as a law clerk and graduated from the University of Melbourne with a Bachelor of Laws. He enlisted with the RAAF in 1939 when the second world war broke out
In 1942, while on leave from New Guinea, he was admitted to practice in the Supreme Court of Victoria as a barrister and solicitor.



n 1966, Opas became defence counsel to Ronald Ryan, in a lengthy and well-publicised murder trial that was to become the defining moment in Opas’ long career. Despite the tenacious defence of his client, Ryan was eventually found guilty and executed (the last person to be hanged in Victoria) in 1967.