Japanese Submarine Raiders examines the Japanese submarine campaign conducted against Australia during the Second World War and the events that brought the Pacific War to the nation's eastern seaboard. In early 1942, as Japanese forces advanced across the Pacific, submarines began operating off Australia's coast, laying mines, attacking merchant shipping, and probing coastal defences. Their operations culminated on the night of 31 May-1 June 1942 when three Japanese midget submarines penetrated Sydney Harbour and attacked Allied warships anchored inside the harbour. Drawing on wartime naval records, intelligence reports, survivor accounts, and decades of historical research, Steven Carruthers reconstructs both the Sydney Harbour attack and the wider submarine campaign conducted along Australia's east coast. The book examines Japanese naval strategy in the Pacific and the role submarines played in disrupting Allied shipping and testing Australia's coastal defences during a critical period of the war. The study also explores the intelligence and information environment surrounding these events. Allied authorities relied on fragmentary signals intelligence and operational reports to track Japanese submarine movements, while wartime censorship restricted what could be publicly reported about enemy activity in Australian waters. These factors shaped contemporary understanding of the attacks and influenced how the campaign was later remembered.

Originally published as Australia Under Siege in 1982 and revised as Japanese Submarine Raiders 1942 in 2006, this new edition incorporates updated research and analysis to present a comprehensive account of Japan's submarine operations against Australia. The book places the Sydney Harbour attack within the broader context of the Pacific War and the defence of Australia during one of the most uncertain periods of the conflict. Combining operational history with archival research, Japanese Submarine Raiders provides an authoritative account of a little-known chapter of Australia's wartime experience and the submarine campaign that brought the Pacific War directly to Australia's shores.