Robert Edward Burley

The Japanese Pilot Robert Edward Burley

Shinzo Watanabe, a Japanese fighter pilot, comes to bomb the city of Darwin during World War 2. When his zero is shot down by anti-aircraft fire, he manages to fly until the plane crashes. Shinzo is able to parachute to safety in North Queensland. When he is picked up by a farmer, Trevor Flanagan, he is taken home and fed, and treated very well by the Flanagan family. He is given work to do by Col Flanagan. Shinzo adapts quickly to farming life in Australia and eventually meets, courts and marries Gerty, the Flanagan's lovely young niece.

Col has been banking wages for Shinzo at two pounds a week since 1942, so by 1947, when he sees a service station for sale in Greenvale, Shinzo has enough to buy it for his wife and their child.

Trouble looms for the young family when the immigration department discovers how Shinzo entered Australia back in 1942, and directs him to attend a hearing in Rockhampton to show why he should or should not be deported. The hearing and the unfolding drama leaves Shinzo and Gerty wondering if their wonderful new life at the Halfway Service Centre will be cut short or not.