Lloyd Ross sums up the character of the wartime Labor Prime Minister who fought Churchill to bring back Australian troops from Europe to defend his nation: “Curtin was a complex character. Warm and sympathetic, but cold and aloof; a comrade but a loner; a rebel and anti-conscriptionist but Prime Minister. Moody; irritable; uncertain; changeable; vacillating; temperamental; opportunist; sentimental; courageous; all are true of Curtin.”