[1][2][3] Rising to the rank of Colonel during World War II, he won the Military Cross for his role in the Allied evacuation from Greece in 1941.

His parents were William John Sheppard, a labourer and later a tool sharpener, and his wife Alicia (née Simmonds), who had formerly been a Salvation Army officer.

[10] In March 1941 Sheppard was sent to northern Greece, where his unit's mission was to cover for the retreat of Greek troops facing the imminent German invasion of that country.

He worked as a liaison officer, then was in charge of transporting food and supplies by donkey, with the assistance of local Greek porters and resistance fighters, over rough tracks and in mountain areas and "always at risk from attack from... enemy patrols".

Sheppard, now aged 27,[1] was promoted to Lieutenant Colonel and sent to the 6th Division Headquarters near Adelaide River, Northern Territory as Acting Assistant Quartermaster General, with orders to help strengthen Darwin's defenses in the wake of recent Japanese attacks there.

His duties brought him into regular but acrimonious contact with Sir Thomas Blamey, the Commander in Chief of the Australian Military Forces and he hoped for a transfer to the combat frontlines in New Guinea.

He was "over-joyed" to hear of the liberation of Greece in October but his "optimism ... turned to despair" as he witnessed the British campaign, under Churchill, to crush the Greek republican resistance and reinstall the monarchy.

[30] His role required him to spend British funds to repair roads and other infrastructure, assist in reviving various Greek industries, and to support orphanages and schools.

He also continued to assist political prisoners, attend trials being held under the Emergency Measures Acts recently passed by the Greek government,[31] and support the activities of trade unionists.

On one occasion, he intervened to prevent the execution of a fifteen year old schoolgirl, Euphraxia Nicolaides, who had been charged with "giving material comfort to the rebels".

[35] Returning to Australia to rejoin his family, Sheppard found himself under attack by conservatives including Adair Macalister Blain, MP, and Major William S. Jordan in News Weekly, suggesting he was a Communist.

[37][38] In a letter to the News Weekly, Sheppard reiterated that he was "not a Communist but an active Christian and a communicant with the Church of England, an impartial friend of liberalism for 17 years".

[43] Sheppard decided not to continue a career in the Army or law, and instead in 1950 he and his wife purchased Morgan's Bookshop at 9 Castlereagh Street, Sydney.

[51][52] Notable books published by Alpha included Joanne Stevenson's No Case to Answer (about the Melbourne–Voyager collision),[53] Vince Kelly's A Man of the People (about Sir William McKell), and J. T. Lang's The Turbulent Years.

Sheppard had been "annoyed" when in 1964 he had heard some British writers refer to Australia's "juvenile censorship laws" and he "decided to do something about it"[61][62] by publishing in 1965, with the assistance of several colleagues including Leon Fink,[63] a Sydney entrepreneur, and Ken Buckley, the secretary of the NSW Council for Civil Liberties,[64] the book The Trial of Lady Chatterley's Lover in Australia.

[65] At that time D. H. Lawrence's novel Lady Chatterley's Lover had been designated, by the Department of Customs and Excise and under the Australian Commonwealth law, a "prohibited import" in Australia for four years, and The Trial of Lady Chatterley's Lover, an account of the British trial about that country's ban of the novel, had recently been banned for importation into Australia.

No Australian state took action, except Victoria whose "pugnacious" and "at times ... reactionary"[69] Attorney-General, Arthur Rylah, decided to prosecute Sheppard, not for publishing an obscene article but for contravening a law which prohibited the reproduction of trial evidence by unauthorised persons.

[72] He avoided fines and gaol time but lost money when cheaper foreign copies were immediately and legally imported from abroad once the bans had been lifted.

A proposal suggested by Senator Ken Anderson to introduce uniform book censorship in all of the nine Australian states was seen by Sheppard as "even less liberal" than the previous laws.

[73] A number of books would remain banned in Australia until the early 1970s when the federal Minister of Customs and Excise, Don Chipp, largely ended censorship of printed material in the country.

[74] In the 1960s and 1970s Sheppard continued to engage in "methodically organized interventions"[75] during the Greek Regime of the Colonels and was one of the foundation members[76] and the chairman of the Australian Committee for the Restoration of Democracy in Greece (1967–74).