Hell, the Humour and the Heartbreak, The : Private’s View of World War One

The author served with the 55th Battalion AIF, at Fromelles, Polygon Wood, Villers-Bretonneux & Peronne.An Australian memoir of World War I, it brings out the attitudes & experiences of the enlisted men & the war-weariness of 1918.Many accounts of World War I have appeared, written mainly by official historians or officers. This is an account by a young private of his part in `the war to end all wars’. There are graphic descriptions of trench warfare at the front, but also many humorous incidents behind the lines. Overall is the realisation of the tragic waste of human life. This book is compelling reading as a Digger looks back on his most momentous years.The’ book’s strengths are the anecdotes that keep springing off the page: the account of Bishop losing his cousins, some of the flashbacks to life in prewar Australia, Bishop consoling a grief-stricken nurse several years his senior, his misgivings about shooting an enemy sniper while he shaves, the meeting with the young midshipman who later commanded and sank with the Perth, the account of the day’s action that led to Bishop being awarded the Military Medal and especially the amused and distanced account of his walking back to cover after being pinned down by enemy machine-gun fire. pp. 268, frontispiece illust. #0720 (Name balcked out on title page.)