Anzac Digger: An Engineer With the First Division AIF 1914-1918 by Roy Denning and edited by Lorna Denning

Book Description

Secondhand. Very good condition. Minor wear to book corners and edges.

Roy Denning was a First World War soldier who served as a sapper with No. 1 Field Company, Engineers, at Gallipoli. He was an articulate man, and he has left us with a very introspective view of World War I. Unlike many writers, he gets inside his head and tells us how it felt to be in action amongst the death, maiming and the terrible life in the trenches.

After a stay in hospital on Malta, he arrived on the Western Front, where the horrors were even worse and the living conditions were extremely primitive. Again, he recounts how it truly felt to be on the front line at Pozieres, Ypres, Longueval, the Somme, Villers-Bretonneux, and other battle areas. He describes the ghastliness of digging trenches and having to decide between chopping through buried bodies orl diverting the trench to go around them.

When he went on leave to England, he began questioning his own resolve to return to the war. Self-discipline and loyalty to his mates stopped him from going AWL, and he returned to face more misery.

Denning survived the war and, for years, wrote and rewrote his diary, resulting in a most remarkable read.