So Far from Home: The Remarkable Diaries of Eric Evans, an Australian Soldier during World War I edited by Patrick Wilson

Book Description

Secondhand. Good condition. Wear to book corners and edges. Sunning to foredges. Fading to spine. Body text and binding are still very good.

When 19-year-old Sergeant Eric Evans embarked on a troop ship bound for France in 1917, he was already a Gallipoli veteran and a seasoned campaigner. But nothing had prepared him for the horrors of the Western Front. During the next two years, he was wounded twice, badly gassed and saw countless friends and comrades die in nightmarish circumstances.

In diaries he kept throughout his ordeal, vivid and honest descriptions of life as an infantry sergeant are interwoven with an overpowering yearning for his sweetheart, Dorothy Wright, who patiently waited for his return to Sydney.

His thoughtful writing captures the life of a young soldier in all its contradictions. From practical jokes and flirtations with nurses to politics to the misery of life in the trenches, it adds a unique and authentic voice to the annals of Australians at war.