The Veterans

THE JUNGLES OF NEW GUINEA: WORLD WAR II

Their officers called them a stinking, lazy, drunken rabble and their friends said they took the colonel prisoner, burnt down their officers' mess and drove off the military police with heavy rifle-fire. This is the unforgettable story of the gallant men of the A.I.F.: the fearless and fatalistic Diggers of the Western Desert.

They were home for three weeks' leave – time to find the brothels, the black markets, the racketeers and the dollar-happy Yank servicemen. Then a faceless madman in the War Office threw them into the shell-torn beaches, mountain trails and steaming jungles of New Guinea. They became creatures of the mud, walking skeletons racked with malaria. There were thousands of them. It was a silent, merciless system of mutual slaughter.

Eric Lambert, who shared their bitter experiences, skilfully depicts the men and their reactions as they came face to face with death in all its gruesome, shocking reality.