The Gallant Company (1933) By H.R. Williams
 
The author, Harold Roy Williams  was a member of the 56th Battalion AIF.
 
In 1933, at the time of the release of the book, the Commander of the 5th Division AIF, Lieut General Sir Talbot Hobbs wrote, "No True Australian can read this book without his blood tingling with intense pride in the achievements, the endurance, and the reputation of his countrymen"
 
Harold Williams was present at the Battle Of Fromelles on the 19th July 1916 he wrote many eyewitness accounts of the battle,
 
“The ordeal of the night was plainly visible on all faces, ghastly white showing through masks of grim and dried sweat, eyes glassy, protruding, and full of horror seen only upon men who have lived through a heavy bombardment.” 
 
Williams who enlisted in 1915, had only arrived in France, from Egypt, on 30 June 1916. He describes the horrors of the Fromelles battlefield in shocking clarity and the conditions the troops had to endure are revealed in disturbing detail.

Surviving a later gas attack, Harold Williams’ book reads like a tour of the Western Front with his beloved 56th Battalion. Following the Somme there was the mud and squalor of the line south of Ypres, the German Spring Offensive of 1918, the Battle of Amiens – frequently described as the most decisive battle against the Germans in France and Flanders – the capture of Villers-Bretonneux and, finally, the assault on Péronne.

Injured at Péronne and invalided back to the United Kingdom, Williams survived the war to return to Australia in 1919. An Anzac on the Western Front is his graphic description of his service in the First World War – an account that was described as “the best soldier’s story … yet written in Australia” when it was first published in 1933.
 
Hard Cover
275 Pages
In Good Condition