Historical Novel
I've used the fiction style of a novel to convey the all-too-real historical events, conditions and characters in war, whether it be:
- the savage nature of the fighting and the major battles;
-that some senior Australian officers were just as good as their British counterparts at causing the slaughter of their own soldiers in futile charges against machine guns;
-that what little drinking water there was at Anzac Cove tasted of petrol from the cans it was carried in;
-that dysentery ran rampant, and that it and other illnesses took 1000 soldiers off the peninsula each week;
-that some of the Anzacs were of German, Japanese, Chinese, Polish, West Indian and Italian decent, some were Aboriginal and others were just mere boys;
-that some played two-up with two-headed coins and ran bets on what hymns or psalms would be used on church parades.
In this story I have attempted to show the horror of war for what it is. It has been my intent to show the hardship and suffering endured at Gallipoli. I had two uncles there, Stephen Tognolini, Military Medal and Bar, 21st Battalion and Andrew Tognolini, 24th Battalion. They would be joined by their two other brothers John/Jack Tognolini, 57th Battalion Military Medal and Henry/Harry Phillips 60th Battalion on the Western Front in France and Belgium.
John/Jack Tognolini was killed in action on 25th April 1918 at the Battle of Villers-Bretonneux in France. The army had his age as 24 years old. As he was born in 1900, he was either 16 or 17.
About the Front Cover
This photograph is of Sergeant Stephen Tognolini, (back) Military Medal and Bar and Corporal Sergeant Major George Campbell Hunt, (front) Distinguished Conduct Medal, and was taken on June 27th, 1918 in Querrieu, France. It is part of a group photograph of the 21st Battalion's Non-Commissioned Officers. Both served at Gallipoli. George Campbell Hunt was killed in the Battle of Hamel on July 4th, 1918.