Includes an index. Includes names of officers from the 53rd Battalion who died in Europe. As well as a brief outline of the history of the 53rd Battalion in the last years of the war, this is primarily the story of Lieutenant Percy Ralph MM. He fought with the AIF on the Western Front from 1917 and was killed in 1918. He left Australia as a Private soldier in late 1916 and within a year was promoted to Sergeant and then Second Lieutenant. This book reveals a lot about the attitudes of the men who went to fight on the other side of the world - then men who created the ANZAC tradition. His letters downplay the dangers and hardships but reveal the nonchalance with which the Australians undertook their attack on the Hindenburg line.