Anthony Hill (1) (1942–)

I've had this book sitting on my shelf for several years and finally got around to reading it. I found it quite by accident when it turned up online along with my own book of the same title, although the subtitles are different (mine is AT PLAY IN THE ASA). I finally read it today. It's a pretty quick read.

Anthony Hill's SOLDIER BOY: THE TRUE STORY OF JIM MARTIN THE YOUNGEST ANZAC is written for YA readers. It's a pieced-together bio of Jim Martin, who, at 14, is believed to have been the youngest soldier of the ANZAC (Australia and New Zealand Army Corps) forces to die at Gallipoli during WWI. There are, it appears, pathetically few official documents or personal papers from young Martin's short life. Having done as much as he could with research, Hill fills in the gaps with 'imagined' dialogue and conversations between Jim and his family, friends and 'mates' in the ANZAC 21st Battalion. So although it's called a "true story," it is, necessarily, partially fictionalized.

Ironically, young Martin was not a casualty of battle, but died of typhoid aboard a hospital ship. Actually this is not surprising, as Hill says this about "the disease debacle" of Gallipoli -

"During September and October alone, some 50,000 Allied casualties were evacuated through Mudros Bay. Of these men, 44,000 - almost nine out of every ten - were sick."

Of course Jim Martin lied about his age to enlist, and his parents reluctantly colluded with him in this, but only because he'd threatened to run away and enlist under another name if they wouldn't. It wasn't until months after his death that his actual age became public. He was three months shy of 15 when he died.

There were plenty of boys like Jim in ANZAC, but he was probably the youngest of them all - boys who would not be denied their part in the fight -

"They were going to have their share of action and glory. If there was any doubt at what fate might decide, men hid it under wisecracks. They were mostly young, and all were invincible. Death, on a battlefield, comes for somebody else."

But die they did, and by tens of thousands. Jim Martin is now a minor part of Australian military history. SOLDIER BOY is probably a story that needed to be told, and one hopes that the boys who read it might learn something from it. The gently used copy I have is inscribed - "Dear Scott, for your 16th Birthday ..." Take heed, Scott, of Jim Martin's sacrifice, and his life so sadly cut short.

SOLDIER BOY is a pretty good story, a bit overly dramatic now and then, perhaps. I probably would have liked it more if I were Australian. Recommended for boys who have an interest in military history.

- Tim Bazzett, author of the Cold War memoir, SOLDIER BOY: AT PLAY IN THE ASA… (mehr)

"'His heart was in the land and he thought of nothing else.' At the close of the First World War, Captain Walter Eddison moved his family from war-ravaged Britain to start a new life in Australia. The Eddisons were offered 'land fit for heroes' under the Australian government's soldier-settlement scheme, but the grim realities of life in the remote bush were not easy for a family used to the green pastures of England. Walter and Marion made the best of the limited prospects, but as they raised their young family on the outskirts of the national's newly established capital, tensions were again simmering in Europe. When the Second World War broke out, they were forced to confront their worst fears as their three sons headed back to the battlefields they'd tried so hard to leave behind. Anthony Hill expertly weaves military history and gripping accounts of frontline fighting into this intimate portrait of a family who sacrificed everything for their country, showing how the global conflicts of the twentieth century came home to Australia, with tragic consequences."--Back cover.… (mehr)