To the Last Ridge

by W.H.Downing

ISBN 1 875989 65 X

$18.50

Published April 2000

'The Australian equivalent of All Quiet on the Western Front' Patsy Adam-Smith, The ANZACS

'A masterpiece among the chronicles of war' The Australian

The moving World War I memoirs of Walter Downing, a Melbourne law student who fought on the Western Front, last published in 1920.

Unlike most such memoirs, these are extremely well written and avoid excesses of enthusiasm. They provide a direct and disturbing account of the horrors and heroism of the ordinary soldier's experience of the trenches.

This is far more than just another Anzac Day book.

'The finest and most graphic description of these actions ever written from the point of view of the serving soldier.' Legacy's Weekly Bulletin

The book contains, as an appendix, the names of the several thousand men who fought in Downing's battalion, the 57th.