Description

Title: Esprit de Corps – The History of the Victorian Scottish Regiment and the 5th Infantry Battalion

Author: Speed, F W

Condition: Near Mint – Minor shelf wear to the board edges.

Edition: 1st Edition

Publication Date: 1988

ISBN: 0043020070

Cover: Hard Cover with Dust Jacket  – 429 pages

Comments: A well written and detailed history of the  Victorian Scottish Regiment which also includes the history of the 2/5th Battalion 1939 to 1945. 

Esprit de Corps is an outstanding characteristic of the Highland Regiments of Scotland and is equally apparent in their Australian affiliated units.  The Victorian Scottish, allied to the famous Gordon Highlanders, has a proud record of providing citizen soldiers for every war in which Australians forces participated from 1899 until the present.  Founded in Melbourne in 1898, its members served in the South African Contingent to the Boer War of 1899 – 1902, in the 5th Battalion of the First AIF and in 2/5 Battalion of the second AIF.  Others served in wide range of army units and in the RAN and RAAF but all gained their initial introduction to soldiering in the Regiment, giving up evenings and weekends to attend training in the years of peace.  Altogether the regiment provided the Second AIF with four battalion commanders, 22 company commanders and many more senor officers and NCOs. 

This book tells of the men who served their country in peace and war and of the achievements of the wartime units in battle.   Esprit de Corps will be of special interest to those involved in training soldiers today, and to those students of military history who wish to look behind the facts to ascertain why Australian infantry battalions were so often the elite Allied troops in two world wars.  here is a definitive account of the Victorian Scottish Regiment’s allied units – 5 Battalions in World War I and 2/5 Battalion in World War II whose proud record of battle honours include: South Africa, Gallipoli, Helles, Pozieres, Somme, Ypres 1917, Menin Road, Amiens, Hazebrook, Hindenburg Line, Bardia, Tobruk, Syria, Damour, Greece, Wau, Autape-Wewak, Mount Tambu.

Includes Roll of Honour