Description
Title: From Western Front to Changi Gaol – The Wars of Two Friends
Author: Cox, William
Condition: Near Mint
Edition: 1st Edition
Publication Date: 2009
ISBN: 9780646522944
Cover: Soft Cover without Dust Jacket – 168 pages
Comments: This well illustrated volume tells the story of two friends and their experiences of war; the author’s father, Ellis Cox’s was a gunner officer in WW1 and his friend Bon Rogers was in Malaya in WW2.
Ellis Cox’s letters home are reproduced and give a cheerful and fascinating picture of life, not just at the Front, but in reserve and on occasional leave. They deal with his embarkation, life on the troopship, training in Egypt and Cox’s involvement in the many “stunts” the 4th Divisional Artillery engaged in on the Western Front including Fromelles, Bullecourt, Passchendaele, Hamel, Amiens (where he won the Military Cross and was promoted Major) and the Hindenburg Line.
In the 1920s, practising as a solicitor in Hobart, Ellis Cox met Dr E A (Bon) Rogers, 4 years his senior. When WW2 broke out, Bon, although 50 years old, enlisted in the AIF and went to Malaya. Captured in Singapore, he endured three and a half years as a POW on the Thai-Burma Railway and in Changi Gaol. As the resident medical officer, his bravery in nursing back to health POWs sentenced to death or lengthy prison terms made him one of the unsung heroes of that distressing time.
The Hon. William Cox was Governor of Tasmania from 2004 until 2008.
Signed by author
