That’s the Way It Was – The History of the 24th Australian Infantry Battalion (1st Edition)

Description

Title: That’s the Way It Was – The History of the 24th Australian Infantry Battalion, AIF, 1939 – 1945

Author: Christensen, George

Condition: Very Good Plus

Edition: 1st Edition

Publication Date: 1982

ISBN: 090910817X

Cover: Hard Cover with Dust Jacket – 364 pages

Comments: The story of the 24th Infantry Battalion during World War 2. 

‘That’s The Way It Was’ is an apt title for the history of the 24th Australian Infantry battalion (A.I.F) which had a proud fighting record in the jungle campaigns of 1943-1945 in World War 2.  The story is simply told by members of the battalion who served with it from the outbreak of war, through the formative years of part-time and full-time training, then through front-line service to the cessation of hostilities.  The story might not have been told if Major General Savige who had served with the 24th Battalion in World War I had not intervened when the battalion was in danger of being disbanded in 1942.

 We are told of how 18-year-old boys became battle hardened veterans in the Lae-Salamaua Campaign of 1943 and the Ramu Valley-Finisterre Range battles of 1944 – then, after a brief return to Australia how they fought battles of the rivers along Buin Road in South Bougainville in 1945.  It is a historic account of how human achievement, privation and tragedy, humour and comradeship – and that certain mystic born of front-line service. 

Team spirit comes through, and in 1982, nearly 37 years after the Battalion laid down its arms, that spirit survives.  This history is the result of teamwork by those members who combined to tell of ‘That’s The Way It Was’.  The publication of this book was made possible by the generosity and support of its members of the 24th Battalion (A.I.F) Association.

Includes Nominal Roll