The Other Side of the Trench. G. S. Willmott

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       Chapter 3 – Victoria Dock to Princess Park

      Chapter 4 – Love and War

      Chapter 5 – Family Reunion

      Chapter 6 – Gallipoli

      Chapter 7 – From Desert to the Green Hills of France

      Chapter 8 – Ancestory.com

      Chapter 9 – Not So Gay Paris – 1915

      Chapter 10 – Gay Paris – 2012

      Chapter11 – Tour de France

      Chapter 12 – From Here to Eternity

      Chapter 13 – Attack or Not to Attack

      Chapter 14 – We Will Fight Them in the Trenches

      Chapter 15 – The Aftermath

      Chapter 16 – A Farmer’s Dilemma

      Chapter 17– Ours is not to Question Why

      Chapter 18 – The Agony and the Passion

      Chapter 19 – Ghosts

      Chapter 20 – They Could Hear the Blasts in London

      Chapter 21 – United We Stand United We Fall

      Chapter 22 – Passchendaele

      Chapter 23 – Innocence of War

      Chapter 24 – The Dogs of War

      Chapter 25 – War Horse

      Chapter 26 – Blood Sweat and Tears

      Chapter 27 – French Blood Flowed Like a River

      Chapter 28 – School Days

      Chapter 29 – Snakes and Ladders

      Chapter 30 – Monash’s Blitzing

      Chapter 31 – Letters From the Front

      Chapter 32 – How are You Going to Keep Them Down on the Farm

      Chapter 33 – Uncle Sam Joins the Fray

      Chapter 34 – Retreat! We Just Got Here

      Chapter 35 – ANZAC Day 2012

      Chapter 36 – Bring in the Storm Troopers

      Chapter 37 – The Beginning of the End

      Chapter 38 – Spanish Flu

      Chapter 39 – Spirit of War

      Epilogue

      Introduction

      When I was a young boy living in Melbourne, Victoria, my first introduction to the Great War was when my father, Sam, showed me the spurs and leather leggings that my Grand father wore as part of his uniform when he was in the 4th Australian Light Horse. I used to try to wear them around the back yard pretending I was in the Light Horse myself - a very romantic notion. The fact that they kept falling off my skinny little eight-year-old legs was irrelevant.

      My next experience with the Great War was when my mother, Vida told me about her brother Harry who died in the war four years before she was born. It was she who told me her mother’s hair turned white over night when she learnt of Harry’s death. My mother knew that Harry died in France but she was unaware exactly where. She was also aware the Harry had lied about his age and was only sixteen when he got shipped off to Gallipoli and then over to France to die at the Battle of Fromelles.

      The term “Missing” is not a very confronting term; it can apply to your dog or cat to your favourite piece of jewellery or even when a footballer has a bad game he is mentioned as “Missing in Action”. In war terms missing means a soldier has been buried alive from a shell explosion or ripped in half by an enemy machine gun or bayoneted to death and left to die in the most slow and agonising way. All these soldiers have never been found their photos sit in an old frame on the mantle piece in a living room of a house far away from where he now lies.

      These are the men and boys that we follow through this story. All had parents, some had sweethearts none had a future.

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