On the outbreak of World War II Jack Barber, aged twenty, joined the AIF. He was sent to North Africa and spent the best part of 1941 in the besieged city of Tobruk.
This book is an atmospheric account of that turbulent time, told from a footslogger's perspective. Jack Barber covers the range of his experiences from the brothels of Egypt to the privations and horrors of life under siege, with Rommel's troops and Luftwaffe never far away. Graphic accounts of life under fire and the camaraderie amongst men from many walks of life, including a safe-blower and a trumpeter who used to serenade the enemy from his position in the Salient!
As Barber notes, Tobruk was a great place for making friends, but a hell of a place for losing them.
