"Book Recommendation - The ANZAC Legend by Dave Dye
The absolutely brilliant Graphic Novel - The ANZAC Legend by Dave Dye is now available as a digital download (PDF file) for only $7.99!! (that could be $USD, I can't access my transactions to confirm, but if it is, it will be about $10AUD so still cheap as chips!) I already have it in print form but I had to snap it up at that price. I do a lot of reading on my Surface Pro 4 nowadays so I've added it to my growing library of E-Books.
For those of you unfamiliar with this brilliant work, The ANZAC Legend is a 'Graphic Novel' written and drawn by outstanding Australian author Dave Dye, an ex-W02 with 28 years service in the Australian Regular Army. He started work full time on the book after his Discharge and put in more than 5000 hours on it.
Now, I'm not usually a fan of comics, anime, manga and all that. The last 'comics' I read were Commando, Battle and Action war comics back in the early 80's so I wasn't convinced I could get into a 'Graphic Novel'. But I was woefully wrong. The book was absolutely awesome! I couldn't put it down. I've been reading everything I could get my hands on about Gallipoli for literally decades. I've read every page of Bean's Official Histories (several times!), and all the more modern works by Kit Denton, Peter Hart, Peter Fitzsimmons, Patsy Adams-Smith, Les Carlyon, Peter Stanley, David Cameron, John Laffin and a few others who's names escape me right now. They are all fantastic works and for years I've read and looked at those old black and white photo's and hand drawn maps with their names like Bloody Angle, the Nek, Quinn's, Courtney's and Steele's, Dead Mans Ridge, the Chessboard, Boltons Ridge, Lone Pine etc.
But, reading The ANZAC Legend did something that none of those books ever did for me, it gave me a real 'Diggers eye view' of what the terrain actually looked like, how it would have been seen on April 25th by those 3rd Brigade Diggers that landed in the pre-dawn darkness, how hostile the terrain was to them and those that landed later in the day and tried to make their way to the Firing Line.
Dave Dye visited Gallipoli twice and made extensive models to ensure that all of his drawings were as accurate as possible. Each scene is carefully detailed so that your view at that point in time at that part of the battle is exactly how it would appear in real life. You can see what Diggers dug into the forward slope of a ridge would see. You can see how advancing Australians looked to the Turks firing down into them. This book was the very first to make it all 'click' in my mind and how it all actually fitted together. Something just looking at text and name labels on old flat black and white photo's can't convey.
The story briefly covers the leadup to the war not only in Australia but also in New Zealand and touches in what was going on in Europe as well, the departure of the 1st Convoy and the AIF's training in Egypt. But the meat of the book is all about the Landing on April 25th in fantastic detail. Even for people who consider themselves 'well read' on April 25th you will learn something from this or come away with a new appreciation for what happened on that day. Events up to around May the 5th is covered in this book but the strong focus is really April 25th 1915.
I cannot recommend the book highly enough. It's available only in two different print versions - the original 'Landscape' version and the new 'Portrait' version. And its also available as a Digital PDF Download for your PC, Android/iPad Tablets, Surface/Surface Pro's and all Laptops/PC's etc
Here is a link to the Print version:
Here is a link to the PDF Digital Download version:
If you are at the Australian War Memorial it is also available to purchase in their bookshop.
*Images from the book below used with permission from the Author
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