Hell of a Time: An Australian Soldier's Diary of the Great War

by Philip Ayton, Elvala Ayton

Philip Owen Ayton was working on the Sydney tramways when the call to join the fight against Germany came. Keen for action, he found himself in the First Field Company Engineers in the First Division of the Australian Imperial Forces.

Shipped to Egypt, Ayton soon after took part in the Gallipoli landing. ‘I would not have missed this for anything,’ he wrote to a friend. Badly injured, he was sent to England to convalesce and from there joined the campaign in France, where he saw out the war.

From the start, Ayton kept notes of his experiences, which he would write up in a diary. Plucky, charming and self-deprecating, this son of the new nation records the horrors of trench warfare and his off-duty adventures in Cairo, London and Paris.

This remarkable story is now published for the first time, a century after the war’s end. Accompanied by a postscript by one of Ayton’s sons and Ayton’s poem about the Gallipoli campaign, A Hell of a Time is a vital and compelling account of the Great War.

416 pages, Paperback

Published April 2, 2019

Reviews

[Simon Berryman · Rating 3 out of 5]

An interesting autobiography of a man who just fkin loves war and doesn't really seem too phased about killing people and nearly being killed for years on end. He just thinks it's heaps of fun.

[Alayne · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was a fantastic book. Philip Ayton was a soldier who joined up on the day after Australia joined the First World War, and he wrote a diary of his whole war. He lived to see the Armistice, although wounded several times. He was in the landing at Gallipoli on 25 April 1915 and also fought on the Western Front in France and Belgium. This book is a combatant's eye view of the Great War rather than an overview which is what is usually written by historians. Well written, exciting, and incredible that human beings could live in the hell on earth of the Western Front (and Gallipoli too). I highly recommend it.

[Alice · Rating 5 out of 5]

Superb! An account from the horses mouth so to speak that details the highs and lows of a first world war soldiers experience. Both horrifying and hilarious while also illuminating.