The 28th: A Record of War Service in the Australian Imperial Force, 1915-19, Vol. I Egypt, Gallipoli, Lemnos Island, Sinai Peninsula — Context and Discussion

Formation and Departure: From Karrakatta to the Ascanius

The opening chapters detail the battalion's assembly at Blackboy Hill and Karrakatta camp, where recruits were enrolled, officers selected, and specialists—signallers, machine-gunners, stretcher-bearers—trained. Collett records the march through Perth on 9 June 1915, the crowds lining the route, and the embarkation at Fremantle aboard the transport Ascanius. The voyage is described with attention to shipboard routine: lectures, competitions in tidiness, the canteen, and the master's role. Stowaways appear as a minor disruption. The narrative then shifts to Suez, where the battalion first encounters Egyptian civilians and the unfamiliar landscape of the Land of Goshen.

Training and Tension in Egypt

At Abbasia camp, the 28th faced early difficulties with supplies, sanitation, and the local newsvendors who brought tidings from Gallipoli. Collett describes the formation of the 7th Brigade and the 2nd Australian Division, night marches in the desert, and the Zeitun training school. Sickness, quarantine, and pay arrangements are catalogued alongside amusements and the work of chaplains. A recurring motif is the contrast between the ancient setting—the Pyramids visible from camp—and the modern machinery of war: anti-aircraft guns, aerial combats, and the constant threat of unrest among the Egyptian population. The narrative conveys a sense of impatient preparation, with the battalion spoiling for action.

Gallipoli: Cheshire Ridge and the Daily Grind

On Gallipoli, the battalion occupied Cheshire Ridge, a position exposed to Turkish shelling and aerial observation. Collett records specific incidents: a hostile aviator who waved as he passed overhead, the shell that killed a stretcher-bearer and wounded another while carrying Captain Menz, and the steady attrition from shrapnel and sickness. The weather turned cold in late October, and dust storms added to the misery. The narrative notes the relief of companies by the 26th Battalion, then the cancellation of that order when the 4th Brigade returned. Throughout, Collett balances official reports—casualty counts, reinforcement arrivals—with the human cost: officers carried away on stretchers, jaundice, and the exhaustion of seven weeks in the line.

Movement and Machinery: Lemnos and Sinai

After Gallipoli, the battalion shifted to Lemnos Island for rest and reorganisation, then to the Sinai Peninsula. Collett's account emphasises the logistics of moving troops and equipment across barren terrain, the establishment of new camps, and the constant threat of disease. The narrative returns to the theme of landscape: the featureless desert, the distant hills, the sea. Machine-gun sections are detached and reattached; officers fall sick and are replaced. The record becomes a ledger of transfers, promotions, and casualties, yet the prose retains a matter-of-fact clarity that underscores the relentless tempo of campaign life. The volume ends with the battalion poised for further action, its history still unfolding.

Readers approaching this volume should attend to the interplay between Collett's official tone and the incidental details that reveal the texture of soldiering: the dust, the cold, the long waits, the sudden violence. The narrative is not a dramatic arc but a cumulative record, best read in segments that mirror the battalion's own fragmented experience. The appendices and photographs—though not reproduced here—would deepen the sense of place and personnel. This is a work of preservation, not interpretation, and its value lies in the specificity of its observations.

I remember long afternoons among the dusty shelves, how Colonel Collett’s account of the 28th’s weary trek through Sinai always felt less like history and more like a shared ache. Then I found Fields of Victory — Inside the Classic, and it whispered of the same quiet endurance—war’s mud and grit, remembered tenderly. They sit apart in my memory, yet breathe as one.