Book Review: Lost Boys of Anzac by Peter Stanley

April 25 each year is perhaps the most sacred day (aside from Australia Day) in our nation's relatively brief but still storied history. The landing of the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps (ANZAC) on the Gallipoli peninsula in Turkey, to the wrong beach and against what turned out to be insurmountable odds, the Australians and New Zealanders struggled ashore and made a name for themselves. More than a name, but a lasting legacy that, 99 years on, we are still celebrating.

The funny thing is, little is known about the 101 men who died early on the morning of 25 April 1915. Respected historian Peter Stanley, whose book on Quinn's Post is nothing short of brilliant, has sought to correct that oversight. These men, arguably more than any other, are the key figures in the Anzac legend: the first to enlist, the first to fight and the first to lay down their lives for their country. It's a shame that their personal histories have not been properly uncovered until now.

Stanley has gone back through records and eyewitness testimony to trace the 101 - the Lost Boys of Anzac as he calls them - from before the war, through their enlistment, training in Australia and Egypt and, then, their fatal morning in Turkey. The background information on wartime events and the way Australia was in those weeks before the declaration of war is interesting. Financial hardship and drought seem to have affected many.

Interestingly, the Lost Boys are dead before you get to the 150th page, but Stanley continues on, telling the stories of their families, and the frustrating search for information. The divide between what letters from their deceased loved ones' comrades at the front say compared to official records is shocking, and must have caused untold heartache for families, who heard from the government that their loved ones were simply wounded, but received letters suggesting far worse.

Considering these men were the vanguard of the Anzac Legend, if you will, there has been little attention paid to them before Peter Stanley produced this excellent book. Read it to honour those men who were the first to die a long way from home, and read it because it sheds light on an amazing group of Australians who, hopefully, will not soon be forgotten.