On Three Battle Fronts, By Private Fred Howard, Of The Australian And Canadian Forces

There are many tales of soldiers fighting under the colours of an adopted nation; few stories are as fantastic as that of the Australian Frederick Howard. A keen sportsman and adept at the ways of the Australian “bush” the coming of the First World War gave him a jolt out of a meandering existence. With his twin and also his younger brother he sailed with his fellow Anzacs to the training in the Egyptian desert and then on to the hellish Gallipoli Peninsula. He was invalided home following wounds in Gallipoli, this did not faze the author who travelled all the way to Canada to enlist once again, This time finding himself in the 11th Canadian mounted rifles and under the adopted Maple Leaf he faced the Germans on the Somme in 1916 and at the success at Vimy Ridge before his indomitable military career was cut short by wounds sustained from a German shell.

Despite recounting the danger as the shells and bullets whizzed and exploded around him, he relates anecdotes of his comrades and all of the wit and humour of an Australian; such as referring as his spell in hospital as time in a health resort!

Highly recommended memoir.

Author — Frederick Thomas Rowland Howard

Text taken, whole and complete, from the edition published in New York, Vechten Waring company, 1918.

Original Page Count – 177 pages