Crossing the wire

So wrote an Australian prisoner-of-war Corporal Lancelot Davies only recently taken prisoner at the first battle of Bullecourt on 11 April 1917. For him like another 1200 Australians captured at Bullecourt the future was indeed blank and unpredictable. The experiences of Australian prisoners of war (POWs) or Kriegsgefangeners held captive in Germany has been largely forgotten or ignored overshadowed by the horrid stories of Australians imprisoned by the Japanese during World War II. Yet as David Coombes makes known the stories are interesting and significant not only providing an account of what those young Australian soldiers experienced and the spirit they showed in responding to captivity but also for the insight it provides into Germany in the last eighteen months of the war.