Known as The Boy Colonel, Lieutenant Colonel Douglas Marks, was the youngest battalion commander in the AIF and highly regarded not only as a future military commander, but as a business and community leader. It was a blustery day on January 25th, 1920 at Palm Beach to the north of Sydney, and the surf was wild. Two attempts had already been made to save a young woman caught in an undertow and dragged out when a young man--skinny, gangly and frail and known to be a poor swimmer--threw off his coat and shoes and raced into the surf. As his fiancee and young nephew watched, the sea closed over him and he disappeared. His body was never recovered. This was the sad and tragic fate of a gallant, highly decorated, and promising young man named Douglas Grey Marks. And it was a great loss to a nation whose manhood had been decimated and where the pain of the war remained evident and raw. Douglas Marks was born in 1895 and educated at Fort Street High School. He had like so many enthusiastic and patriotic young men, basic military training when he turned up at the drill hall in Rozelle two days after the declaration of war. Before embarking in November 1914, he had received his commission as a Second Lieutenant in the AIF. After a period of training in Egypt, he embarked for the Gallipoli peninsula and landed on the second day. Spending a great deal of time in the dangerous frontline trenches at Quinn's Post where he was wounded, he remained on Gallipoli until the evacuation in December of that year. Just 20 years old, he was seen as an inspirational young officer, promoted to captain and given acting command of his battalion. Marks then traveled back to Egypt, saw the reorganization of his beloved 13th battalion and the raising of its sister battalion, the 45th. Sailing from Alexandria, he crossed the Mediterranean to Marseilles and took the train to the north of France and the nursery areas around Armentieres and Bois Grenier. From here, Douglas Marks found himself in the worst battles that the AIF were to fight in: Pozieres and Moquet Farm, Flers, Gueudecourt, Stormy Trench and Bullecourt on the Somme. He then traveled north and was part of the horrendous battles around Ypres in Flanders in 1917: Messines, Polygon Wood, Hollebeke and Passchendaele. Back on the Somme in early 1918, he fought at Villers Bretonneux, Le Hamel, the Battle of Amiens from August 8th and in the fighting through to the withdrawal of his battalion in September 1918. By this time he had been wounded a number of times, was promoted to Lieutenant Colonel, was the commander of his battalion and had been decorated with a Military Cross, a Distinguished Service Order, the Serbian Order of the White Eagle and had been mentioned in despatches. He returned to Australia and to civilian life in late 1918. In 1919 he became engaged to Queenie and in January 1920, took that fateful journey to Palm Beach. Though we do not know what happened to Queenie, his distraught mother never came out of her house again.

Known as The Boy Colonel, Lieutenant Colonel Douglas Marks, was the youngest battalion commander in the AIF. He drowned in 1920 trying to save a young woman at Palm Beach. This was the sad and tragic fate of a gallant, highly decorated and promising young man named Douglas Gray Marks. Douglas Marks was born in 1895 and educated at Fort Street High School. He had, like so many enthusiastic and patriotic young men, basic military training when he turned up at the drill hall in Rozelle two days after the declaration of war. Before embarking in November 1914, he had received his commission as a Second Lieutenant in the AIF. After a period of training in Egypt, he embarked for the Gallipoli peninsula and landed on the second day, where he was wounded, he remained on Gallipoli until the evacuation in December of that year. Just twenty years old, he was seen as an inspirational young officer, promoted to captain and given acting command of his battalion.

In Australian Battalion Commanders in the Second World War, Garth Pratten explores, for the first time, the background, role and conduct of the commanding officers of Australian infantry battalions in World War II. Despite their vital role as the lynchpins of the battlefield, uniting the senior officers with the soldiers who fought, the battalion commanders have previously received scant attention in contemporary military history. This book redresses the balance, providing a gripping, meticulously researched and insightful account that charts the development of Australia's infantry commanding officers from part-time, ill-prepared, amateurs to seasoned veterans who, although still not professional soldiers, deserved the title of professional men of war. Drawing on extensive and original archival material, Pratten recreates battle scenes and brings to light many diverse personalities. It is a story of men confronting the timeless challenges of military leadership – mastering their own fear and discomfort - in order to motivate and inspire their troops to endure the maelstrom of war.

Soldiers and Gentlemen: Australian Battalion Commanders in the Great War, 1914–1918 is the first book to examine the background, role and conduct of Australian commanding officers during the First World War. Though they held positions of power, commanding officers inhabited a leadership no man's land - they exerted great influence over their units, but they were also largely excluded from the decision-making process and faced the same risks as junior officers on the battlefield. A soldier's well-being and success in battle was heavily dependent on a commanding officer's competence, but little is known about the men who filled these roles. In his groundbreaking book, William Westerman explores the stories of the vitally important, yet often forgotten, commanding officers. Theirs is a story of the timeless challenges of military leadership, and this book prevents them from slipping from the public memory to enhance our knowledge of the conflict.

World War I was a slaughter on an unprecedented scale. Nevertheless there was no shortage of young men willing to sacrifice themselves for their country. Some lied about their age to join up, not just at the start of the war when it was seen as a glorious adventure, but even towards the end when the true horror of the mechanized butchery was known to one and all.This book concerns the young men who were not yet twenty when they won the Victoria Cross, the British armed forces highest award for gallantry. Many perished in the action that earned them the VC. Others survived to receive the award, but then went on to die later in the war.One was as young as sixteen. Several were just eighteen, though they were supposed to be nineteen before they were allowed to serve overseas. They were sailors and airmen, as well as soldiers, and they came from Britain, Ireland, Australia, Canada, Nepal and India.Each one demonstrated an exceptional nerve and bravery. While some did survive World War I - even going on to serve in World War II - they showed an reckless indifference to death that made them Too Brave to Live, Too Young to Die.World War I has been over for nearly a hundred years now, but the tales of their valour live on. These men and their exploits deserve to be remembered - in the hope that young men will never be called on to do such things again.

Our Friend the Enemy is the first detailed history of the Gallipoli campaign at Anzac since Charles Bean’s Official History. Viewed from both sides of the wire and described in first-hand accounts. Australian Captain Herbert Layh recounted that as they approached the beach on 25 April that, once we were behind cover the Turks turned their .. [fire] on us, and gave us a lively 10 minutes. A poor chap next to me was hit three times. He begged me to shoot him, but luckily for him a fourth bullet got him and put him out of his pain. Later that day, Sergeant Charles Saunders, a New Zealand engineer, described his first taste of battle, The Turks were entrenched some 50-100 yards from the edge of the face of the gully and their machine guns swept the edges. Line after line of our men went up, some lines didn’t take two paces over the crest when down they went to a man and on came another line. Gunner Recep Trudal of the Turkish 27th Regiment wrote of the fierce Turkish counter-attack on 19 May designed to push the Anzac’s back into the sea, It started at morning prayer call time, and then it went on and on, never stopped. You know there was no break for eating or anything … Attack was our command. That was what the Pasha said. Once he says “Attack”, you attack, and you either die or you survive.