The Rats of Tobruk

THIS is the personal record of nine months spent as a medical officer on active service in Libya. Its purpose is to endeavour to show what a great warrior the ordinary Australian soldier really is, and with what light-hearted bravery and endurance he faces up to discomfort and death. It is written as a personal record to gain continuity, and always in the spirit of an onlooker who sees much of the play. It is neither a scientific document nor history, and I cannot vouch for the accuracy of many of the stories set down herein, but even if they are not wholly true, they are still characteristic. No names are included, and it is purely coincidental that most of the happenings herein described are fact and not fiction.

Some of the illustrations are taken from drawings and oil sketches made by the author on the spot, and the remainder are photographs taken with a miniature camera and developed in Tobruk.

“Major Devine’s little volume of personal experiences brings the whole picture of the dust and desert, of stone and rock, of battered equipment, of patient endurance, back before one’s eyes. It translates into human individual terms all the planning and endeavour and struggle that characterized the splendid defence of Tobruk by our own 9th Australian Division and by other British troops from the United Kingdom and troops from India who were there with them in that epic siege.”—T. A. Blamey General, Commander-in-Chief, Australian Military Forces (Foreword to “The Rats of Tobruk”)