Hell, Hope and Heroes Life in the Field Ambulance in World War 1' edited by R.J. Ramsay. In 1915, Private Roy Ramsay, freshly trained at a camp near Brisbane, set sail from Australia for the Middle East with the 4th Light Horse Field Ambulance.

He served on hospital ships in the Dardanelles and evacuating a mounting number of sick and wounded. He later served with the 1st Division 3rd Field Ambulance on the Western Front, he relates the experiences of Pozieres and other major set-piece battles of trench warfare. Amid the hell of artillery bombardment and machine gun fire, Roy finds some glimmer of hope for the human race in the fact that both sides often exercise compassion and restraint towards the injured as well as the stretcher-bearers trying to retrieve them.

However, the Aussies' mateship and sense of duty get them through the unimaginably shocking physical conditions of trench warfare, helped by occasional breaks away from the lines and recreational leave for romantic purposes. By 1918, the colonial troops had built a reputation as the best shock troops in the British army. The diggers of the greatly depleted Australian Imperial Forces, now united in one Australian Corps under General Monash, played a key role in driving the Germans back to the Hindenburg line. These war memories of a strethcer-bearer cover the whole course of the war until Armistice and include some amazing Australian victories in the last six months. Those exploits are still something of an 'untold story' and the diggers of that time remain largely 'unsung heroes'.

This account of Roy's life was edited from his diaries by his son Ron.
Roy died aged 92 in 1989.