WW2 Middle East Battle of El Alamein Famous Australian Book The Twenty Thousand Thieves ".
The Famous Australian War Classic Novel by Eric Lambert. First published 1952. The author saw action in the Middle East with the
2/2nd Machine Gun Battalion and later in Pacific zone with the 2/15th Battalion. 
The Title ' The Twenty Thousand Thieves " was the derisive name which the Nazi enemy hurled at the Australian forces after their victory at the Battle of El Alamein. As Lambert states, 'To say they (his characters) have no relation to living persons nevertheless would be true - for the men on whom I chose to base them are dead.'