Tommy Atkins
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€16.99
Tommy Atkins is the English soldier, who joking broke the cavalry of France at Minden, who singing marched with the Great Duke to the Danube, who grumbling shattered Napoleon's dreams at Waterloo, who sweating in his red coat tramped back and forth across Indis, who kept his six-rounds-to-the-minute at Mons, and who died in the mud at Passchendaele, the sands of the Western Desert, and the jungles of Burma. If his name has been eclipsed by his more illustrious commanders - Cromwell, Marlborough, Moore, Wolfe, Wellington, Allenby, Slim - they at least will accord him his rightful place beside them. They knew his worth.
Tommy Atkins is his story - the story of this most versatile, most adaptable, most un-military soldier.
John Laffin (1922-2000) was an Australian military historian. In 1940 he enlisted in the 2nd Australian Imperial Force. After the war he wrote several books and novels. He travelled the Western Front extensively to research his work and wrote widely on the First World War.