TO HELL AND BACK The Banned Account of Gallipoli

Shane Nagle’s narration does a wonderful job of bringing Sydney Loch’s sometimes-melodramatic, sometimes-brilliant eyewitness account of the ill-fated 1915 Gallipoli campaign to life. Nagle’s Australian accent is strong, but perfectly understandable. In case you were wondering about the title—the lion's share of this audiobook is a reading of Sydney Loch's THE STRAITS IMPREGNABLE, first published in Australia in 1917 and subsequently banned by wartime censors. Susanna de Vries has respectfully edited the original book and added a lengthy but illuminating prologue and epilogue about the life of Sydney Loch and the publication of THE STRAITS IMPREGNABLE. This is not a history of the Gallipoli campaign. It is, however, an important text in the development of Australian national identity. F.C. © AudioFile 2009, Portland, Maine [Published: SEPTEMBER 2009]