Reviewed by Ian Lipke
In the annals of non-fiction writing the name of Edmund Goldrick makes scarcely a ripple. As of the 30th July, that will change, for on that day, Hachette Australia will publish Goldrick’s ANZAC Guerrillas, a World War II story of resistance, hope and humanity in Occupied Europe. This academic work tells an almost unbelievable story.
When Hitler’s forces captured thousands of Allied prisoners in 1941, a small number of Australian soldiers escaped from prison trains in occupied Yugoslavia. The story is told from the point of view of two Australian escapees – mineworker Ross Sayers and storeman Ronald Jones. They escaped German captivity only to become mixed up in a civil war in Yugoslavia (Royalist Chetniks vs Communist Partisans). The Australian escapees faced threats from all sides, even to meeting with Josip Broz Tito and Draza Mihailovic. The sense of right of the Australians, despite the largely negative impact of all this, never wavered. During their time trying to evade the Nazis, they came across a group of genocidal collaborators whom it was in their best interests to avoid.
Upon arriving home in Australia these soldiers had to fight with government instrumentalities to have their work in the war zone recognised. Once recognition had been achieved, they seldom spoke of their experiences again. They raised their families, shunned Anzac Day and refused to discuss their own traumatic memories of the war. Goldrick’s book reveals that none of these men began WW2 as an officer or had been to school beyond the age of thirteen, yet each proved himself with courage and wisdom.
Goldrick, faced with a reasonably large cohort, each of whom had his own story to tell, opted for two men as representative of the Australian contingent. The first of these was Ronald Jones, a member of the volunteer Citizen Militia Forces. Jones proved to be a gifted soldier and a talented leader. With the formation of the AIF Ronald Jones collected a private’s uniform and waited for deployment overseas. Promotion to lieutenant came quickly.
The armed services career of Ross Sayers parallels that of Jones. We would not expect otherwise as each man used his own initiative to carve out a career for himself. Sayers suffered an attack by a German Dornier, the result being his decision to escape from the train. Both men met the advances of Mihailovic, both were horrified by his racial murders, and both experienced the mess that was politics Balkan style.
Man has always found a way to mess things up. Without human insertion the most fraught area could be beautiful. We are told that, without human beings, life on Kopaonik was quiet and peacefully remote. Temperatures were a regular 17 degrees…. Summer over the mountains was nearing its zenith and the fields of oats were turning gold. Such a picture is rarely associated with this part of the globe.
Goldrick’s book is heavily documented and competently written.
ANZAC Guerrillas
(2025)
by Edmund Goldrick
Hachette Australia
ISBN: 978-0-7336-5235-6
$34.99; 382pp