The Twenty Thousand Thieves

THE NORTH AFRICAN DESERT: WORLD WAR II.

Their officers called them a stinking, lazy, drunken rabble and their friends said they took the colonel prisoner, burnt down their officers' mess and drove off the military police with heavy rifle-fire. This is the unforgettable story of the gallant men of the A.I.F.: the fearless and fatalistic Diggers of the Western Desert.

Twenty thousand men were on their way to the deserts of Egypt and Libya: some had joined up for adventure, some were on the run from the police, for others, the army meant three meals a day and a bed to sleep in. From an induction camp in Australia to the siege of Tobruk, the savage intensity of Second X Battalion's experiences is not for the faint hearted. How soon will death silence so many of these brave voices and how many will ring out beyond the brutality of the battlefield?