Late in 1944 Richard Turner was at last able to come home. A Sydney taxi driver, he had been captured in Greece in June 1941. Like 2,000 other Australians, he missed the last boats to leave. Though captured by the Germans, he soon escaped to join the andartes – partisans fighting the Germans in Greece’s rugged interior. With the Germans pulling out, British officers managed to contact Richard and he was finally able to leave for home after nearly five years. On 17 December 1944 the lorry taking Richard to Athens airport accidentally drove into one of the first firefights of the Greek civil war. Richard now lies in the beautiful war cemetery at Phalereon, an oasis of peace amid the traffic that chokes Athens.

Richard Turner’s story is emblematic of this aggravating but ultimately worthwhile book. Richard was captured in the lost battle for Greece, lived among Greek people for three years, and remains among them still, arguably lost to memory in the land he last saw when his troopship steamed out of Sydney Harbour in January 1940.