Homeward Bound 1943

First Edition. Paperback. Very Good. Small quarto, 24 pages with 28 illustrations (mainly from photographs, with many of them depicting shipboard life). Overlapping pictorial wrappers a little creased; an excellent copy. A souvenir of the voyage of the Ninth Division back to Australia after the Allied victory in North Africa. RMS 'Queen Mary' left Suez on 25 January 1943; reaching Fremantle on 18 February, she departed for Sydney two days later, spent from 27 February to 22 March there, before returning to Fremantle on 26 March. She departed for the return voyage to the UK on 28 March 1943. There are no imprint details, but the professional look of the publication (especially with the large number of illustrations and the decent paper stock) suggest it was produced in Australia at the end of the voyage. The contents are the 'mixture as before' for this type of souvenir: fact and fiction, poetry, humour (hmmm!), and accounts of shipboard activities (mainly sport and concerts). The prize of one guinea for the best short story was awarded to SX 3028 Bdr D.W. Goodhart, Field Artillery for his two-page effort, 'The White Cross'. David Goodhart later published 'We of the Turning Tide' (1947), an account of the Ninth Australian Division and El Alamein, and 'The History of the 2/7 Australian Field Regiment' (1952).