Modern Crusaders – With the Light Horse Through Sinai and Palestine | Major W.S. Kent Hughes MC | 1918 [ANTIQUARIAN – HC]

The wartime memoir of Major Wilfrid Selwyn "Billy" Kent Hughes MC — published in 1918 by Melville & Mullen, Melbourne, on his return from the Sinai and Palestine campaigns with the Australian Light Horse.

Kent Hughes enlisted as a private in August 1914 at the age of 19, served at Gallipoli where he was wounded, then through the Sinai and Palestine campaign with the 3rd Light Horse Brigade under his uncle Brigadier General Frederic Godfrey Hughes. He was awarded the Military Cross in 1917, was mentioned in despatches four times, and rose to Major as Deputy Adjutant and Quartermaster General of the Australian Mounted Division.

He published Modern Crusaders on returning to Australia in 1918, before going to Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar, representing Australia in the 400 metre hurdles at the 1920 Antwerp Olympics, and eventually entering politics — serving as a minister in the Menzies government and becoming Sir Wilfrid Kent Hughes KBE.

The book covers the Light Horse's operations through Sinai, Palestine and Syria — including the famous charge at Beersheba in October 1917 and the capture of Jerusalem in December 1917 — from the perspective of a staff officer who was present throughout.

CONDITION

• Used and old but generally good condition for its age.
• Cover marked and worn at the edges.
• Has been rebound with fresh endpapers at some point — binding now feels quite tight.
• Pages tanned.
• A previous bookseller has placed a "RARE" sticker inside the front cover.

BOOK DETAILS

• Hardcover without dust jacket (as issued).
• Pages tanned.
• Fold-out map.
• Published 1918 by Melville & Mullen, Melbourne.

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