TOPIC:

I wonder if anyone owns a copy of this book?



The Boer War Battle of West Australian Hill which took place exactly 122 years ago on 9th February 1900. John Adeney is a retired environmental scientist and practising archaeologist, and his interest in this Battle was triggered by an Archaeology Honours project that he completed at UWA. John, together with Bill Edgar, Ray Ward and Allen Duff, undertook an archeological survey of the battle zone in 2019. The defence of West Australia Hill was a 12 to 13 hour encounter during the South African War (1899-1902) between 28 West Australians of the 1st WA Mounted Infantry stationed at Slingersfontein near Colesberg in the Cape Province, and 300 to 400 Boers. John’s project was conducted to determine how the West Australians maintained tactical superiority throughout the encounter. By locating fired cartridges, artillery artefacts and archival evidence, John’s team showed that the successful all-day defence was due to good tactical positioning on West Australia Hill and superior shooting capabilities, aided by accurate British artillery support. There were only 3 casualties on the Australian side, and it is most unfortunate that this historic encounter has received little or no recognition in Australia’s war history. However John published a paper in the Journal of Conflict Archeology, and Bill Edgar wrote a book called ‘30 Against 300’, and slowly the details of the event are gaining recognition at last.

The above text comes from here:
rotarycambridge.org.au/stories/a-fascina...-little-known-battle

I stumbled across this and it caught my attention.

Interested Forum members
I would imagine that most QSA collectors here would have at least a nodding acquaintance with the cirumstances of WA Hill, 9/2/1900. However, I was unaware of this particular publication. Today, I emailed the only online source of Bill Elgar's book and "they could not help me with a copy".
Unfortunately, such is frequently the case with short print runs. For example "Southern Cross Scots" (2nd Scottish Horse).
Regards
IL.

doi.org/10.1080/15740773.2020.1859907