AustLit

'John Desmond Peck enlisted in the Australian Imperial Force (AIF) in October 1939. Although he was born on 17 February 1922, he declared he was born on 16 February 1919. Author Peter Monteath suggests that, like others of his generation, the 17-year-old’s motivation for early and under-age enlistment derived from a yearning for new challenges and adventure. As Escape Artist: The Incredible Second World War of Johnny Peckattests, the young serviceman encountered many challenges and much adventure during combat with the 2/7th Battalion AIF against Italian forces at Bardia and Tobruk, and against the Germans in Greece and on Crete, and as an evader and escaper behind the lines on Crete and in Italy. He was 19 when he went into battle for the first time at Bardia; 20 when he was stranded for months on Crete after the Allied evacuation; 21 when he established an evasion network in Italy after the September 1943 Armistice; and 22 when he faced execution by the Gestapo, became an operative for the Special Operations Executive (SOE), fought with Italian partisans, and at one point commanded approximately 450 men and 30 officers. As his biography’s strapline claims, Peck’s war was ‘incredible’.' (Introduction)