Odyssey of the Unknown Anzac review: David Hastings on solving the mystery

Odyssey of the Unknown Anzac

David Hastings

Monash University Publishing, $29.95

When Anzac George McQuay was "found" 10 years after going missing in 1918, the press treated it as a tale of the hero's return from the dead. But the truth – David Hasting's study is a search for that – was far from what it seemed. McQuay, whose memory was apparently a blank, had been in Sydney's Callan Park asylum since the end of the war. When a returned services flyer was published asking for help to identify the unknown inmate, his family found him. He was a New Zealander and had deserted during the Battle of the Somme after apparently being buried by a shell blast. When he was hospitalised in England he became George Brown and a mystery with no memory. Hasting's fascinating and meticulous study probes that mystery, effectively incorporating the template mythology of Odysseus.