Blinded Soldier Tells How It Felt to Regain Sight

np (United States), 1918. An unrecorded broadsheet advertising a lecture by Skeyhill in the United States. It reprints a May 5, 1918 article from the Washington Times and the venue for the lecture is ink-stamped at the top "Y.M.C.A. Monday Night 9PM, Admission 30 & 50". Tom Skeyhill was an Australia soldier who claimed to have lost his sight in battle at Gallipoli in 1915, after which his war-hero status advanced his career, publishing the "Soldier-Songs from Anzac" in 1916, and lecturing widely as the "Soldier Poet of the Anzacs". In 1918, while on tour in the United States, he reported experiencing a miraculous cure after being treated by an osteopath. The account of his cure is described in his brochure, heaping praise on the doctor who restored his sight and his fervent desire to go back to the Front and resume fighting. Of course, the war was to end on November 11, 1918 and Skeyhill did not return to the Front. His story was recounted in the Literary Digest for December 28, 1918, (pp 56 & 57) along with a further articles in "The Osteopathic Physician", May 1918, no. 5, pp 6-7 & 10-11.

Historian Jeff Brownrigg, in his book "Anzac Cover to Hollywood: The Story of Tom Skeyhill, Master of Deception: (2010, argues convincingly that Skeyhill actually wanted no part of the fighting and faked his blindness in order to escape the trenches.

Not recorded on Trove or OCLC. 9.x5 x 6.25". One period fold, very good condition.