June 1944, Europe was in turmoil. The Nazis had been driven out of North Africa and Sicily; Rome had fallen and Allied troops were pouring into Normandy. Two U.S. army lieutenants, whose youthful looks belied the events they had been party to, crossed paths in an Officers Club in Naples to discover they both came from Tampa, Florida. Their first date saw them driving a jeep into a newly liberated Rome, decomposing, booby-trapped bodies still on the ground. Written from contemporary letters, scrapbooks and journals, as well as post War memoirs, Love Behind the Front Line is Sam and Bette Richardson’s remarkable story about their lives on the U.S. army front line in the 601st Tank Destroyer Battalion and the 59th Evacuation Hospital. As their units fought through Africa, Italy, France and Germany, their romance blossomed beneath artillery fire. They married amid war and, in time, events unfolded that took them to Australia and a life on beautiful Sydney Harbour.