requested a transfer and was accepted into the Royal Flying Corps in 1917 where he stayed until the end of the World War I. His war experiences coloured the rest of his life, including his writing. In the 1940s Boyd questioned following Britain into World War Two believing that Australia should look to America and Mediterranean countries for replacement ties. Even though he had served in the military, he felt a strong sense of injustice at the bombing of German cities and the killing of innocent women and children, and questioned the complicity of the Church of England in the atrocities during that time. Michael Bardwell notes that Boyd was "a great campaigner [...] often writing letters to the press about matters he thought were of public importance." A wartime example of this activism was an incident in December 1943, which Boyd relates in his autobiography Day of my Delight, quoted by Bardwell: "A group of eminent people had drawn up a petition to end by mutual agreement the night bombing of cities, which had now become senseless massacres. I put one of the printed forms of this petition on the village notice board, and one on my gate, saying it could be signed at my house. The notices were torn off at night. . .I then put up another inscribed: "The object of this petition is to stop the murder of women and children. Will those who think this aim undesirable, please come in and explain why, instead of tearing this notice off under cover of darkness?" No one came, and a farmer's wife in the village said: "It is a pity Mr. Boyd put up those notices. It quite spoiled the Christmas spirit." While Boyd did not see himself as a pacifist (he described his belief as 'qualified pacifism', he supported those who did. Throughout the years his consistent opposition to war included the publication of a seven-part protest pamphlet during the war in Vietnam entitled Why They Walk Out (1970). Extracts of the essay were published in Australia. Life after World War One Boyd returned to Australia after World War One but found he no longer fitted in. Because of his decision to join the British Army, he felt that a wedge had developed between him and his friends as their wartime experiences were different. Listless and directionless he left Melbourne in 1921 to live in London,