William Howard Truran as a private Australian Army Medical Corps, Gallipoli and France 1915-1918

Precis: Truran speaks of his enlistment (on 21 June 1915) and training (at Blackboy Hill, Greenmount, WA); embarking from Fremantle on 2 September, 1915 aboard the Encysas (A68 HMAT Anchises) and thence to Zetoom (training camp Zeitoun); food poisoning on route to Gallipoli and experiences on the Gallipoli Peninsula, August-December 1915; departure from Gallipoli; sick leave; rest and recreaction in England and Scotland; further training for service in France and Belgium; experiences of battles at Passchendaele, Messines, Hellfire Corner and Ypres, 1916-1917; being wounded; hospitalisation in England; return to Australia at the end of the war.

Summary: Truran joined C Company, 16 Battalion at Lemnos Island before they returned to Gallipoli and the trenches at Sari Bair. The company were close by an English-manned Hotchkiss gun, and salient feature "The Apex". Truran shared a dugout with George Walters and describes day and night shifts. He also describes his opinion of the landing and performance of British generals; receiving shell and gun fire; winter conditions; rations, brought by mule train from 180 metres below; nature of rations; suffering jaundice as the result of eating a stew; finding native berries; night raids on Turkish outposts; difficulties in constructing new dugouts and fetching wood; increasing number of sick troops being evacuated and the final evacutation of GAllipoli, including a meal of coffee bread and jam once safely aboard their ship; disembarking at Lemnos and getting a gift of a "Christmas billy"; suffering tonsilitus and going to 2nd Auxilliary Hospital, Cairo, for tonsilectomy; the camp at Giza; discussion of Egyptian currency; Shepheard's Hotel; meeting his brother Basil in Zeitoun and rejoining 16th Infantry Battalion at Moashka (Moaskar); marching to the Suez Canal via Suapian; patrolling the Canal area (Great Bitter and Little Bitter Lake); unruly troops at the Canteen; disciplinary action for his friend, Horace Hudson; boarding SS Canada for Marseilles and sighting submarines en route.