Sullivan, Edmund Joseph (Private, b: c.1893 d.1916)

Collection relating to the service of 3914 Private Edmund Sullivan of 14th and 46th Battalions.

The collection consists of a diary and typed transcript of covering Private Sullivan's First World War service between his enlistment in July 1915 and death in action in September 1916 (not 1917 as stated in later note attached to the front cover of the diary). Sullivan describes his training in Australia and, from December 1915, Egypt and his experience of guard and observation duties in the trench lines near Turkish forces in the Kantara and Katia vicinity of the Sinai desert. He went to France in June 1916, going into the trenches at Bois Grenier on 4 July and, later in July and August, participating in the offensives around Pozieres and Albert, including fighting at Sausage Gully. Private Sullivan was killed at Vadencourt Wood on 2 September 1916 (the day after the diary's last entry).

The diary entries include vivid descriptions of trench fighting, gas attacks and artillery exchanges, and the nature of the human and material casualties they produced.