Anzac Day 2018: Pre-dawn readings

Army Reader – LTCOL Scott Foster

Captain Tony White, the Medical Officer for the 5th Battalion, Royal Australian Regiment, was the first doctor on the scene of a landmine incident in South Vietnam on the 21st of February 1967:

Ten metres away the APC lay on its side. Its back door had been blown off and nearby lay on what at first glance seemed to be a pile of discarded uniforms, blackened and dusty. 
 
Getting closer I realised that the heap was composed of dead and wounded soldiers. 
 
In amongst the carnage, I came across the body of Mick Poole. He had just turned 20 and was a favourite with village kids because of his cheeky good humour. 
 
He played the tenor horn in the battalion band. On patrol, bandsmen acted as stretcher-bearers and provided first aid. 
 
I caught up with the B company medic, and three more stretcher-bearers, all dazed and wounded but getting on with tackling what lay at hand.
 
Seven Australian soldiers died and 28 were wounded, two of whom later died of their wounds.

Sergeant Terry Pickard of the Royal Australian Army Medical Corps described his experience in Kibeho while serving with the United Nations Assistance Mission for Rwanda in 1995:

I saw Jordo yelling and waving at one child who was confused about which way to go. 
 
Jordo was trying to get this boy to come to us but he was so scared that he froze. 
 
With so many rounds flying around he would not have lasted long. 
 
It was then that I saw Jordo do the most amazing and bravest thing I have ever witnessed. 

He ran to the boy, who was stuck in an area under intense fire, grabbed him in both arms and ran back to us. 
 
Jordo put the boy in the back of the truck where Nico was looking after several refugees awaiting evacuation to the landing zone. 
 
He then went back to the patient he had been treating as if nothing had happened.

Sergeant C. Fallon served with the Ordinance Corp in Rotary Wing Group Kandahar, Afghanistan:

At this moment I am proud, proud of my wife and her efforts back home, proud of my country, proud that I am serving my country, proud of my mates’ service and proud of the sacrifices we all make in order to serve.
 
As the unmistakable thud of the “chook” taking off resonates around the airfield, I close my eyes and say a little prayer for the team heading out and wish them well as they head into the darkness. 
 
I will catch a couple of hours sleep and do it all over again, because this is what I do, and where I want to be.

In Afghanistan, Australians and our Afghan allies confronted a ruthless enemy. David Savage, a civilian working with AusAID, was badly wounded by a child suicide bomber: 

There’s no doubt that to recover from such a blast is both a physical and a psychological journey … I think one of the biggest impacts is on the family … they see how vulnerable you really are and the effect that an injury – or injuries … can have … My wife hasn’t been back to work since that time. She’s been my full-time carer … it’s an ongoing thing and it’s an ongoing effect on everyone. 

On the 18th of July 2009 an Improvised Explosive Device seriously wounded Private Paul Warren of the 1st Battalion, Royal Australian Regiment. The explosion ripped off Warren’s right leg and killed his friend Private Ben Ranaudo:

Ben was a guy that you really wanted to be around … to be in his section was really a privilege, and all the guys that worked with him would say that … He had his whole life ahead of him … 
 
My son, his name’s Jack Benjamin, after him. And he’ll grow up to know the person that he’s named after. A lot of us that served with Ben … it’s our job to make sure that this guy's memory and name … lives on …
 
I’ve had a few mates now not come home. And I hope their memories live forever … Nate Gallagher, Matthew Lambert, exceptional soldiers … [They saw] what happened to other people … and still wanted to go and do their job … 
 
Your mates are what makes being a soldier special. You eat together, you sleep on the ground together … They’re closer than your family over there. You trust the man next to you with your life and you’d expect he would do the same. – That’s what makes you proud. Not the unit you’re from. Not who’s the CO at the time. It’s your mates.

Squadron Leader Sharon Bown, commander of an RAAF Combat Surgical Team in Afghanistan, reflected on her service:

I have awaited their return and tended their wounds, never able to fully comprehend the darkness of man that they encountered upon their journey.  
 
I have witnessed their adrenaline-fuelled highs of survival and their immense depths of despair at the loss of a mate.
 
I have laughed reservedly at the often black-humoured stories of soldiers who photograph their legs before a patrol, just in case they never saw them again; and faced the reality of their need to loosely wear a tourniquet on each limb, ready to stem the almost inevitable haemorrhage that could end their life.  
 
I have been privileged to hear of unimaginable acts of bravery and selfpreservation; and I have stood by silently to attempt to pick up the pieces when it all falls apart.
 
I have worn their blood.
 
So many of us have worn their blood

In southern Afghanistan, Australian forces fought their fiercest contact and battles since the Vietnam War. Many of these actions were fought my Australia’s Special Forces. A member of the Special Air Service Regiment described the actions of a comrade at Chora [Cora] Pass in Uruzgan province in 2006:

The boys were taking a pasting, recoilless rifle, mortar, machine gun and RPG fire was pouring in – that’s when one of our cars was hit with an RPG!
 
Out of the three of them he was the only one left unscathed, the crew commander got it the worst, took some bad shrapnel in the neck and face and fell out of the car, and even with all that fire coming in he just ran around to the exposed side of the car and picked his crew commander up, put him back in the vehicle and held onto him as he drove through the most horrendous fire to get the boys to safety – mateship at its finest!

One of the largest battles was fought in 2010 against insurgent strongholds around Chenartu and Tizak, in the Shah Wali Kot district of Kandahar province, in southern Afghanistan. After the action, the 2nd Commando Regiment’s Sergeant Garry Robinson remarked:  

It was tense, hot, and arduous. It was kill or be killed. They were trying to kill me so I have no remorse.

Following the fight at Tizak, “Sergeant S” from the Special Air Service Regiment recalled the significance of “mateship”:  

To fail would be worse than death. To let down your mates in combat … would be worse than death. I don’t even know why I’m getting emotional about this…. Yeah, that’s it – that’s the essence. You don’t let your mates down.

Sergeant Brett Till, an Explosive Ordnance Disposal technician from the Incident Response Regiment, was killed disarming an Improvised Explosive Device in southern Afghanistan on 19 March 2009. Despite the risks, Warrant Officer Dan Costello reflected on the need to carry on the dangerous work of the engineers:

… after we put Brett on the helicopter and watched him fly off, I walked back to the SSM of Bravo Company … tears rolling down my face and my glasses on, I said, “well, what do I do now? … I’ve never done this before – who prepares for this sort of stuff?”  
 
It was Major Wakelin that gave me the confidence to keep going. 
 
He said, “Mate, as traumatic as it is losing a mate and Brett’s death, there’s 144 fellas that need you and we got a mission to complete … I need you and your men to get us to Helmand”.
 
So I had to walk back 44 vehicles to the front of mine, compose myself and get my blokes back in the means to keep going. 
 
… I said, “Fellas, I’m hurting as much as you are at this stage” – I was crying in front of them as well. 
 
“… it’s horrific, what’s happened. I can’t put your minds at ease, but I’m going back out front to keep going. There are 144 fellas behind us that are shit scared and won’t do anything without us”. 
 
“Who’s coming with me?” 
 
Two blokes put their hands up, Whitey and Jeffro – and off we went. And we kept going and then kept going all that night … 
 
… when I got back after that rotation, I met the family and I met Bree, Brett’s widow. 
 
He had an unborn child he never got to see and his kids … the thing that holds me the most is that I made promises that I couldn’t keep … I know now you can’t make those sorts of promises because of war.

Thirty year old Private Gregory Sher from the 1st Commando Regiment was killed in a rocket attack in Uruzgan province on the 4th of January 2009. Sher had not told his parents he was being deployed to Afghanistan; he had not want to worry them. Greg’s mother Yvonne Sher recently reflected:

He was a wonderful son. He was kind and compassionate. He had a wonderful sense of humour, and full of fun. He just wanted to get out there and have fun and enjoy life … [he wanted] to contribute to the country and to if possible make a difference to those less fortunate than himself.

Greg’s father Felix Sher remarked:

I was in retrospect disappointed that I didn’t have the opportunity to wish him well and wish him the best of luck in the situation. So that that’s one part that that really sort of still hurts and lingers, that I didn’t have that opportunity to actually say a proper goodbye.

On the 23rd of May 2011 Sergeant Brett Wood, a well-respected and highly-decorated soldier from the 2nd Commando Regiment, was killed by an Improvised Explosive Device during an operation in Afghanistan. His widow, Elvi Wood, later described the loss of her husband: 

I woke up because my phone was ringing. And it was Brett’s best friend. And I just - it didn't click ’cause I didn’t understand why he’d be calling me at 5 am. And when I went to pick up the phone, I heard the door bell ringing at the same time … So I just went downstairs, turned on the light and opened the door and – you read about it in books and you see it in TV shows and on movies, where someone opens the door and there are men and women there in uniform. But to actually have it happen - I can’t even put it into words. You feel like you’re in a dream …
 
I can’t be bitter. I’m sad. I’m really sad that he doesn’t get to live his life, that he doesn’t get to see his dreams come true. But I can’t be bitter because he was doing what he loved … He wanted to serve his country and I have to keep supporting that … 
 
He was one of the proudest Australians I’ve ever met. Every time he would go away, coming home, to him  made him even more grateful to live here, to be Australian, to have all the freedom that we have.
 

Air Force Reader – WO Suzanne Harvey

During the Second World War, in April 1941 Acting Corporal John Johnson from the 2nd 23rd Battalion wrote a letter home to his wife and seven children in Australia describing life during the siege of Tobruk:
 
Just endeavouring to write you a few lines under rotten conditions ... 
 
There are dozens of things I’d like to tell you but of course this is out of the question. 
 
The fleas are very bad here but we are issued with powder which I think they must eat and enjoy because they still crawl on you all night despite the use of the stuff. 
 
Picture armed cars, tanks, trucks, motor bikes, men, guns, hospital tents, holes in the grounds, shells bursting, artillery firing, aeroplanes flying, aircraft guns in action. 
 
Night time air raids, flares, signal bullets red green white, searchlights, antiaircraft shell bursting all over the sky. 
 
Flash and glare of guns firing. War.

One month after he wrote this, Johnson was shot during the fighting in an area of Tobruk known as the Salient. He refused medical attention until others had been attended to, and died later that day.
 
 
Serving in Britain, Flying Officer Frederick Keck of No. 455 Squadron, Royal Australian Air Force, wrote home to his mother in March 1942:
 
Please don’t worry about what we are doing or what may happen to us. 
 
Being your sons means that whatever we do is to your credit and that if anything should happen to us you could still hold your head high. 
 
We realise that this war must be far more trying for you than for us. 

After all, we take things as they come and the inclination is to become blasé about everything concerned with the war other than carrying out our part of it with all the skill and success possible …
 
Have been in several spectacular shows lately although I cannot mention them by name …
 
As you know, I am in Bomber Command and I have been treated to some remarkable sights. 
 
The combination of red, yellow and green flak bursts, searchlights and tracers and huge fires at night is something apart from this world and has to be seen to be believed.
 
Within weeks of writing this letter, both Frederick and his older brother, Flight Lieutenant Harry Keck, were killed in action.    
 
In late 1944, 20-year-old Flying Officer Colin Flockhart, a pilot flying four-engine, Avro Lancaster bombers with Bomber Command in Britain, wrote home to his parents in Sydney:
 
Never regret having given me your consent to enlist. 
 
I have been very proud to wear my uniform and have always striven to bring credit to the service as a whole. 
 
I believe in the cause for which we are fighting … I love you all very dearly. 
 
Please don’t think I’m pessimistic but I do realise what the odds are and I have seen too many of my friends pass on without leaving any words of hope or encouragement behind. 
 
Cheerio and keep smiling though your hearts are breaking.
 
Colin Flockhart was killed on the 7th of January 1945.
 
 
When the battlecruiser HMS Repulse was sunk in late 1941, Lieutenant Paul Hays was told by the medical officer of the rescuing ship that one of his 17-year-old Australian midshipmen was seriously wounded. Hays later wrote to his wife about this young Australian officer: 

Among the other Midshipman this young man had appeared the least developed. Immature for his age and often in trouble, he had seemed and looked a near child. He had been hit at his action station by a machine gun bullet from the last strafing run by a Japanese aircraft.  
 
I asked to be alone with him and took his hand. He gave me a brave smile, which knifed into my heart and conscience for the previous admonishment I had bestowed on him. He held onto my hand with a firm little grip as though trying to express his last tangible feeling in the young life he must have known was slipping from him.
 
I have never before, or since, seen death, or the awareness of death, in that moment of truth, so transform youth to man. Suddenly he was adult, brave and silently perceptive of the tragedy in which we were both enmeshed. He died that evening. 
 
 
Enduring brutal captivity as a prisoner of war of the Japanese, Sergeant Stan Arneil described the return of members of the 2nd 30th Battalion to Changi prison camp in late 1943 after toiling on the Burma–Thailand Railway:
 
It was a moonlight night and Changi, with the tropical waters round the island, was so beautiful. I can still hear the squeal of the brakes as the trucks lined up. 
 
The people from Changi knew we were coming, and they came over to see us, to look for old friends, and see how we were. 
 
We got out of the trucks, a couple were dead and we laid them on the ground, and we lined up on the road. We were not ashamed because we were soldiers, and we wanted to look like soldiers.
 
The people from Changi stood back and uttered not a word. It was really quite strange. 
 
We lined up on the road as best we could and stood up as straight as we could. Those who couldn’t stand up straight were on sticks. And those who couldn’t stop shaking with malaria were held by their friends. 
 
Among the other Midshipman this young man had appeared the least developed. Immature for his age and often in trouble, he had seemed and looked a near child. He had been hit at his action station by a machine gun bullet from the last strafing run by a Japanese aircraft.  
 
I asked to be alone with him and took his hand. He gave me a brave smile, which knifed into my heart and conscience for the previous admonishment I had bestowed on him. He held onto my hand with a firm little grip as though trying to express his last tangible feeling in the young life he must have known was slipping from him.
 
I have never before, or since, seen death, or the awareness of death, in that moment of truth, so transform youth to man. Suddenly he was adult, brave and silently perceptive of the tragedy in which we were both enmeshed. He died that evening. 
 
 
Enduring brutal captivity as a prisoner of war of the Japanese, Sergeant Stan Arneil described the return of members of the 2nd 30th Battalion to Changi prison camp in late 1943 after toiling on the Burma–Thailand Railway:
 
It was a moonlight night and Changi, with the tropical waters round the island, was so beautiful. I can still hear the squeal of the brakes as the trucks lined up. 
 
The people from Changi knew we were coming, and they came over to see us, to look for old friends, and see how we were. 
 
We got out of the trucks, a couple were dead and we laid them on the ground, and we lined up on the road. We were not ashamed because we were soldiers, and we wanted to look like soldiers.
 
The people from Changi stood back and uttered not a word. It was really quite strange. 
 
We lined up on the road as best we could and stood up as straight as we could. Those who couldn’t stand up straight were on sticks. And those who couldn’t stop shaking with malaria were held by their friends. 

Closer to home, Sergeant Jack Sim of the 39th Battalion described the conditions along the Kokoda Trail in Papua during 1942:
 
Oh it was murderous. 
 
It was that hard. 
 
You know what was our worst enemy – the terrain. You perspired all day. 
 
At 4 o’clock in the afternoon it would rain so you were continually wet. 
 
And it was cold at night. 
 
It was so cold at night and boiling hot in the day time.
 
Some prayed, some swore, with fear – but you couldn’t show it in front of your mates. 
 
One of the boys got shot fair between the eyes right alongside of me. 
 
It was a perfect shot. 
 
Buggers. 
 
They used to attack us by screaming out. 
 
Terrible to be afraid. 
 
Yet it’s the brave ones that are afraid and still keep going. 
 
That’s what they did you know. 
 
Scared bloody stiff and still kept going. 
 
They were so young. 

They were so young. 
 
I loved them all.
 
Nobody went to that war, or any other, I suppose, that didn’t get wounded mentally if not physically. 
 
It wasn’t possible.
 
During the desperate fighting along the Kokoda Trial, Corporal John Metson from the 2nd 14th Battalion was wounded during the battle of Isurava. His ankle smashed by a bullet, he refused to be evacuated on a stretcher and instead padded his hands and knees in order to crawl behind the stretcher bearers. He crawled on his hands for three weeks with a party that became cut off from the main track. Despite his courage and tenacity, Metson was eventually discovered by the Japanese and was executed on the 4th of October 1942. His mate Les Cook, himself a Kokoda veteran from the 2nd 14th Battalion, later wrote:   
 
When you stand in silent remembrance on ANZAC Day, or significant anniversaries such as today, or when you stand before a cenotaph or at the gates of a war cemetery and read the words, "Their name liveth for evermore", think of John Metson; of his fortitude, his determination not to be a burden to others, and his cheerful acceptance of the awful situation into which he had been thrust.

In the final year of the Second World War, 26 year old South Australian Lieutenant Colin Simper wrote to his wife, Irene, and mother of his of two young children:  
 
I don’t think you understand my position here honey; admittedly I see a lot of dead and a lot of killing but it’s only the man who has it day and night for months on end that is liable to be affected by it; no I think you may rest assured it won’t affect me any unless it’s to make me love you more, and look forward to peace and our life together.
 
Colin Simper died of wounds on Tarakan Island, Borneo, on the 9th of June 1945.
 
During times of war and peace Australian men and women have been motivated to serve our nation for many different reasons. Captain Reg Saunders served in the army during the Second World War and the Korean War, fighting in the Middle East, Crete, New Guinea, and Kapyong. He was a proud Aboriginal Australian:
 
I never fought for anybody but Australia. I always was loyal to my Country ... I fought for the Queen of Australia – or the King of Australia – I didn't want the King or the Queen of England because I'd have been just as happy fighting against them, Australia is my country … I love my country very much and I like the people in Australia, so my loyalty was purely Australian ...
 
We were the first defenders of Australia – the English never ever defended Australia at all; we did and we suffered very badly for that – decimated to hell.
 
In 1944 another Aboriginal soldier, Charles Mene, stressed that his motivation for undertaking military service was directly related to citizenship rights and equality for indigenous people: 
 
I know that I am fighting for a new world in which my people will get a better deal. I want to come back to an Australia where my people will have full rights as citizens, to an Australia where Aboriginal children will have the right to education, to work, and to a healthy, happy life.  

With a 22-year army career, Corporal Mene served in the Second World War and in the Malayan Emergency, was part of the British Commonwealth Occupation Force, and was decorated for his service during the Korean War.  
 
During the Korean War, Lieutenant Colin Kahn of the 1st Battalion, Royal Australian Regiment, was wounded during a night patrol on the 11th of November 1952:
 
I remember dying. 
 
I went up into the air and I saw myself lying on that hill, dead. 
 
I was in no pain; I was terribly content and happy. 
 
I thought of my wife and I thought I had to come back – and then it all started to hurt.
 
Writing many years after the conflict, Sergeant Brian Cooper, recipient of the Military Medal, recalled his time serving with the 2nd Battalion, Royal Australian Regiment:
 
I believe the experience I had of war in Korea, at the age of 19 years, had a more profound effect on my personal life and subsequent behaviour than any other event before or since. 
 
That experience shaped my personality in ways I think I would have preferred to have avoided, and much of what I was when I returned from Korea is still with me today.
 
Private Brian Halls, a national serviceman with the 6th Battalion, Royal Australian Regiment, during the Vietnam War later recalled the battle of Long Tan on the 18th of August 1966:

It was the first contact we’d had …
 
Because we’d trained so well before going to Vietnam, it was a natural reaction bred into us. 

We all went to cover. Section commanders took control and moved us back. 
 
For the full duration we were out there by ourselves, it was very well controlled. 
 
Everybody knew what the bloke next to him was doing, and how he was reacting, and how you were reacting. It was like a very tight family – we all worked together …
 
That control came from [Lieutenant] Sharp, down through the section commanders, and even after Sharp was killed the control was there in [Sergeant] Bob Buick, who took over the platoon.

Navy Reader – WOA Ben Sime MG

Two days before the landing on Gallipoli in April 1915 Sergeant Benjamin Leane wrote a diary entry to his wife, Phyllis, back in Adelaide:
 
Dearest, we have just received orders to embark on the destroyers at 10.45 am tomorrow …
 
But if I am to die, know that I died loving you with my whole heart and soul, dearest wife that a man ever had. Kiss little Gwen and our new baby, who perhaps I may never see, and never let them forget Daddy … 
 
And tell Mother that I am not afraid to die, nor am I afraid of what is to come after death … And now dear, dear, sweetheart, goodbye, goodbye.   Sergeant Leane was killed in action at Bullecourt in April 1917.
 
 
On the eve of the landing on the 25th of April 1915, Lieutenant Alan Henderson, an accountant from Melbourne, wrote:
 
It is going to be Australia’s chance to make a tradition out of this that she must always look back on.   

God grant it will be a great one.  The importance of this alone seems stupendous to Australia … 
  
Lieutenant Victor Pascoe of the 8th Battalion wrote to Lieutenant Maurice McLeod’s mother, describing the death of her son during the Gallipoli landings:
 
It is beyond me to speak of him and what his life at all times was … I miss him sorely. 
 
He was always so bright and cheerful, and helped men in many ways, unknown, perhaps, to himself … 
 
We both landed together under shrapnel fire from the enemy’s guns, and came through it safely. 

We took up a position further inland, and were lying behind cover of some bushes when a shrapnel shell burst overhead. 
 
Three were hit, and in Maurice’s case death was instantaneous. 
 
Our casualties were very heavy that day, especially with officers, and I am still wondering how I came safely through it all myself.
 
I hope you will excuse this pencilled note. 
 
I have been a little ill myself, and am writing this in hospital …
 
Maurice died fighting for his country and for you … surely something to be proud of. 
 
 
Driver Douglas Barrett-Lennard, a vigneron from Western Australia, was a member of the 3rd Field Artillery Brigade who was killed on Gallipoli on the 17th of July 1915. His mate Corporal H.R. McLarty wrote home detailing the circumstances of his death:  
 
This is how the men in this battery die.
 
When the smoke from the bursting shell had cleared away, Wallis ran up to see the damage. He found Mick Taylor crawling about the ground, covered in blood and dazed.
 
Bill said, “Are you badly hit, Mick?”
 
“No, Bill”, he said. “I am only scratched; look after Doug and Stan.” (We subsequently found he was wounded in 14 places)
 
Bill Wallis then picked up Doug Lennard. The poor lad had one arm blown off, one leg shattered at the thigh and internal wounds. He said, “I’m done; look after Mick and Stan – don’t mind me.”
 
Carter was leaning on the gun. He had a fearful wound in the side. He said, “I’m sorry I’m moaning. I know it will upset the others, but I can’t help it. I can’t help it.”
 
He died, poor lad, almost immediately. His last words were, “Did they get the gun?”
 
Doug was in fearful agony but kept saying, “I’m dying, but by God, I’ll die game.” He lingered for two hours and it was a pitiful thing to watch. His last words were, “I died at the gun, didn’t I?”
 
And so he went, dear lad, the most gallant, the most unselfish little soldier God ever made. He has taught us all how to die … 
 
We buried the dear lads side by side at midnight. It was a real soldier’s burial. The minister’s voice was drowned in the crack of the bullets whistling overhead.
 
And thus we left them.
 
Private Victor Nicholson saw his mate “Lofty” killed at Quinn’s Post on Gallipoli, shot through the eye while peeping through a loophole:
 
I didn’t cry, unless Gallipoli was one long cry. 
 
If you cried once, you never stopped. 
 
There were friends going every day and sometimes every hour of every day, wonderful friends. 
 
I cried inwardly. 
 
That’s all you could do.
 
The Australian nurses on the hospital ships had to contend with a stream of wounded.
Sister Ella Tucker of the Australian Army Nursing Service wrote:
 
The wounded from the landing commenced to come on board at 9 am and poured into the ship’s wards from barges and boats. The majority still had on their field dressing and a number of these were soaked through. 
 
Two orderlies cut off the patient’s clothes and I started immediately with dressings. There were 76 patients in my ward and I did not finish until 2 am.
 
Sister Lydia King, aboard the hospital ship HMHS Sicilia, was deeply affected by what she saw:
 
I shall never forget the awful feeling of hopelessness on night duty. It was dreadful. I had two wards downstairs, each over 100 patients and then I had small wards upstairs — altogether about 250 patients to look after … I shall not describe their wounds, they were too awful. One loses sight of all the honour and the glory in the work we are doing.
 
Captain Frederick Tubb of the 7th Battalion described what happened at Lone Pine in early August:
 
We went in 670 strong and we came out 320. All the officers except the CO and Capt[ain] Layh were hit … I was extremely lucky and feel gratified for being alive and able to write … My luck was in all the time. 
 
It is miraculous that I am alive, three different times I was blown yards away from bombs … Burton of Euroa deserved the highest award for his gallant action for three times filling a breach in the parapet till they killed him … a lot more of our good old 7th are gone … Anyway the CO is very pleased with me and so is the Brigadier so I feel happy as Larry.
 
There were more than 2,000 Australian casualties at Lone Pine. Captain Tubb was one of seven Australians to be awarded the Victoria Cross for his bravery.
 
Private Cecil McAnulty of the 3rd Battalion also fought at Lone Pine. He made a last entry in his makeshift diary on 8 August:
 
We were right out in the open and all the Turkish machine-guns and rifle seemed to be playing on us and shrapnel bursting right over us. 
 
I yelled out to the other four chaps, “This is only suicide boys, I’m going to make a jump for it.” I thought they said alright we’ll follow.

I sprang to my feet in one jump.

McAnulty was killed in the fighting the following day.
 
On the 7th of August 33 year old Lieutenant Colonel Alexander White led his 8th Light Horse Regiment in the ill-fated charge at the Nek. In the early hours of the morning, as he stood on the fire step in the trench with his watch in his hand, he said: 
 
“Men - you have ten minutes to live and I will lead you.”
 
When the whistle blew, all went over. White was dead within ten paces. Of the 300 officers and men in the first two waves under his command, 183 died alongside him, another 80 were wounded.
 
White took two precious things with him to his death. The first was a gold locket on a chain containing a photo of his wife Myrtle and their infant son, “Young Bill”.
 
The second was a bible, and a newspaper cutting of a poem which read:
 
Let me be a little braver When temptation bids me waver Let me strive a little harder To be all that I should be Let me be a little meeker With the brother that is weaker Let me think more of my neighbour And a little less of me.
 
Captain Hugh Knyvett described one of the “most self-forgetful actions ever performed” during the fighting on the Western Front, performed by Gallipoli veteran Sergeant Alex Ross of the 57th Battalion:
 
When we tried to pick him up, one by the shoulders and the other by the feet, it almost seemed that we would pull him apart. 

The blood was gushing from his mouth, where he had bitten through lips and tongue, so that he might not jeopardise, by groaning, the chances of some other man who was less badly wounded than he.
 
He begged us to put him out of his misery, but we were determined we would give him his chance, though we did not expect him to live. 
 
But the sergeant threw himself down on the ground and made of his body a human sledge. 
 
Some others joined us and we put the wounded man on his back and dragged them thus across no-man’s-land, through the broken barbed wire and shell-torn ground, where every few inches there was a piece of jagged shell, and in and out of the shell holes.
 
So anxious were we to get to safety that we did not notice the condition of the man underneath until we got to our trenches; then it was hard to see which was the worse wounded of the two. 
 
The sergeant had his hands, face and body torn to ribbons, and we had never guessed it, for never once did he ask us to “go slow” or “wait a bit”. 
 
Such is the stuff that men are made of.
 
Captain Albert McLeod of the 16th Battalion wrote the following to his wife:
 
Well darling on 12 o’clock tonight we go over the parapet and then our fate is sealed. 
 
The place is like hell but the sooner we get it over the better … I’ll try, love, for your sake, to do well and come through. 
 
Remember me to baby when she is born. 
 
God be with you for all time.
 
McLeod died in an accident while on leave on the 5th of December 1916.
 
Harry Whiting wrote to his friend Hilda in 1919 from VillersBretonneux [Villers – Breton – oh] in France, describing work in the exhumation parties for which he had volunteered.
 
Dear Hilda,
 
… The one which we are filling now is called the Adelaide Cemetery. We are raising the bodies of Tommies, Yanks, Canadians, New Zealand and Australians.
 
We started on Monday last and I can assure you it is a very unpleasant undertaking. Nearly all the men we have raised up to date have been killed 12 months and they are far from being decayed properly, so you can guess the constitution one needs. I have felt sick dozens of times, but we carry on knowing that we are identifying Australian boys who have never been identified. They nearly all have some means of identification on them and we make a careful research for some, as it is cruel for their people’s minds not to set at rest to know that their sons have been located.
 
Many Mothers picture their sons blown to pieces and no record, so now we hope to be able to identify 90 per cent of the missing.
 
Hilda it is heart breaking to see the way the poor fellows are buried, perhaps I should not tell you, then again it’s to no harm, but we find dozens of them just in one big lump with all their coats, equipment, gas helmets, and all on and a heap of earth placed over them … 
 
We have a few hard hearted fellows on the work and they annoy the way they talk over the remains of the Heroes. How thankful I am that my brothers Henry and Walter are placed decently away in a cemetery and will not have to be raised again. I have been out to see their graves, which are at La Motte Santeurie. I have had two marble slabs engraved to place on their crosses and when I can get sufficient tools I am going to nail both of their graves in. We shall never again see them and I want to leave France knowing that I have done all within my power for both of them. I have photos taken of them but none yet printed … 
 
I have seen a great part of the world since I left Australia. 
 
From Your sincere friend, Harry.