Letters from Gallipoli soldiers to their Australian and
New Zealand families
Anzac letters
GALLIPOLI LETTERS:
Hugh
Anderson
Frank Boyes
William Britt
H. Gordon Craig
Roy Denning (written from
Malta)
William Harvey Bert and Vern Smythe (written from Gallipoli and from a hospital ship) Edgar Worrall(written from France)
Naked
Diggers Seek Relief from Bugs (australiansatwar.gov.au)
Second Lieutenant Frank Boyes tells of the need to wash
clothes in the sea and and battle against parasites.
Lt
Britt Describes the First Day on Gallipoli (australiansatwar.gov.au)
An injured William Britt wrote a letter to his mother,
describing the action on landing at Gallipoli on 25 April 1915. "We knew
what we were there for - the attack on the Dardenelles..."
Private
Craig's View of Gallipoli Landing (australiansatwar.gov.au)
Private H. Gordon Craig was eventually injured after landing at Gallipoli.
He wrote a letter to his brother, Ken.
Roy
Denning: A soldier from an Australian country town - Yass, NSW (anzacportal.dva.gov.au)
Read Private Roy Howard Denning's letter to his mother about
his time at Gallipoli. After he was wounded at Gallipoli on 16 June 1915, he
was evacuated to Malta from where he wrote the letter on 23 July 1915.
(Image taken from the website www.gallipoli.gov.au whereit is reproduced with the permission of Lorna Lancaster.)
Letters from
Bert and Vern Smythe (smythe.id.au) These letters by brothers Bert Smythe and Vern Smythe, from
the Smythe Family Website, include
time they spent at Gallipoli. The letters are listed by date in the
column at the left of the web page: -
At the Dardanelles
- 3 May, Hospital
Ship
-
9 May
Note that Bert mentions further Gallipoli details in
letters written immediately after his time there.
(Image reproduced from a photograph on the website www.smythe.id.au)
Edgar
Worrall on the evacuation(From diggerhistory.info,
archived by the NLA's Pandora Archive on 6 Mar 2010. See also our "Where
is Digger History?" page.) Corporal Edgar Worrall writes to his father about the
evacuation of Anzac troops from Gallipoli. He wrote the letter from France.
Corporal Worrall says he "probably fired the last shot at Lone Pine".
Letter from
Gallipoli: Frank Clark (youtube.com)
A letter from Gallipoli written in 1915 by New Zealand trooper Frank Clark
is read while the video shows photographs of Gallipoli soldiers. Produced
for the Auckland War Museum. Information about Frank Clark is available in
his
Cenotaph Record.
(Image reproduced from a photograph in the
Auckland War Museum
Cenotaph Database)
More Gallipoli letters
Extracts from letters in
Australians at War: Secondary Schools Education Resource Part 2 [pdf,
4.3MB]: Extracts from Gallipoli soldiers are referred to under the names of
individual soldiers above.
The publication contains more letters from World War 1, written by soldiers
on the Western Front, as well as letters written by soldiers in later wars.
The nurses'
experience of Gallipoli from their letters (archived from anzacportal.dva.gov.au)
Although women did not land at Gallipoli, these extracts from letters sent
home by women nurses based nearby give us an insight into the conditions at
Gallipoli.
● For
more information about women in war see our
Women in
wartime page
● See also information about the
Gallipoli letter under Depatches from
Gallipolion the Reports
page. ● See
also Ellis Ashmead-Bartlett's "Gallipoli letter" on our Gallipoli reports page (the letter was more
like a report than a letter).
Letters from Gallipoli: New Zealand Soldiers Write Home
(stuff.co.nz/southlandtimes)
Review of a book by Glyn
Harper containing a collection of letters by New Zealand Gallipoli soldiers.
- Also available is a YouTube video
in which Professor Glyn Harper talks about his book.
Wilfred
and Gresley Harper [pdf] (valuingheritage.com.au) (Site
unavailable 28 Jan 2017. If still unavailable, try the
archived version.)
Letters from brothers Wilfred Harper and Gresley Harper,
stationed in Egypt, to their mother, followed by letters from others about
their deaths.
See also
The Harpers, the Anzacs, Lest we Forget.(Web page unavailable 28
Jan 2017. If still unavailable, try the
archived version.)
Letters from an Anzac Gunner
From diggerhistory.info,
archived by the NLA's Pandora Archive on 6 Mar 2010. See also our "Where
is Digger History?" page.)
Nine short extracts from letters by Bill Lyall, in France during
World War 1, to his father, K.M. Lyall.
Mack, Francis James Anzac Memories: The Letters of Francis James Mack
(worldwar1.com)
Corporal Francis James Mack died in France in 1918, aged 20
years. Note that as the contact email address shown on the worldwar1.com
page (frankm17@tpg.com.au) no longer works the address
francis.mack@outlook.com should be used instead.
(Image reproduced from a
photograph on
www.worldwar1.com/sfanzac1.htm, contributed by Francis Mack's
nephew)
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