It certainly is harrowing, especially as I have just discovered that one of my father's cousins died on board the Dunluce Castle Hospital Ship at Gallipoli, 10th December 1915. The cause of death related to his parents in a telegram was "compound fracture of the right leg, amputation and frost bite" Ann
I have had a major break through, today of all days, sobbing here breaking my heart I have done it!!!. EVERYONE I WOULD YOU TO MEET WHAT WE VERY STRONGLY BELIEVE IS MY GRANDFATHER William Pritchard my Grandad
Like Sis I clicked on Like to acknowledge the bravery of those men, also in appreciation of the poem.
Great golly goodness Carole, I think he appreciates all your hard work. Where did you find the photo?
What an amazing gift you have been given LP, All this on the year you go to Gallipoli to remember your grandfather, the year you publish excerpts from a diary of the conflict and now you discover a picture of your grandfather. It must be a gift from him to show his love for you
I belong to a group on FB and was telling them about the lost photo and the person there said leave it with me and I sent them a pic of my Dad roughly the same age as Grandad was when he died that was at the beginning of July and then yesterday it came through and I posted it up for my "lost" family to have a look at as I was not sure and being so involved the first confirmation was from a Cousin who I have met once not one I see all the time and she said good god its like Peter my second cousin, her husband and then she said he looks like my youngest son, then my Brother came on and said WOW looks like Dad, so that was the second and then a cousin that I see and speak to a lot came on and said he looked like her Dad, so as far I was concerned three confirmations was enough for me to strongly believe it was him, I bet there is more today have not checked yet.
I still can't believe it as I said to my oldest and dearest friend (we have been friends for 40 years this year) I never thought I would "see" him, all I had was a picture made of stone (his name on the Memorial) and never thought I would get to see the real living picture the real person not just a name carved into stone. Still get quite "weepy" about it.
Found these quotes on the internet years and years ago so thought I would re-post them here, you may find them quite informative. Thus as we rode northwards along this road the trenches were never, except where a gully broke them, more than about fifty yards away on either hand … It gave a strange thrill to ride along this space in front of Steele’s, Courtney’s and Quinn’s where three years before men could not even crawl at night. The bones and tattered uniforms of men were scattered everywhere… [Charles Bean, Gallipoli Mission, Sydney, 1920, p 50] On the tumbled soil of the trenches lay the bare white bones, piled or clustered so thickly in places that we had to tread upon them as we passed. [Visitor to Lone Pine in December 1918, quoted in John North, Gallipoli: The Fading Vision, London, 1936, p 219] And a lovely poem to finish off for all the guys that sleep at Gallipoli: The guns were silent, and the silent hills had bowed their grasses to a gentle breeze I gazed upon the vales and on the rills, And whispered, "What of these?' and "What of these? These long forgotten dead with sunken graves, Some crossless, with unwritten memories Their only mourners are the moaning waves, Their only minstrels are the singing trees And thus I mused and sorrowed wistfully I watched the place where they had scaled the height, The height whereon they bled so bitterly Throughout each day and through each blistered night I sat there long, and listened - all things listened too I heard the epics of a thousand trees, A thousand waves I heard; and then I knew The waves were very old, the trees were wise: The dead would be remembered evermore- The valiant dead that gazed upon the skies, And slept in great battalions by the shore. “The poppies might be wilted and trampled by the throng But the memory of our fallen will live on and on and on”
The diary is certainly hard to read now without feeling tearful to think of what they suffered for us to be here today
Just some statistics I found in connection with the Lone Pine Battle In most sources, Ottoman losses are estimated at between 5,000 – 6,000 Australian losses: The diversionary attack cost the Australian Division more than 2,000 men killed or wounded approx 910 men were KIA; The ground captured during the battle amounted to a total of about 150 metres (160 yards) across a 300 metre (330yards) front
I do not know about others, but each morning I am mightily relieved to see such short entries, and knowing 'our' man has been safe for another day.
30/8/15 entry HE Shells = High Explosive Shells and found this explanation: In 1910 or so, Krupp sold two types of field guns that fired the 6.5 kilo 75mm shell used by the Ottoman Army - one that weighed 1071 kilos and one that weighed 995 kilos. (The weights are rough).