The Gallipoli Letter by Keith Murdoch

A NOTE ON THE COVER PORTRAIT
    The person standing in the foreground of this picture is Sergeant John Edward Kenyon, 9th Australian Infantry Battalion. John enlisted in Brisbane on 27 August 1914 but he lived mainly at Kyogle in northern New South Wales. He was born at Southampton, Britain, on 27 July 1880. Both his parents had died by the time he was fourteen; he had no brothers or sisters. It is not known when he came to Australia.
    John Kenyon was 34 years of age when he enlisted. He described himself as a ‘bush worker’ and he was ‘practically, if not actually engaged’ at the time of his enlistment. For his work on the first morning of the landing on 25 April 1915, John Kenyon was awarded the Distinguished Conduct Medal. He had shown ‘conspicuous courage and initiative in returning from the firing line under heavy fire, collecting reinforcements, and assisting in leading a successful bayonet charge’. John Kenyon had been lucky to survive the first day: retreating from Lone Pine in the evening he had stumbled across a party of Turkish soldiers who were either too tired or too disorganised to oppose him and he escaped unhurt.
    He was promoted to Sergeant on 28 April 1915. John survived at Gallipoli until 25 August 1915 when he was evacuated, sick. Returning in October, he was taken off sick again in December.
    While fighting in France, John was awarded the Military Medal for an aggressive raid in the Fleurbaix sector on the night of 1-2 July 1916. The recommendation for the award noted that Kenyon had ‘proved absolutely fearless and set a splendid example of gallantry’.
    John Kenyon was killed in the fighting at Pozieres on 23 July 1916 and was buried south of the village, in a grave marked with a cross. The marker did not survive the war, and the location of the grave is now unknown. John Kenyon is remembered on the 9th Battalion’s memorial tablet at the Australian National Memorial at Villers-Bretonneux, northern France.
    The cover salutes a gallant Australian soldier.

THE
GALLIPOLI
LETTER
    KEITH MURDOCH
    with an introduction by Michael McKernan
and a foreword by Jack Thompson AM

Facsimiles of the Gallipoli letter by Keith Murdoch, on pp. 71-98, reproduced by permission of the National Library of Australia.
    Letters on pp. 65 and 66, regarding Murdoch’s appointment to investigate postal facilities in Cairo and Murdoch’s letter of introduction, both written by G.F. Pearce in 1915, are copyright Commonwealth of Australia, reproduced by permission.
    First published in 2010
    Copyright introduction © Michael McKernan 2010
Copyright preface © Jack Thompson 2010
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    ISBN 978 1 74737 313 3
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    10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

PREFACE
JACK THOMPSON AM
    As Australians, most of us think we know the story of Gallipoli. Some of us have even made the pilgrimage to Anzac Cove and had the emotional experience of standing there in the early