The Gallipoli Letter by Keith Murdoch Page A

morning light as the Last Post sounds. Some of us have watched Peter Weir’s affecting film from the early 1980s, Gallipoli . Many of us have studied it in Australian history lessons at school. But all of these experiences, as worthwhile as they must be, are in a very important way incomplete.
    We can never really know what it was like, or what the troops went through, though each year on Anzac Day we salute their courage and determination and celebrate the spirit of the Anzacs.
    It is in this regard that the Gallipoli Letter, written by young journalist Keith Murdoch to Andrew Fisher, the Australian prime minister at the time, is so important and I believe should be read by all Australians who seek to understand what it is that Anzac Day truly commemorates. It’s a passionate letter, driven by anger and a great conviction that the Gallipoli campaign had to be brought to a halt. The letter takes us directly there, into the trenches and into the minds and hearts of the men who were at Anzac Cove. Keith Murdoch vividly describes the conditions in which they were fighting and how they were feeling, describing in blunt, plain terms the hardship, fear and suffering that the blokes at the front went through.
    It’s a moving experience reading this letter. While the letter itself is written simply and straightforwardly, Murdoch is writing of things that he has experienced at first hand. In a way, the young Keith Murdoch was himself one of the Anzacs. It is impossible to read without a tear coming to your eye. He tells of the morale of the troops in the trenches, facing the prospect of a hard winter, with disease, miserably limited food and the prospect of being picked off by the Turkish snipers. Murdoch writes: ‘It is like the look of a tortured dumb animal. Men living in trenches with no movement except when they are digging, and with nothing to look at except a narrow strip of sky . . .’ And later he writes: ‘You would have wept with Hughes and myself if you had gone with us over the ground where two of our finest Light Horse regiments were wiped out in ten minutes in an attempt to advance a few yards . . .’ At times, the letter just breaks your heart: ‘The heroic Fourth Brigade was reduced in three days’ fighting to little more than 1000 strong. You will be glad to know the men died well.’
    But you have to read this letter for yourself. This is the real story of Gallipoli, and we need to know it, so that every year, when we salute our soldiers, we truly acknowledge their enormous sacrifice, courage, fortitude and the mateship forged in battle and celebrated in peace; that informs the spirit of our nation. I commend it to you.

INTRODUCTION
MICHAEL MCKERNAN
    He stood as far forward on the deck of the destroyer as possible, breathing deeply, his heart thumping, straining to see the land in front of him. Four months earlier, almost to the day, he had read in amazement the cable being prepared for publication in all of Australia’s newspapers: the first news of the landing at the Dardanelles by Australian and New Zealand soldiers. He remembered how astonished he had been reading the cable, how excited and how proud. And now he, Keith Murdoch, was standing on the deck of a destroyer taking him to the small cove just south of Ari Burnu point, which had become known as Anzac Cove. Within minutes he would be transferred to a trawler that would take him to the wooden pier, then it was only a short walk and a jump to the shingle, and he would be at Anzac Cove itself.
    He had heard the noise of battle, the crump of the artillery, while he waited impatiently on the island of Imbros, the base. Now the noise intensified as he drew closer. He heard the constant sound of the rifles, like the noise of a thousand bowlers sending down their fastest balls—‘crack!’—to be despatched by a thousand batsmen in the nets at his local oval.
    He thought of home as he came closer to Anzac.