“And the following day my mate Young Duke was killed stone dead. He was sniping at the time and Len was observing for him and I was sitting down having my breakfast, when without any warning he fell at my feet, with half his head blown off.”

The National Archives of Australia has collaborated with the State Library of NSW to bring some of the personal observations of these soldiers from Gallipoli to Canberra for the first time. With a focus on the Gallipoli campaign as it played out during 1915, the current exhibition Life Interrupted: Gallipoli moments has added service records and a range of unique photographs from the National Archives’ collection, to further reveal the human beings behind the official war histories.
“These diary excerpts help us experience, in a small way, what life was like for the men and women who answered the call,” said World War I expert Anne-Marie Condé from the National Archives. “We are delighted to have access to the State Library of NSW’s magnificent collection of diaries and letters and to share some more of our World War I items.”

Life Interrupted: Gallipoli moments is a partnership exhibition based on a concept developed by the State Library of NSW. It is open at the National Archives of Australia in Canberra until 15 November 2015.

“The little hill above Taylor’s Gap was strewn with dead and badly wounded whose cries for ‘water water’ were pitiful. We had received orders before the assault that men wounded in the abdomen were not to be given water as it would do them more harm than good.”

“It was a magnificent spectacle to see those thousands of men rushing through the hail of Death as though it was some big game – these chaps don’t seem to know what fear means – in Cairo I was ashamed of them, now I am proud to be one of them though I feel a pigmy beside them.”