Letters from Gallipoli

Letters from Gallipoli offers a powerful first-hand account of a pivotal event in New Zealand's history that will not fail to move and inspire readers. The campaign at Gallipoli in 1915 looms large in New Zealand's cultural memory. But what did the soldiers think of their time there? Here Glyn Harper lets these men speak for themselves, telling the story of the campaign through the letters of those who fought on the peninsula. The revealing, often heartbreaking correspondence is grouped into chronological chapters – from preparation and landing to the burial truce, the August offensive on Chunuk Bair and the December withdrawal. The letters highlight the fortitude and comradeship that got the men through the trials of day-to-day life in the trenches: 'heat, flies, bully-beef, broken sleep, night and day shooting or fighting or working'. Their details are poignant: praise for Australian mates and complaints about 'Tommies'; reports of female Turkish snipers; jubilation at ground gained and heartfelt sorrow at friends killed. At times the soldiers put on brave faces and spin upbeat yarns about their experiences; at others they wrestle with the harrowing conditions and inadequate writing equipment to express, as clearly as they can, what war is like. Harper chose the 190 letters in this book, most of them previously unpublished, from more than 600 that he collected from archives, newspapers and family collections, and complements them with a comprehensive introduction, biographical notes on the letter writers, new maps and historic photographs. With a foreword by Lieutenant General Rhys Jones, Chief of New Zealand Defence Force