Gallipoli  Centenary

Gallipoli Centenary - Topsham Museum

Added: 01 August 2015

The eight month campaign on the Gallipoli Peninsula in Turkey was one of the bloodiest of the First World War and was the first to involve troops from Australia and New Zealand.

Miss Holman, who first set up a museum at 25 Strand, Topsham, had been a VAD nurse in Alexandria in WW1 and nursed the injured and sick troops evacuated from Gallipoli.  Amongst them were several from New Zealand and Australia, including Private C. Irving ot the, 2nd Battalion, A.T.F. who wrote in Miss Holman's autograph book:

Left Australia about the middle of February and arrived in Egypt end of March; after three weeks in Cairo, left for the Dardanelles where we landed on the 25th April under heavy fire. I was among one of the lucky ones, and did not get wounded until early in June, when I got a shell wound in the right arm. I arrived back on August 6th in the early morning and the same night our Battallion led the charge on Lone-Pine, where we succeeded in taking three lines of Turkish trenches. I got through that lot again without being wounded; although both my mates who joined with me were killed. On the 4th of September we were taken from the trenches, and went to Lemnos, where we had seven weeks rest, the first spell from April.   Arrived back on August 26th and left again on November 7th with fever; arriving in the 21st General Hospital in Alexandria on the 21st of November, where I was soon cured and will soon be fit again for a bit more fighting.

Our motto is:- do or die

Home address: Botany Road, Lower Botany, Sydney, Australia  

Other entries in Nurse Holman’s diary:

Sapper A.L. Caselberg No. 4/363 N.Z. Mounted Signal Troop, A.N.Z.A.C. (Wellington)

Private Molloy, 25th Battalion, 7 Brigade, Australian Infantry.   Innisfail, Queensland

Private C. Irving, 2nd Batt. A.T.F. Botany Road, Lower Botany, Sydney, Australia  

Private F.C. Murdock, L.F. Hotel Coronation, Gisborne, Poverty Bay, New Zealand

No. 664 Corporal Victor Cromwell, 10th Battalion, 1st Australian Division from Murray Bridge, South Australia

We'd like to trace descendants of all these soldiers.  Please get in touch if you recognise any of the names/addresses.