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, 2^nd 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 25^th 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 6^th 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 4^th 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 26^th and left again on November 7^th with fever; arriving in the 21^st General Hospital in Alexandria on the 21^st 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, 25^th Battalion, 7 Brigade, Australian Infantry.   Innisfail, Queensland

Private C. Irving, 2^nd 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, 10^th Battalion, 1^st 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.