2007 Ballina RSL Club Gallipoli Tour

Monument at Gallipoli

Experience of a Lifetime

Snapshots from the 2007 Ballina RSL Club Gallipoli Tour

Interested in attending our Club's 2008 Gallipoli Tour? Click here for details.

A party of ten from Ballina RSL Club headed for Turkey on 19th April. Their tour began in Istanbul with a cruise on the Bosphorus, welcome drinks with Australian War historians and a visit to the Blue Mosque. The group also went on to visit the ANZAC Commemorative site, Anzac Cove, Shrapnel Valley and Beach Cemetery. On 25th April 2007, they were part of a truly international gathering of people commemorating the tragic events of the 25th April 1915...

An extract from the ANZAC Day Gallipoli 25 April 2007 Orders of Service Booklet – ‘Reflections of Dan Curham’:

“We were thin, most of us, weak with dysentery and poor nutrition … The track uphill was steep and hard going. We had just jumped from our trench and gone a little way, sixteen of us with two guns, when Turks spotted us and we met a hail of bullets. We made perfect targets. We couldn’t run with the load we were carrying, guns, tripods, and all our boxes of ammunition. It was quite a deadly volley. Dust spurted up around our feet as the bullets struck the ground. I tried to lift my knees high to escape them. Men began falling around me. They just dropped, men I’d been living alongside, fighting alongside, for months; boys from my own town.

We had been a very close-knit little group, almost brothers. But we couldn’t stop or sorrow for the fallen. Our orders were to go on, to the top of Chunuk Bair. More and more of us fell. I kept on uphill until I discovered myself altogether alone, the one survivor of the sixteen who started out. By some miracle, I was the only one who got anywhere near the summit of Chunuk Bair. I never saw or heard of my comrades again; I don’t even know what happened to their bodies.

… I have felt their loss very deeply for the rest of my life … Talking about Gallipoli, especially about Chunuk Bair, brings sorrow to my heart even as I talk to you now.

… I didn’t weep physically … I was not a weeping chap. I wept in my heart.”

Dan Curham cited by Maurice Shadbolt, Voices of Gallipoli, Hodder and Stoughton, Auckland, 1988, pp. 41-49. Dan Curham served with the Wellington Battalion and was one of a group ordered to bring a machine-gun up to the men who had seized Chunuk Bair.

Our very own ‘Ballina Babes’ made the National News!

Ballina Babes Click here to view the Seven News Footage

Channel Seven National News Coverage, courtesy of Channel Seven Sydney – Interview at Gallipoli with (left to right) Joy Cran, Marcia Bourne & Shirley Oag; Footage from Gallipoli Dawn Service 2007.

Photo Gallery

Click Here to view some amazing photos from the Gallipoli Tour.

Photo Galleries courtesy of Judy Reinhardt & Wendy Simpson

In their own words … Our travellers reflect on their pilgrimage …

"I would certainly recommend this tour to others. Really enjoyed the visits and touring in Istanbul. In Gallipoli, the ruggedness of the terrain really struck me … standing there trying to imagine the soldiers landing, attacks so heavy and soldiers drowning.

Without the war historians on hand during our tour, we wouldn’t have understood or gleaned as much. Our local Turkish Guide, 'Yuksel', also gave us some fantastic insights. It was his 19th time and so he was very informative!"

- Judy Reinhardt

"When we arrived back home at Brisbane Airport, a young man approached me and asked, “Have you just gotten back from Gallipoli?’ I was surprised by his sudden question but he explained that he had seen me on the Seven National News coverage. He went on to say that he had been crying during the interview about my father who had fought at Gallipoli. “I just couldn’t help myself.” It was interesting to see that my personal experience had affected a stranger in this way.

During my time in Turkey, I was also surprised to receive a hug from a Turkish man at our hotel after I told him that my father had fought at Gallipoli. In broken English, he described how Australians and Turks are now friends."

- Marcia Bourne

"It’s hard to describe – it’s overpowering. I cried harder when I got home and sat down and thought about it. It was very sad but I’m glad I did it."

- Joy Cran

"I wish to thank all concerned in making my trip to Gallipoli with the Ballina RSL Anzac Tour Group the most unforgettable experience ever: amazingly, everything went according to plan, spot on. Our tour guide “Yuksel” was a wealth of knowledge and was like a shepherd with his sheep, taking such good care of everyone.

"People have asked how I enjoyed the trip. Believe me, Gallipoli was not to be enjoyed, it was a very sad and sobering experience, never to be forgotten.

"Prior to Anzac Day, there was warmth and unspoken feelings rubbing shoulders with the hundreds of other Australians, New Zealanders and Turkish people as we visited the different memorials and cemeteries such as Anzac Cove, Lone Pine, Chunuk Bair, Shrapnel Valley and so many other sites plus the trenches. I did feel a sense of gratitude to the Turkish people and Government for their understanding and warmth that allows our nation to visit and pay homage to our dead."

- Margaret Leadbetter

"So many evocative thoughts ran through my mind as I walked the very small beach where the first Anzacs arrived on the dawn of April 25th 1915.

So many different emotions flooded my consciousness. This tiny piece of coast, a sheer cliff face, no wonder they died, picked off like sitting ducks. I can imagine the waters running red with blood, as many of these young men did not get past the shoreline. I feel such sorrow as I read the inscriptions on the headstones. As a mother of two sons, to sacrifice a 17 year old boy, not old enough to vote, or to legally drink in a hotel, and never really being out of his home town must be the worst and most tragic loss of all. I feel such anger as I contemplate the futility of war and the great waste of lives, plus human suffering to the extreme. We must not forget the past. As Santayana said in the early 20th century "those who forget the past are destined to repeat it"

These experiences brought such meaning to me, a teacher, who for many years has taught students about the importance of Anzac Day to ordinary Australians. The many Dawn Services I have taken students to sing, the many school services where I have assembled students to sing and play music to encourage other students to realize this great sacrifice that many young men and women have made for the freedom that we enjoy in this wonderful country.

On return from the battlefields, I had the great opportunity to express my feelings by singing to some of our tour group the Eric Bogle song,"The Band Played Waltzing Matilda". From now on, this music will have such significance and realism for me, and hopefully, for those who were at Anzac Cove at Dawn on the 25th April 2007."

- Wendy Simpson

"It will take me a long time to recover from my trip to Gallipoli. It was very, very emotional but I’m so glad that I was finally able to see where my father fought. Whilst at the Dawn Service, the Australian Defence Minister Brendan Nelson happened to approach me in the crowd to ask of my reason for being there. When I told him about my father, his reaction was to lean over and kiss me on the cheek. The others in my group kept teasing me for the rest of our trip about not ever wanting to wash my face again!"

- Shirley Oag

This ‘experience of a lifetime’ was organized by the Ballina RSL in partnership with NRMA Club Tours. Due to the great success of the Ballina RSL Club’s first-ever tour to Gallipoli, we are now planning to offer this opportunity again to our members in 2008! A free information session will be held at the Ballina RSL Club in the coming months – stay tuned for more details.

Extracts from the ANZAC Day Gallipoli 25 April 2007 Orders of Service Booklet:

The Last to Leave

An extract from the ANZAC Day Gallipoli 25 April 2007 Orders of Service Booklet – ‘The Last to Leave’, Simpson Prize Winner:

The guns were silent, and the silent hills
Had bowed their grasses to a gentle breeze.
I gazed upon the vales and on the rills,
And whispered, “What of these?” and “What of these?”
These long-forgotten dead and sunken graves,
Some crossless, with unwritten memories;
Their only mourners are the moaning waves;
Their only minstrels are the singing trees.
And thus I mused and sorrowed wistfully.

I watched the place where they had scaled the height,
That height whereon they bled so bitterly
Throughout each day and through each blistered night.
I sat there long, and listened – all things listened too.
I heard the epics of a thousand trees;
A thousand waves I heard, and then I knew
The waves were very old, the trees were wise:
The dead would be remembered evermore –
The valiant dead that gazed upon the skies,
And slept in great battalions by the shore.

Written by Sergeant Leon Gellert, 10th Battalion, Australian Imperial Force, who enlisted in August 1914 and landed at Gallipoli on 25 April 1915. He was wounded and evacuated in July, and later returned to Australia.

Gallipoli Casualties

compiled from various sources

	Died	Wounded	Total
Australia	8,709	19,441	28,150
New Zealand	2,721	4,752	7,473
Britain	21,255	52,230	73,485
France (est.)	10,000	17,000	27,000
India	1,358	3,421	4,779
Newfoundland	49	93	142
Total Allies	44,092	96,937	141,029
Turkey	86,692	164,617	251,309

Gallipoli Rose

Gallipoli Rose – Cistus Salviifolius grows wild on the Gallipoli Peninsula. It is believed soldiers at Gallipoli during the First World War were so taken with its beauty that some took seeds home and planted them as a symbol of peace and remembrance. Over time the flower has become known as the Gallipoli Rose.