THE LAST TO DIE - CHRISTMAS 1915

This Christmas we remember the Gallipoli Evacuation from Anzac Cove; the ANZAC evacuation concluded just before Christmas on 20 December 1915.

Harry Laughlan Bowser of Sydney served in the 2nd Light Horse Brigade. He was almost certainly the last Australian to be killed at Gallipoli.

He described the experience of the Gallipoli Campaign in this letter to his mother:

"Picture men scaling heights like those of the Blue Mountains, hardly able to fire a shot, and with the tops of the hills lined with Turks ... and you have a slight idea of that fierce bayonet charge made by our brave friends of the infantry... Holding the position appears to be the task set now, and there is very little fear of not doing this, as it has been turned into a fortress, and the safest place around the district is in the trenches. The whole place is subjected to shrapnel, the stray bullets and the sniper, but still the men get about as though far removed from these agencies of death."