“I will never forget Sunday, 25th of April. I really believe it will mark an era in Australian history. On this day, Australians proved themselves. They landed under heavy fire – a thing rarely attempted, and never flinched once, and the result was history. Our men were deliberately picked for the honour and proved that the trust in them was not misplaced.”
Australian soldier Henry Ernest “Harry” Gissing, of the First Field Ambulance, had already sensed, as he wrote in his diary hours after his dawn landing on the Gallipoli beaches, that this day a century ago was the dawning of a nation as well.
